Day One

We are officially homeowners again! Since we sold our Virginia house on July 30th, we have been renters in one form or another. First, we rented back our former house until we moved to Florida in early September. That was a bit of a strange feeling...and expensive!

Upon our arrival in Melbourne, we were guests of Harris in a short-term corporate apartment for 60 days. Pretty nice setup -- fully furnished with a stocked kitchen -- and the price was right at $0 per month.

Since the first weekend in November, we have been residents of "101", the apartment downstairs from the corporate apartment. This has been the most challenging of the three rental environments as we have had minimal furniture (sleeping on air mattresses the entire time, for example), no washer/dryer, and only the kitchen items we held back from going into the storage warehouse.

So we haven't exactly followed a conventional route to home ownership, but we are there nonetheless. This afternoon, we showed up at our builder's title company with a big check and ready to sign our names and initials over and over and over. Again.

For all that work and money, we were rewarded with a couple of pens, two portable chairs, two key rings, and the most valuable gift of all...the keys to our new residence. After retrieving Brian and Sean from the Killicks -- who were nice enough to let them have a play date with Leighton while we signed and signed -- we headed over to bask in the emptiness that will soon be transformed from house to home (our household goods will arrive next week).

It will be a busy and hectic next few days as we get everything set up, and it has been quite a year of change for us. Four addresses in the past four months...nuff said. But we made it, and we're really looking forward to 2008 in our new community.