Sincerely Yours

So we spent a lot of time this weekend looking at more kitchens. My cousin Billy told us about a Chinese hardware store called Sincere Hardware. What's really great about this place is that they have a lot of the same brands that we saw at Home Depot/Home Expo. The difference is that they charge about 30% less- literally. I was asking the salesperson about a pot filler faucet and he pulls out the catalog and then reduces that price by 30% right in front of me. I'm having them give me an estimate of how much cabinets would cost because we were able to find the exact cabinets that we liked from Home Expo there. We're going to have our general contractor install them, but we'll probably purchase the materials from Sincere.

We're still trying to decide if we should knock down the wall between the kitchen and dining room and replace it with a peninsula or keep the wall. Pros- a more open layout, more seating, more counterspace. Cons- less cabinet space, no more cool swinging door, no pot filler faucet (probably), less wall space in dining room, and no formal dining area. Decisions, decisions...

We're also trying to figure out what kind of sink to put in. I think a stainless steel sink should be fine, but Edwin really likes the farmhouse style porcelain sinks. I like them too, but the price is a little higher than I want to spend on a sink. If we can find one that isn't too expensive, maybe I can be convinced. Only 4 more days until we are officially homeowners!

Moving Sucks

I hate packing. It's making this place a mess. There are boxes everywhere. It makes things stressful because there's this impending deadline. We have 2 weeks until we move. We've been furiously studying cabinets and tiles. We went to Home Depot and Home Expo last weekend. It was good that we went to Home Expo first. They had a very large showroom that had a lot of full kitchens to explore and for renovation ideas vs. Home Depot which just has a cabinet door in one section and tiles in another. Home Depot doesn't really "put it together." You basically have to know what you're looking for and hope that it will match.

What I found is that we may like a light fixture or a set of cabinets, but the styles don't necessarily go together. Designers on HGTV make it look easy. It reminds me of when we were planning the wedding as well. You may like individual pieces, but if they don't work together, you can't use it. I guess you can say the same thing for furniture in general. You might have a chair that you like, but it doesn't match the couch or the wall paint color.

And of course, Edwin and I each have our favorite styles. Edwin likes oak with the wood grain that you find in older houses- very classic and goes well with Craftsman style homes like ours. I like things a little more modern with cherry cabinets and a smooth finish. The model kitchen we saw looked very nice, but I wonder if it will look "old." I mean, that is kind of the point, but I don't want to spend all this money on a renovation to have people think that it wasn't renovated when we sell it and not get our money back. We will probably end up with with the oak because I think that it goes better with style of the house. I'll have my cherry cabinets in our next house. LOL.

We have also been looking at refrigerators. We're considering buying a refrigerator using craislist. In my mind, I have always had a "used" refrigerator in any apartment that I have ever lived in. I have seen a lot of listings where people are renovating their houses and have to get rid of their appliances. Now, that being said, I don't want anyone's cruddy 10 year old refrigerator either. The one that I am interested in is a stainless steel counter depth refrigerator that has only been used for 6 months. They are selling it for half the price that they paid for it because they bought a new house and don't need it. For half price, I can deal with a slightly used refrigerator. It's probably a much nicer refrigerator than we would ever buy otherwise. We're going to try and look at it tomorrow. I bought my wedding dress on ebay. Why not a refrigerator? I think that you can get some pretty good deals that way.

We also signed our loan docs this week. It was pretty painless. I really like our mortgage broker Rosemary Gee. She's been very good at explaining things and being responsive. I got very frustrated with another broker because he kept giving me the run around. I would ask questions and not get very clear answers. I asked for example rates and loan options and I never got anything on paper. During our first and last meeting, I had to write everything down because he didn't give us examples on paper. I think it was because he didn't want to commit to anything. When I told him the loans that Rosemary got us, he said that it didn't exist and that we should go with him. I asked him on 3 separate occasions to email me with loan rates and options and he never did. I went to my bank and asked for rates and they never got back to me either. They just told me that mortgage brokers were blood suckers. The most ironic thing is that our first loan is with my bank. Dumb. The second loan is a line of credit. What's nice about the line of credit is that we can pay it off faster if we want to and we can also take any of the principal we pay back out if we need it. It means that we don't need to have our cash reserves sitting in a bank gaining less than 5% interest when we are going to have to pay more than 5% in interest. Therefore, we get to pay off our debt faster and have access to emergency money if we need it. It's nice flexibility that we did not expect. Have I bored you yet? We hand over the big check this week and we close escrow on August 30, so T minus 6 days until we are officially homeowners.

We're Movin' on Up... to the East Side (Bay)!

Sujay has started calling us the Jeffersons. Remember the theme song? It does seem to fit. I've started packing. We still have all the boxes from when we moved in. I think we moved in with about 65 boxes, so I'm thinking that we'll have about 80 boxes when we move out. I'm aiming to pack at least 2 boxes per day. I know that only means 60 boxes until moving day, but I figure Edwin should pack at least 20, right? :) So I've packed 4 boxes so far- only 56 more to go.

We went back to the house last night to measure all the rooms. We've been thinking a lot about all the renovations that need to get done and the first step is to figure out how much room we have to play with. It seems so hard to figure out what to do first and whether or not we should refinish the floors before we move in since we don't want them to get them all messed up with the kitchen renovations. What to do? We're headed to Home Depot for some ideas this weekend.

Has anyone been reading all of the news about how bad the mortgage industry is doing lately? We read this article about how hard it is now to get a loan. We're thankful that we locked in a loan 2 weeks ago. We're going to sign the papers on Tuesday. Yikes. I guess I'll be glad to have this part over with and being another step close to home ownership.

All By Myself

So this past weekend, Edwin was off on his annual surfing surfari and so I was left to my own devices. What does that mean? I got to leave my clothes out for a few days, not make the bed if I didn't want to, and get some girly stuff done like go to JoAnn Fabrics without being timed in the store.

On Friday, I worked from home. I was meeting Matilde, Sujay, Chris, Corinne, Greg, and Cary for dinner in East Bay, so I met up with Matilde a little earlier to do some Friday shopping at the Embarcadero Center. Then, we went to Coriya for some hot pot after sitting in traffic for like an hour. Good thing I had Chris and Matilde to keep me company. There was a big debate about where to go for dinner since there was a possibility of going to hot pot on Sat night as well with Show and Derek. Anyway, we stayed until closing and I ate until I could eat no more. I couldn't believe how much I ate though I like to think that most of it was liquid because I drank a lot of the soup!

On Saturday, I volunteered to help remove graffiti in SF through my church. Though it was publicized in the church bulletin, it was actually organized by another volunteer group. I get myself out of bed and arrive by 9AM in the Sunset as requested. I was a little grumpy because when I got there, I waited around for a few minutes before someone came up to me and told me that they had moved the meeting location. Then, they didn't have any designated parking and we were told that we would get light refreshments, so I didn't eat any breakfast. When you say light refreshment, I think of food. (The last time I volunteered for something like Habitat for Humanity, they gave us muffins and juice.) All we got that day was water.

There were about 3 people from church, about 5 more from different organizations, and then 8 more from SWAT. I thought it might be some kind of police force team. So I started talking to one of them. His name was Junior and he lives in Bayview/Hunters Point. He was really friendly and revealed that he had to do 90 days of community service. So I asked him why and he tells me that he was caught with 5 oz. 5 oz. of what? No idea and I didn't ask! I did ask him if it was for posession and his response to me was, "Hell no! I don't smoke that stuff!" Sorry- did not mean to offend! JK! Anyway, he told me that he had to do the community service on the weekends and pay $150 each day because he couldn't do it during the week since he had a job. I asked him what his job was and he told me that he was a security guard at a jewerly store. Interesting. Though it was a little scary to be working with these guys, they were all very nice. I guess that I never realize that people that are so different live so close. I usually feel the same way after I have been to the DMV or in traffic school. Actually, meeting this guy Junior was kind of the highlight of the day.

We started walking from 19th and Noriega and headed west towards the ocean. It was a total pain in the butt because we had to carry these buckets of paint and wear latex gloves. I was hoping to get some practice painting for the house, but we were mostly painting mailboxes, garbage cans, and utility boxes. Believe me, the city is very picky and they get quite upset if you confuse garbage can green with mailbox green. This definitely was not as fun as the last time when I helped to paint an elderly woman's house. I was told by one of the coordinators that they are out there repainting these mailboxes and garbage cans every week. Every week they get spray painted and every week, they repaint them. How senseless. I don't even understand why someone would pay for the spraypaint to do it. Such a waste. That's why I probably won't volunteer for them again. That, and I couldn't stand how disorganized they were. I really have no patience for that. When I volunteered last time, they were super organized in the list of tasks that needed to be done and had the supplies ready to go. We didn't even get started for like half an hour because they weren't prepared. At the end, I didn't have the patience for them to drive us back to our origination. Since we were at 47th and Noriega (that's right, I walked almost 30 blocks with a bucket of paint.) I decided to walk over to my Uncle Glenn's house which was another 5 blocks away on 47th and Irving. Good thing I did too, because when I arrived, they were having a BBQ and since I hadn't eaten anything that day, I was starving!

For dinner, we went to San Tung again and then over to Chris and Corinne's house to watch Hot Fuzz. I feel asleep within 20 minutes, but I am proud to say that I was not the first to fall asleep. Matilde beat me by 5 minutes.

On Sunday, we had dim sum and then I dropped off Show and Derek at the airport. On my way home, I did some window shopping and "research." I was thinking about what colors we might want for each of the rooms, maybe buying a new kitchen table, window treatments, and trying to decide if I should make or just purchase the cushions of the banquette that we are going to have in the kitchen. I think that it might be easier and maybe even cheaper just to buy cushions from Pier One. I'm looking forward to building it. I think it will be fun. We still have to think about what renovations will be done when and start planning the move. I guess we should start packing. We're planning on moving out on Saturday, September 8. Anyone want to help us move to the East Bay? :) We're very lucky that we have some good friends and family that have already said that they can help. I can't wait. It should be fun. I'm really looking forward to it. Part of me wishes that we could move in sooner, but part of me is relieved that we have some time to set things up.

2 Days Left

So we have 2 more days until the contingency period is over for the house. It basically means that we are locked in at that point. Until that point, we can still get out of it. So we spent 3.5 more hours at the house last night with our real estate agent. So now we are thinking that we may change our original plans. Instead of having a bathroom in the basement, we are thinking that maybe we will try to convert the current bathroom into a master bath and then convert the hallway and linen closet into a second bathroom off of the kitchen. According to Kian, he recommends doing remodeling before we move in or at least before we unpack. We're leaning towards this option as well. I like the idea of having it done earlier so that we can enjoy the changes longer. Why pay for changes for the next owner to enjoy? This plan requires that we do the kitchen remodel with the bathroom addition. That's just a lot of money up front. No problem, right? JK!

Our mortgage broker also told us that the appraiser said that we got a good deal on the house, so that makes me feel more confident that we are making a good decision. She also has been telling us that the lenders are definitely getting more stringent. She said that the day after they approved our loan, they stopped accepting applications. I didn't think that all the activity around sub-prime lending would affect us, but I guess that it could have even though we have great credit.

At this point, Edwin and I are pretty sure that we are going to go through with the offer. I feel like we know what the issues are and what we have to do and how much it will cost. It's more a question of when we can tackle each of these projects. We should be busy for years! JK! I think that it will be hard work, but it will be worth it. Given that it's one of the cheapest houses on the block, the value can only go up, right?

We also met one of our neighbors who is an elderly gentleman who has lived in his house for over 40 years and prior to that he lived across the street where his daughter lives now. I guess he must like the street. He did say that Christmas time is very busy because it is known as Christmas Tree Lane since Alameda decorates the entire street. I have never heard of it, but I am looking forward to it.

We also found a really great Hawaiian restaurant called Hawaiian Drive Inn. I had the saimin and a spam musubi while Edwin had the garlic shrimp. Each of the entrees was like $4 and the bill came to $12 without tip. The place is a family run establishment and we were served by the dad and his son who was probably around 12 years old. It was so tasty- we will definitely be back.

Happy Birthday to me!

Wow! What a busy weekend. I can't believe that it already over. On Friday, we went to a dinner/performance art event called Supper Club with Steve and Pablo. It has been compared to Cirque du Soleil, and I could see why they would say that, but I don't think that it was quite the same. They basically have all these beds that you can lounge on and eat your dinner. In the middle of the floor they have some random performances and a really great DJ so you can actually do a little clubbing as well. (They open the doors to the general public around 11:30 and it becomes a dance club.) Our favorites were the scallops and the tomato and crouton salad.

On Saturday, we went waterskiing, wake boarding, and inner tubing at Lake Berryessa. We rented a boat and also had a picnic area set up with a BBQ. It was a very warm day and it was nice to be in the water. This is my second time waterskiing and it was not much better than my first attempt at Corrine's bachelorette. Edwin, of course, was one of the better waterskiiers. (Naturally.) I heard that Jamie was probably the best. Matilde, Show, and Tom were able to try the wakeboard. I stuck to the inner tube. I'll post some pics soon.

We also went to the house today to inspect it with another general contractor and also our architect friend Bhavana. We didn't find any surprises, but we spent about 4 hours there looking around and talking about it. We're not quite done and will probably look at it again, but so far, I don't see anything that would make me think twice about buying it. It was more about trying to figure out what we want to do with it and the order of priority for all of the projects that we will inevitably have to tackle. (Where to begin when there is so much to do?) Part of me thinks that this may be fun. Part of it will be shear torture. It's hard to justify things like bolting down the foundation, adding insulation, doing a sewer later, or changing the furnace when nobody ever sees that stuff- especially when there is so much cosmetically that could be improved. We're still thinking that we will refinish the hardwood floors, buy a refrigerator, and paint. But now we are thinking that we may finish the basement sooner rather than later so that we have more living space and add a 3/4 bath. In order to do that, we will need to replace the furnace, move the sump pump (like I even know what that is!), put flooring down, and drywall up. Then maybe we could redo the upstairs bath because then we would have another bathroom to use. I'm still thinking about applying to HGTV so that they could redo our kitchen...

So today is my birthday. I told Edwin that I thought it might be fun to have some people over to the apartment because we haven't had people over in a while. I can't even remember the last time. So we sent out an evite last minute last weekend and I didn't think that many people would come since it was a Sunday and with less than a week's notice. But we ended up cramming 25 people into our apartment plus 3 babies and a toddler. I wonder if that is some kind of record for this place. I was afraid that we might run out of food, but I think that there was enough for everyone. We were able to use a lot of the leftovers from yesterday's BBQ. And then we started cleaning out our cupboards. (After all, we're probably moving in about a month, so the more people eat, the less we have to move, right?) We still have a lot of leftovers. It was a fun time and a good way to tell people that we were going to be moving (for the people who are not loyal blog readers like yourself! :) ) We broke out some of the platters and dishes that we had received as wedding gifts, so it was cool to be able to use it. I was dismayed to see one of my favorite platters got chipped when I pulled it out of the cupboard. I didn't chip it, but it had been chipped probably because we have a bunch of platters stacked on top of each other. We ended the evening playing Set and Cranium. Now I know why we are all friends- we are all geeks! All in all, it was a great way to celebrate my 32nd birthday. It was just great to be able to hang out with people.

Cramming for Finals

Thanks to everyone for their well wishes! It's so nice just to hear from you all. Sometimes I wonder if anyone reads this blog and now I know you do. The last few days have flown by in a haze. We're going to inspect the house on Sunday (my birthday!) with our realtor and our architect friend Bhavana. We are also hoping to have a general contractor take a look as well. Does anyone have a general contractor that they would like to recommend in the Bay Area? We have a lead, but we don't have anyone scheduled yet.

So I have spent the last few days trying to get smart and learn about mortgages. Remember in college how you had to cram for finals? That is kinda how I am feeling right now. Does anyone know what a LIBOR is? How about negative amortization? I don't know what that is, but I know I don't want it! Mortgage rates seem to be on the rise, so I think we were pretty lucky to lock in our first mortgage yesterday. We have been checking rates online and trying to decide if we should go to multiple brokers. I have heard of going to multiple lenders, but we are using a broker that was recommended to us by our friend Steve. We started with another mortgage broker who was also recommended by an old coworker, but I wasn't really as comfortable with him. I didn't like that he didn't give me any paperwork from our discussion. He kept telling me how things were going to change anyway. I don't care that it's going to change, I want something on a paper to look at, not just my scribbled notes.

If you went to school with me, you will know that I took horrible notes (even when I didn't fall asleep during lectures). I always had to borrow Santiney's notes to make any sense of my own notes. She had the nicest notes- she would even re-copy them if she thought that they were not up to her standard. But I digress...

Happy birthday to Joe. He came out for work this week, so we had a mini Ford reunion tonight at a Chinese Muslim restaurant called Old Mandarin. It was kind of funny because I think that we have been to this restaurant before, but we had a bad experience. This time, it was MUCH better- maybe because someone else ordered. The lamb stew was tasty and my fave was the tendon. I wasn't a big fan of the lamb dumplings. (This place is known for lamb dishes.) Nevertheless, we were all full when we left. I would definitely go back now that I know what to order.

This weekend is going to be busy, but fun. We're having dinner with Steve and Pablo tomorrow night. On Saturday, we are going to Lake Berryessa for some BBQing and some waterskiing. On Sunday, we are going to the house and then we're having friends over for my birthday. Lots to do and so little time! I need a vacation!

We are Homeowners! (Almost!)

It's official. We are in contract. They accepted our offer. We are on our way to becoming homeowners. We still can't believe it. I spent most of the day on cloud 9. Things going wrong at work? OK! No problem! I wonder how long this high will last. Here's a link to a virtual tour of the house.

We're starting to put together many lists. Things we have to do (schedule meetings, give landlord notice, move money to get the down payment liquid, schedule a move, pack, etc.), things we want to do before moving into the house (refinish floors, buy a refrigerator, paint, etc.), and updating our estimated costs template (mortgage costs, renovation costs, closing costs.) I think that the next 30 days are going to fly by.

Today is a good day to buy a house. Laura and Alex put in an offer and got their offer accepted today on a house in Cincinnati. Pretty funny coincidence. We knew that they were househunting last weekend, but we didn't know that they had made an offer. They didn't know we made one either.

We Won the Lottery!

Just kidding! Though we feel like we won the lottery. We went to see another house this past weekend and made an offer today. They countered on some of the terms (10 days instead of 14, etc.), but it looks like we are probably going to accept because nothing in the counter mentioned anything about changing the price. Yikes! We're not quite homeowners yet, but it does feel good to not be rejected- again.

We are definitely in the shocked, OMG-what-did-we-just-do phase. We didn't think that we would get accepted or even countered. Though we have started offering closer to the asking price versus some of our previous verbal offers were way below asking. There's still a lot that could go wrong, but so far, so good. We're hoping that the interest rate remains the same or lowers for us.

The house is a 2 bedroom 1 bath fixer. Most of the fixes are cosmetic- removing wall paper, refinishing the hardwood floors, and painting. But we will be renovating the kitchen and probably the bathroom at some point. The kitchen is currently useable, but we'll probably want to update it relatively soon. We have to buy a refrigerator, but that's pretty much the only appliance we will need to buy right away. The bathroom they just updated, but I almost wish that they hadn't because they used the cheapest materials and I want to update it sooner rather than later. We need to replace the furnace as well. Those are probably the biggest costs that we will have when we move in. Wish us luck!

Still Homeless

We didn't get the house. Apparently one of the other offers decided to offer over asking. We offered asking. It's disappointing, but that's just how it goes. My coworker was telling me that he made 9 offers before he got one accepted in LA. Crazy. Guess that means that we just get to save more money.

The Suspense is Killing Me!

So we went house hunting yesterday. We found a few houses that we were interested in. We actually made our frst official offer tonight. This house is in Alameda and is near one of the best schools in Alameda. It's a bedroom 1.5 bath with a big deck off the back. The biggest drawback is that it is on a busy street. The noise is not really that bad and they have double-paned windows on the only bedroom facing the street. We wouldn't really need to do too many renovations and it has an extra "room" in the basement with a half bath. Most of the places we have seen only have 1 bath and we would need to do a lot of extra renovations. I'm really nervous. We were told when we saw the house yesterday that they already received an offer from someone on Friday that had just lost a bidding war on another house. We found out today that they received another offer today, so the seller has 3 offers on a house that went on the market less than a week ago.

This is the first time that a buyer has ever written a letter about themselves and it sounded like the owner is a single mom with daughter who is moving out of California. Since she wrote a letter about her experience living in the house, I wrote one about us. I basically told her that we just got married in October and that we have lived in our apartment for over 5 years (longer than she's owned her home.) If this works, I'll let you know. So we left a message with the selling agent that we would send the preapproval letter tomorrow morning and send a deposit check. She confirmed that she received our offer and asked that we send in the preapproval letter and check in the morning. I'm taking that as good news because if our offer was too low, they would have said, "Don't bother," right? We think that the other offers might be higher, but I'm hoping the fact that we don't have a contingency to sell a current house will help our offer. I guess you never know around here. If we get this house, it will be a small miracle. Guess we'll find out in the next 48 hours.

I have so much nervous energy! I was talking to my coworker and he said that the house hunting is the fun part. He said that selling the house is the worst because you are just waiting for someone else to make an offer. Well, the owner of the house we just made an offer on doesn't seem to have too much trouble... 3 offers in less than 4 days. Please pray for us and cross your fingers! And if you know of a woman who lives in Alameda with her daughter who is moving out of state, please put in a good word for us!

More Important Things than Work

So work lately has been a drag. I've been working at night and I worked last weekend. I'm not working this weekend. I'm on strike. Don't know what we're doing this weekend, but I'm not working!

So we have been watching HGTV everyday for the past few months because our Tivo hard drive died. We have even talked about applying to be on one of the shows when we finally buy a house. Well, imagine my surprise when I started watching "Get it Together" and I recognize one of the people on the show. I used to work with this guy named Dylan at GlobalNetXchange and he and his wife were getting their house renovated on TV. What a small world. I'll have to see if I can find his contact information...

Happy belated birthday to Dad. (It was yesterday.) Their anniversary is om Monday, so I guess my parents will be celebrating this weekend. Speaking of anniversaries, we've been thinking about how to celebrate our first anniversary in October. I think that we will be traveling, but where? We're toying with the idea of going on a cruise to Mexico. We'll see.

I just heard that my grandmother had surgery today. Some of you may know that my grandmother has cancer and has been in chemo since February. She's been doing really well, so we thought that the worst was over. Because she was doing well, they decided to try and remove more of the cancer, but when they openned her up, they saw that the cancer had spread to her liver. They are going to give her more chemo, but it looks like they can't get rid of it and it won't prolong her life. Since my grandparents moved to LA last year, I've had the chance to visit my grandmother at least 5 times this year. I'm really glad that I have had the extra time to spend with her. I'll probably be going to LA a few more times this year. Please pray for grandma to enjoy the rest of her time and that she still doesn't have any side effects to the new chemotherapy. It just reminds me that there are so many more important things than work.

Bowling for Dollars

So I am totally excited to use the new polling function in Blogger. I know, I'm a geek. I haven't decided what I want to poll on yet, but as a market researcher, it's kind of fun.

This weekend, we went bowling at Sea Bowl with some friends. It was fun, but my bowling is terribly inconsistent. In my first game, I had 3 strikes. Unfortunately, every time I got a strike, I got a gutter ball (and a second ball that wasn't much better) which gave me a score of 81. How do you have 3 strikes and only a score of 81? A lot of gutter balls, that's how. My second game I had only 2 strikes, but I managed to not gutter all my other frames, so I ended with a 88. Edwin got the high score of the night with 153.

Today, we had brunch at Ella's with Mike, Michelle, Chris, and Corinne. It was fun catching up with our newlywed friends. Good food, good friends, what more can you ask for? Maybe a longer weekend? This weekend went by too fast. Probably because I also spent it working on both days. I try my best not to work at all on the weekend, so when I have to work both days, I get a little cranky. I think that I will be ending work a little early this week to reward myself.

Not too much to report on the housing front. It's actually been kind of quiet lately. Not too many houses coming onto the market. So we are kind of just waiting. We've seen a couple of houses, but nothing too interesting, so we're just saving our pennies for that down payment...

Perfectly Portland

So I am in Portland right now for work. Work this week is sucking, but being in Portland is making things a lot better. We came out here last year with the Banerjees and the Schneiders for vacation. I kept seeing the areas that we visited and it made me nostalgic. My flight was delayed an hour and I got a seat in the back of the plane in the middle seat. (I always request the front of the plane by the window.) Our crackerjack travel agents didn't provide my membership numbers for my car or hotel (even though it's on file.) I guess I shouldn't complain since they "forgot" to purchase my plane ticket on a previous trip which caused me to receive "extra" security screening since I was purchasing my ticket the same day. I can't believe that there are people out there who still use travel agents.

Anyway, even they can't ruin my experience out here in Portland. When I arrived at the Marriot, they put me on the 19th floor (it's a 20 floor building) and gave me access to the concierge floor. I think that they must have confused me with someone with status or something. I went up to the concierge floor to print out my boarding ticket for the next day and it was so nice. They had out desserts and water bottles with a view overlooking downtown Portland. Very nice. For dinner, I asked the front desk for sushi recommendations and they pointed me to a place around the block. It was the best sushi that I have had since I ate at the Tsukiji market in Tokyo. I loved it. It's called Koji. When I walked in, I got seated at the sushi bar.

I was sitting by myself and I noticed that there were 3 other people seated around me who were eating by themselves. It reminded me of grade school when you never wanted to sit alone in the cafeteria. I wonder when we decide that it's OK to eat by ourselves. I didn't bring any reading material and though I usually talk on the phone when I am eating alone, I was just happy to relax and ponder my thoughts as I sat by myself. I ordered the Deluxe Assorted Sushi and the quality was just phenomenal for the price. The fish was so fresh and tasty. I wanted more when I finished. I wish that they were in CA, but alas, they are only in OR and Seattle. My bill was $24 and I gave them a $6 tip because I was so happy. (I figured I am expensing it anyway, so why not reward someone else when I can?) I'm thinking about coming back to pick up some food for lunch tomorrow before my flight...

After dinner, I decided to walk a block to the Pioneer Square which is essentially downtown Portland. I sat in the public open space and just people watched for a while. The weather is a nice and warm 80 degrees and it was still light out at 8:30PM and there were people everywhere. It made me think about impressions of a city. You know- when you visit a city, it evokes emotions about how you feel about that city. There's usually nothing specific- just a lot of little things that add to your overall experience. For instance, Portland will always be one of the cities that I can go back to. I will always enjoy being in Portland. It's just so pleasant. You can walk around, the weather is nice, the views are great and hilly, and the people are so friendly. (I am visiting 2 clients here and they both independently offered to pick me up from the airport. Who does that?) I feel that way about Chicago, Boston, parts of Italy, Seattle- these are just places I love to visit. I think that most people know how I feel about NYC- fun to visit, but dirty and too expensive. LA is too spread out. Atlanta is too hot. Portland is just great. I kept remembering little things like how I was chasing Maika up and down the escalators by the rental car counters, walking into the Nordstroms and buying the shoes I wore during the wedding (tax free!), walking by the Rite-Aid where Kaori and Jamie bought Pooh-San (a stuffed Winne-the-Pooh since they forgot to bring Usachan- Maika's stuffed rabbit that she sleeps with every night), driving by the Four Points hotel where we stayed, and the Jessica McClintock store that Matilde and I went to go shopping for bridesmaid dresses. (Binh, you're just going to say I told you so because you always told me how great it is.)

Alrighty, got to get to bed, but before I go, I gotta give a shout out to Kathy- Happy Birthday, girlfriend. So when you take a break from chasing Owen to read this, I was thinking of you even though we haven't talked/emailed in a while.

More Adventures in LA

So we were in LA this past extended weekend. We spent most of the time with family and eating. A lot. We also got to see what it was like for an afternoon with triplets running around on the playground. One of Edwin's friends from high school, Keith, has triplets and we accompanied him to the park with the 3 almost 3-year-olds. We were just flomoxed. Lori, Nicole, and Jeff run in all different directions, so we don't know how Keith and his wife keep their sanity. God bless them! Here's a photo of Keith and his kids in the park on the top left. We also go to see Char and Tom with their cute kids, Annette and William.

I also took my parents to Santa Monica to walk around. I can't believe that it has already been 9 years since I was working there. I had a hard time remembering where stuff was. I wonder if I had had a blog at that time, would it have helped? Probably not. Here are pics from the pier.
We also stopped at Universal Studios. We thought about going in until we saw the price tag- $70! I remember thinking that $35 was expensive. Since we had already been there (20 years ago...) we decided not to visit again. Geez- for a family of 4, that would be $280. No wonder people don't go anymore!

So Laura called me yesterday with news that Hannah said that she was getting married. I asked who she was getting married to and Hannah replied, "Uncle Edwin!" Ha ha! Good luck! It took me 8 years to get him to marry me, so if she gets started on him right now, she should be 11 by the time he's ready. She said that I was invited and I told her I would definitely be there! Now why does she want to get married? She wants a little sister. I guess having a little brother wasn't enough.

It is now 7:30 and I am still at work. Am I working hard you ask? No. I am baby-sitting an antiquated system that takes hours to request a report. Seriously, it looks like it was programmed in the 70s. If our clients only knew that these "sophisticated" systems are held together by glue and duct tape. Anyhow, no news on the housing front. There haven't been that many houses coming onto the market in the past 2 weeks, but we're hoping that it was just the holidays that slowed it down.

Happy 4th of July in LA

So we're leaving for LA tomorrow for an extended weekend. Since our last foray into the Bay Area housing market, we are taking a short break. It wasn't really a decision to not look, but there hasn't really been anything we were interested in seeing in the past week and since we are leaving for the holiday, we won't be looking at anything for probably another week at least.

I started organizing some of the photos that we have so if you want to look at a few of the archives, I have added some pics from our travels since Feb. It's been a while since we took the pics off the camera. It's so easy with digital now that we don't even really bother to print photos anymore. I keep thinking that we should print some of the photos from the wedding and start organizing photo albums. I can't believe that it has already been 8 months since the wedding!

It is Finished- Australian Honeymoon Pictures!

Remember when I said that I would include pictures from our honeymoon in Australia? Crazy, but it took forever to sort through all the photos. We took over 800 and I culled it down to 330. It's still a lot, but I labeled a lot of them with comments. Enjoy!

Australia Honeymoon

It doesn't seem like it's been 6 months since we were there!

Gluttons for Punishment

So we're thinking of making an offer on another Alameda house. This one is another fixer upper. We went to an open house last weekend and we met the owner. Strange computer programmer type. Most of the houses we have seen have been staged and recently painted. This seller didn't even clean the house. There was dog hair everywhere and his tightie whities were hanging in the back to dry. I mean, at least take them down! There was a hole the size of a fist in the closet door in the bedroom. The flyer was not updated because it still said that offers were due on June 12th when we saw the house on June 24th, so I guess that they haven't received any yet. You would think that the agent would at least print new flyers- and the photos don't even do it justice. There are good things like the built-in shelves in the living room, but there are no photos of it. So why are we even interested in this place?

It's got a lot of potential and lots of walk-in closet space. These are probably some of the biggest closets that we have seen in any house. It's listed as a 2 bedroom 1 bath, but it also has a basement that used to have a finished bathroom (he started renovating it and never finished) and kitchen. We think that we could also put a guest bedroom, playroom/family room, and maybe a little desk/work area in the basement. We probably would make these changes a little further down the rode and just focus on the upstairs. There is also a cute little sunroom in the back. The way we figure it, we know this place is gross now, but we don't care if we're just going to replace everything and gut it anyway. We're still planning on giving an offer below the asking price, so cross your fingers! All we are waiting for is for a contractor to do a once over and give us an estimate of the costs for renovations.

No Thanks!

So we almost made an offer on a house in Alameda on Friday. We wrote the offer, had the deposit check, and got the preapproval letter. Then our realtor called me and told me that the seller didn't want to entertain our offer because it was too low. The house was a fixer upper and we wanted to make sure that we could afford the mortgage and the renovations. We thought that since the house had been on the market for over a month which is a little long in the Bay Area, they might be willing to accept a lower offer. It was a little disappointing that they didn't even want to counter. So, we're back to square one.

However, the good thing is that we are ready to go for the next offer we need to make. It was a good exercise for us to go through to make sure that we know what has to happen and what the paperwork looks like.

I always think that things happen for a reason. So it's probably a good thing that this didn't go through because there were so many renovations. We also had a contractor give us an estimate on the costs for renovating and the costs don't seem as much as we had thought. We have been watching a lot of HGTV which also gives you this false sense of how long it takes and how much effort it takes because they seem to be able to make these amazing changes in a few days and since the episode only takes half an hour, it doesn't seem to take long at all!

Durham Days

On Thursday, we headed out to Nashville to the zoo and got to spend a few hours with Hannah and Timothy there until we had to get to the airport around 4PM. We have a few pictures which I'll get around to posting eventually. It was a hot day in the sun that day, so I think that the kids were more interested in the lemonade than the animals at the zoo. All in all, it was a good trip though after your 100th round of Musical Chairs or listening to Hannah whining, it does make you think about how much energy it takes to take care of a toddler. Babies are nice because all they require is food, diaper changes, and sleep. When they can start running and talking, it gets a lot more energy. Guess we better get started before we're too old to chase them around. Or I can do what Laura does and have their aunt chase them around!

In Durham, we got to have a nice leisurely day on Friday. We woke up without kids telling us to wake up and walked their dog Dora the Explorer. However, we did discover that Dora had chewed up our shoes because she got tired of waiting for us to wake up as well. After walking Dora, we borrowed Jeannette and Jon's bikes and went for a 5 mile ride to the Durham Bulls ballpark. I always thought it was called Bull Durham because of the movie. Oh well. We biked along a path called the American Tobacco Trail. Now if that isn't ironic, I don't know what is. We're biking on a path paved from dollars spent from tobacco sales. I wonder how many of those cigarette smoking people who helped pay for this trail actually use it. When we got back, we did a little shopping and then got ready for the Chief's roast that Jeannette had invited us to.

The Chief's roast was just a party at someone's house that included video skits roasting all of the chief residents who were graduating like Jeannette. It was fun to meet all these doctors, but I will say that it is quite a different experience. Most of the time, I think that we meet people who are in software or technology. Though we have a few friends who are doctors, they don't really discuss medicinal philosophies or viewpoints like the OB/gyns we met at this party. Though maybe it was the setting- we were at a party for all the OB/gyns. Maybe if we went to a party for doctors with our doctor friends, the conversations would be different.

On Saturday, I got a pedicure with Jeannette and we all got dressed up for the graduation ceremony. Here's a picture of us getting our pedicures
The ceremony seemed more like a wedding than a graduation. There was the catered dinner at the hotel and then DJ and dancing afterwards. We headed to a martini bar afterwards and while were were walking to the bars at UNC Chapel Hill, I noticed something very peculiar. On one side of the street were all the bars and on the other side of the street were all these churches. So it's almost like you could stumble out of the bars and go straight to church the next morning to ask forgiveness for all the sins you had committed the night before. What a novel idea! Another thing that I found interesting was that before the meal started at graduation, they said a prayer. It's not that I find a prayer before a meal that remarkable, but the fact that it was an educational event that began with a prayer. This is a secular university that doesn't have an affiliation with a church that I know of. That never happened to me at Northwestern and I have yet to see that at any other school I have seen- even the Catholic ones. I wonder if it has to do with being in the South.

Yesterday, we flew back into San Jose. While we were waiting for Show Lan to pick us up, I had plugged in my cell phone to charge. Unfortunately, we didn't realize until after we got back to SF that we had left the cell phone at the airport. Luckily, I was able to call the airport and they were able to hold my cell phone for me while we headed back down to San Jose to retrieve it. Note to self- if you charge your cell in a public place, remember to take it with you!