Rounds 1

As I write this, Dr. McPoland is in the middle of her first day of her residency. She's on Team 1 (don't exactly know what that means) making rounds on wards. I think her situation is that she's working with a team who's handling the kids that are admitted into Children's for certain ailments. This is a Q4 schedule, which means that she's on call every 4th day. Today is her first day and she's on call. The double wammy! I expect she'll be a little tired after her 30-hour shift that will end around 2pm tomorrow.

If you read this today, keep her in your prayers and send her a text telling her good luck and not to fall asleep while inserting an IV... I'm sure she'd appreciate the thoughts.

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Strange Timing

Looks like we haven't been the only ones impacted by bad appraisals. Turns out our realtor's office has had 5 low appraisals this week alone! The Seattle Times had an article about the situation as well. Looks like its become a national issue and is slowing home sales.

Timing is a funny thing with houses. 2 years ago, Paula and I had to pull out of the housing market because of the uncertainty with Paula's residency and where we would end up. That's after making 4 offers on houses that we may not realistically have been able to afford. So, God hooked us up there and the timing worked out perfectly for us to buy in a depressed 'buyers' market. However, just as we make an offer, we get on the front-end of a crazy increase in mortgage rates and weren't able to capitalize on the really low 4.75% interest rates that were steady for a couple months. Now, we're on the front end of a really crappy appraisal issue that's slowing down sales and/or terminating contracts. At least we've been on the front of these issues and not at the pinnacle of them.

Moral of the story: Life is funny and timing is everything...I guess.

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Thank you, Radmakers

The Radmakers have lived up to their name through this mortgage and appraisal fiasco that threatened to unravel the purchase of our house. As I wrote about in our last post, the appraisal came in very low (~30K low of the purchase price) and no one thought it was fair since the house had 5 offers and we weren't even the highest offer. Our realtor and their realtor thought the appraiser used really bad 'comps' (short for comparable home sales) that aren't truly reflective of our house. For instance, they used a house on a really busy street and didn't adjust the price accordingly as their supposed to. All sorts of really weird things. We felt horrible for the Radmakers because we really, really like them and want them to get all they can for the house since living in these retirement communities isn't exactly cheap. However, Paula and I don't sit on a pot of gold that can cover that kind of shortfall.

In the end, we had to let the Radmakers know that the appraisal came in really low and we did everything that we could to get it higher (our broker had it reevaluated up, but still $15K short of the purchase price). So, the Radmakers came down on their asking price but we had to come up with an bit more queso. While it's stretching us a bit further than we'd like, we can make it happen and are thankful for a fair couple to work with.

The moral of the story is that we're back on track and are set to close NEXT THURSDAY! We won't technically move in for a little while after that since we gave them 10 days to move (they've lived there 50+ years and have a lot of cleaning and packing to do) and we may pull up the carpet and have the oak floors refinished before we move in. It looks like we'll be moving in late July to early August (sorry Merry, you can't get rid of us that quickly).

We're both really excited. Granted, I'm a bit more excited since Paula's really nervous right now about both being in so much debt (do they sell organic top ramen?) and at having to start on-call in the wards at Children's on Thursday. So, if you've got a sick kid admitted to Childrens some time during the 30 hours that Paula's there on Thursday and Friday morning, say hi to her.

That's all for now.

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Potential Home Ownership Drama

So, our latest home ownership saga has been us waiting on our house appraisal to come back. If it appraised for the purchase price, then no big deal and we can get a loan. If it doesn't though, then the bank won't give us a loan for the purchase price and we're sorta stuck trying to figure out what to do. That's the position we found ourselves in this week.

Apparently, realtors and mortgage broker's have been anticipating this situation with recent changes to the appraisal/mortgage broker relationship that got some into trouble during the housing boom. Now when you need an appraisal, you have to schedule one through a third party and there's no interacting with them. So, when you have an appraisal and no one thinks its accurate, then there's no real way to discuss it and we're stuck having to go to the sellers to negotiate. It's a very frustrating situation to be placed in as buyers because now there's a chance that we won't get the house when we want it and are happy to pay the purchase price as we've already negotiated. But that's real estate apparently.

Wish us luck as we try to ask the Radmakers to lower their selling price...

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Chelan Wedding

Paula and I had a great weekend in Chelan as our good friends, Emily and Tyler, tied the knot. Paula was smokin' hot as a bridesmaid and I just tried not to screw up as officiant. They were married on the shores of Lake Chelan. The gals wore turquois dresses with white shoes while Emily wore white with turquois salsa-dancing shoes. Tyler and his groomsmen were absolute bad-asses, wearing brown pin-stripe tuxes with cowboy boots AND SPURS. Totally bad ass.

Here's the view of the wedding from the officiant's perspective!

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Meet the Radmakers

Last week, Margaret and Harold Radmaker (the sole owners of the house we're buying) had us over to their place to see whether we were interested in any of their furniture. As it turned out, we were not. However, it was a perfect chance to see our new house again and hear all of Margaret's stories. She and Harold have raised all their kids there her daughter still lives near by. Margaret showed us all the different places her grandkids would hide. Totally fun!

While I had some ideas on different 'home projects' that I think would be fun, Paula and I didn't feel comfortable discussing all of that during our visit and taking lots of photos of the interior. However, our realtor Jim, was nice enough to grab some great photos of the front and back yards. Here's a little taster of what we're getting ourselves into. You'll also get to see some of Margaret's 100+ bird houses. She knows when, who, and how she got each one.

Apparently, Margeret and Harold planted a pear tree (no jokes, please), a bing cherry tree, and another variety of cherry (some kind of European cultivar). Not to mention all the other shrubs that we're going to have fun maintaing...

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Graduation Day!

So I officially finished medical school this past weekend. I got to wear a funny outfit and a funny hat and got called up on the stage to receive my doctoral hood and diploma...so crazy! I still can't believe that anyone thought it was a good idea to let me graduate, I feel so unprepared for internship but, everyone else says they feel the same way. (Incidentally, the diploma they handed us on stage actually said that we don't officially graduate until the 12th...maybe the school is still reserving the right to revoke our graduation after all!).

After the ceremony, we headed to Beth's house for a little open house celebration. It was a great time fill with wonderful people who I love and who have supported and encouraged me throughout the years. I truly feel so blessed to have such incredible friends and family.

Now I have a week off before I start my residency at Children's. (Oh and just an FYI, I highly recommend not getting sick in July...)

Taking the Physician's Oath.

With my good friend Kirsten.

Per happy I'll finally be making some money.

A happy graduate!

With my parents. Aren't they the cutest!

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