November 30, 2009

Went to Coshocton to open a new bank account. Well gosh, we are locals now. Also went to the post office to tell them that we will be the new residents at
15681 County Road 429, Coshoctaon, OH 43812. Yep, that will be our new address! Strange, after living for 30 years in San Diego. But it was amazing how nice the people are here. At the bank they offered us coffee while doing the paperwork for the new account. Then the guy who helped us brought the manager of the bank over who told us that he likes to meet new account holders, and that at a Chase bank. While we filled out papers I mentioned to David not to forget to find a place to pick up a phone book and the next thing our guy takes a phone book of his desk and gave it to us. In San Diego it took about 3 years till the girls at my Union Bank recognized me even I went about three times a week to do business and had 5 different accounts there! Incredible.
Then at the post office the clerk chatted a bit and when we left he called "welcome to Coshocton"! We were speech less!
Then we went to the tourist information for the town to pick up a town map and the next thing they lady there told us the whole history of the town, showed us old pictures and explained the festivals of the year. We will be very busy because all the surrounding towns have their on festivals and we are surrounded by about hundred little towns and villages. I can hardly wait to jump with both feet into small town living.
Went back to OUR house to hang around and figure what work needs to be done. When we pulled into our drive way there was another car parked there. We thought that it might be the sellers realtor and David went to look for him.But nobody was there. He went to the barn and then came back to tell me that there are hunting equipments in the barn. Somebody must be hunting in our woods. So David called the Sheriff who arrived within about 15 min. Nice guy. We introduced our self and invited him into the house to show him around. Chatted a bit but there was really nothing he could do. He promised that they would keep an eye on our property. Also recommended to take down the "For Sale" sign, close the gate and post "No tresspassing signs". He mentioned though that they were probably sold out every where since hunting season just started and hunters had a tendency to tresspass. Nice!!! Went to Walmart and sure enough all the "no hunting" signs, "privat propert" signs and "no tresspassing" signs were sold out. Bought a couple of solid locks and will chaine the gate close
tomorrow. We have moved to the "Wild West" folks.
Tomorrow we will meet with the home inspector. Should be interesting what he has to say. Our offer is depending on our satisfaction of the home inspection. So if there is something serious going on with the house we can back out. Should be okay though.
Read on tomorrow!

November 29, 2009/ We got the house of my dreams!!!

Swiss cheese every where
that's what little girls play with here, pink rifles
Little Switzerland of Ohio
Swiss Flags along the street
Swiss Restaurant


Slept in this morning since we had NO appointments and no place we had to be! Yeah, first day of loaving! Left the RV park to cruise the Amish/Swiss towns close by. David read in one of the books available at the RV park store that the Amish were founded on January 1st 1525 by a Swiss man in Zurich who split away from the catholic church. I was wondering why there is all this swiss influence in an Amish area. For some reason I thought that the Amish were from Dutch origination. One never stops learning.
Got to this Swiss/Amish area with cheese factories abundent, a Swiss restaurant which strictly serves Swiss food and antique stores on every corner. But as in Switzerland everything was closed on Sunday. What the heck, am I so americanised that I need to shop on Sunday? You bet I am!
Were somewhat disapointed so turned to drive back with a smal detour to visit our fast becoming favorit store, the Farm and Tractor store who sells everything from Tractors to Carthart clothes to lifestock feed to wood burning stoves to kids toys. Then Oh no, there was a huge antique mall next door so had to check that one out and could have furnished 5 houses with cool stuff in no time. I tell you, every small village with a population of more then a hundert people has at least one antique store. They are as abundent here as Starbucks in San Diego. And oh the stuff they are selling and the prices, it is out of this world. i was holding myself (barely) back thinking that I need first a house before I shop and that I will be back in this State within 5 weeks. Oh my god, this is getting so serious with our move.
So went back to the RV and took a shower. Even Trina got to have a nice hot shower today. Then made dinner and then the phone rang!!!!!!
The seller countered within $5000 of what we wanted to pay. So told Carol to give them our last offer. And they went for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are now the proud owner of the funkiest, coolest, sweetest hobbit house located within 20 min from the swissiest area loaded with antique stores. Oh my friends,I am so absolutly happy. Thank you for sending all that good energy our way.
Oh by the way the weather agine was a balmy 60 degree with cloudless sky. Now for 2 weeks they predicted snow and we haven't gotten it! Funny though, 5 minutes after we got the call that we got the house it started to rain. It seemed like Ohio showed us its best side while we were looking and now when we are commited it will go back to normal. The strange thing is that when we were looking in Oregon this spring it rained and snowed every day I was there. It must be a sign that we belong here that it stayed so nice while we were searching.
We will go tomorrow to Akron, which is about 45 minutes from her to do some banking. We thought we were smart when we moved our account over to Bank of America, thinking that they have offices everywhere. We thought wrong. There are only 6 offices in the whole State of Ohio. Oh the good life in Ohio. But the nice thing is that though we live in the country we are only 15 min away from a small town and 45 minutes from Columbus, 45 min from Canton, about 1 1/2 hour from Cleveland and about 2 hours form Pittsburg.
We have a home inspection done on tuesday and maybe by Tursday head back up to Toledo where we reserved an indoor storage for the motor home and then hop in the car and head back to San Diego to finsh packing, celebrate Christmas with Gabriel, Michelle and her fiance Bilal and the Jebb family.
I'm happy, happy, happy!

November 28, 2009/ WE MADE AN OFFER!!!

Went back to house number 2 this morning since we didn't see much last night in the dark. It looked pretty good to me last night. Well it was still pretty nice this morning only the daylight also revealed all the problems that house has. It would have needed a new roof on the house, the garage and the work shop. Also the electrical looked rather scary! A lot of major work. So we went on to meet with Carol at noon at this sweet little tourist village resembling a bit Julian outside San Diego, just much smaller. Carol had 3 more properties to show us so hoped into her car and did some more cruising but you know, I think David and I had our mind allready made up. We just didn't like anything anymore since that funky little house with a big barn stole our hearts yesterday. We asked Carol if we could swing by it one more time and again it just was that this hobbit house (of course bigger but just as cute) called our name. After roaming the place for another half an hour we were ready to make an offer and decided to go back were our car was parked in the little tourist place and started to sign the contract over a glass of wine. I am insanely happy because all of you will be blown over when you see our silly house which looks like it just walked out of a antique country house magazine with worn tilting wood floors, lots of old built in cabinets made from rough wood, silly paperd kitchen as you can see in the pictures and just oozing country charm. I will leave everything just as it is, not even refinishing the scaffed and marked wood floors. We only will have to pull up the carpets in three rooms and I want to get a new stove though the one in the kitchen now looks okay, but I dream of a ceramic top stove. Then we have to have the chimneys checked since the 3 fire places haven't been used in a while. And there is also a drainage problem because the spring on the property just runs water every where so will need to be directed away from the garage and the house. Otherwise we are ready to go!
Yep friends and family, we are so ready to move into our hobbit house. Will have to visit all those hundreds of antique stores here in the area and attend all the dozends of weekly auctions in order to furnish our house. Some of our IKEA stuff will just not do here. Oh, life is good! Did I tell you also the today was a cloudless sky and sunny all day. It must be a good sign. We will know hopefully by tomorrow if our offer has been accepted. Please work on the sending good thoughts again, we nned all the help on this.
Love you all my friends. Enjoy the pictures.

November 27, 2009 /Yeah we found it!!!

House 2


House 1



Was below freezing this morning with an occasional snowflake falling. The sky was gray and heavy with clouds. We got up at 6:45 because we were supposed to meet a realtor in New Concord about an hour and a half from our RV park by 10am. By the time we finished breakfast and were ready to load up the car with maps, snacks, Trina and her diaper bag it was raining. Looked like we got the first bad day!
Arrived at Carol's office on time while the rain had already stopped about half an hour into our trip.
Carol is one interesting lady. Her family owned some oil fields in Bakersfield,CA and after she sold her share she moved here to Ohio. She got into farming and land development and real estate. She is an animal lover and shares her farm with 10 dogs, 100 cats, a herd of goats and a 700 lbs pig who lives in the garage. Those are all stray animals she takes in or people bring to her or she finds in abandoned or repossessed homes. She said her pig eats 4 gallon of dog food every day and she goes through over 800 cans of "Fancy Feast" cat food per month. Woah!
Anyway we brought her some print outs of houses we wanted to see. She added a few of her search after messing with her non cooperating computer for an hour or so. Then she was hungry and since it is custom for Ohio Realtors to invite their buyers to lunch we had to go and try the food at this awesome BBQ place.
So finally we started out to look at houses who were all about 45 min. apart. Number 1 sucked, number 2 ditto, number 3 the same and then the next one was one we wanted to see since we printed it out in October at home.
WOW,WOW,WOW! An old farm house, 2575 sqft (wished it would be a bit bigger) on 28 acres with a big metal (wished it would be wood but more sturdy) barn with 12 stalls, hay loft, 2 foaling pens, tack room and much more. There is also a detached 2 car garage. But oh the house. It is this funky painted old style farm house built in 1900 but still with 3 full nice baths, old, old beautiful wood floors, some painted and all those built in cabinets. Oh my, I love this house! And guess what, David loves it too and of course the barn and acreage. It is on a hill so not all the land is usable and some is also wooded. But enough for some goats and a couple of Alpacas. And it is priced that we still have a bit of money left to do some upgrading and buy a tractor! Yeah people, we got our self a farm.
Meanwhile it got late and we had one more house we decided to see since it looked promising too. So raced there and got a glimpse of it just before dark and .....dang it another WOW house. Also old farm house with 33 acres, a bit larger then the last one and a detached garage with a huge finished room on top. Also old wood floors, funky kitchen and a load of old fashioned built ins. It got dark and we couldn't real check it out totally so we will go back tomorrow and spend an hour on each house looking and checking. The homes are both vacant and ready to move in. Oh what am I going to do??? It will be difficult to make a decision but we will buy one of them for sure. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!!!
Oh by the way the properties are both belonging to Coshocton, a town of 11000 people and picture book beautiful. Will let you know tomorrow where we stand!

November 26, 2009 HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Amish buggies traffic, notice 2 more buggies way back

driving up to a buggy

yummy food

Dan's parents

Took it slow this morning since we didn't have any realtor appointments. Left the RV around 10am to arrive at Dan's sisters house at 11am. What a gaggle of people we met. Linda (Dan's sister) has 5 kids from age 9 to 23, then there was Dan's son age 16 and a couple of cousins and a boyfriend and husband of the kids. That made 10 young ones and 3 dogs and 6 adults. You see we oldies were heavy outnumbered and there was a meddle of activity. Lot's of fun. And the food was loading down the kitchen counters with everything Thanksgiving possible could give. So ate and ate and ate and just had a good time. We were shown the wedding album of the oldest daughter and what a wedding it must have been. The daughter and also her new husband are big bow hunters and the whole wedding party was dressed with camouflage accessories, the brides maids all holding bows instead of flowers and the grooms men wore camouflage cumber bands and ties and also holding bows. WOW,Wow! Please no comments on this from city folks, Dan might be reading this.
After we said our good byes and thank yous we decided to go on a little drive down to the area I admired so much yesterday though it was night. I was right, Millersburg and Berlin just blew my socks of. The towns are packed with antique stores and Swiss, German and Amish restaurants and food stores. Well as I said, this is where we are going to live, period! Drove back to our RV park and passed by this unbelievable beautiful huge Swiss chalet which used to be a restaurant and the worlds biggest clock shop (as it said on a bill board) but was for sale now. Next door is a huge Swiss cheese factory. Well friends, I WILL call tomorrow and ask for the sale price though it is probably out of our price range!
Will watch TV tonight after a nice shower in this luxury resort here where the showers have heated floors!
Hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

November 25, 2009

Wow, I found where I want to live. This is final. I found little haven. After checking in last night I roamed the reception area at the RV park and pulled about a dozen cards out of the visitors brochure rack all promising Swiss food, German food Amish food, Swiss farms, German farms and yes, Amish farms to visit. Well we arrived in the American Switzerland. When we started to talk about moving to the Midwest I wanted to move to Wisconsin because of the Swiss population there. Well guess what, here in Sugar Creek is another Swiss population.

We looked at 5 houses today including the house I wanted to see since we left San Diego. A brick mansion built in 1825 with 20 acres. Oh I want that house so bad but darn it, David doesn't like the land that much. It is huge, over 4000 sqft with beautiful stained glass and painted gold ceilings with 24 carat gold decoration. Huge rooms and a big, big attic not even included in the square footage. Oh baby, i want it so bad! Trina loved it too, rolling in the wet grass and jumping around. I have never seen her moving that much. Well David doesn't want it so on we went. Saw a couple of other possibilities but no Wow's.
Then we drove in the dark back through Berlin which is one of those towns with those Swiss or German Restaurants and a store with all European food. Oh man, I can hardly wait to live here. No other place will do.
Came back to the RV park and I went to do the laundry. Again raided the brochure rack and found one for the Ohio Swiss Festival. It is in October and we will have to be there next year.
While driving back to the RV park Dan our friend who is house sitting for us our house in San Diego called and told us that his sister would be happy to have us for Thanksgiving dinner. Dan is from this neck of the woods and he called his sister to feed us. How nice! He emailed David a bunch of phone numbers including that of his best friend who also lives in this neighbor hood and Dan wants us to meet him. Well David called Dans sister to thank for the Thanksgiving invitation and dialed the wrong number. Since nobody answered at this number he left a message saying how much he appreciated the invitation for dinner. Later he called Dan back to confirm that he called his sister. I guess Dan checked with him the number and low and behold David invited himself to some stranger (Dan's friend) who probably was wondering who that nut is who want to come for Thanksgiving to his house just like the Family in "European Vacation"! After Dan explained to David that he was calling the wrong person David called the guy back who thanks god laughed it off and rubbed it in and made sure that when we are in his area (probably by Tuesday) to swing by.
Am on the net now and found 14 more properties in the neighbor hood to check out. We probably will leave Ohio though by end of next week. So friends, please cross your fingers and "druck da dumae" that we will find something. We decided otherwise to come back here and live in the motor home till we find something since this is the area i want to live. Please send some stronger good thoughts our way, just try harder, the last time it didn't work!
Happy Turkey Day to everybody. I am thankful that you are my friends and family and David and I are very fortunate to have you in our lives! I love you all!

November 24, 2009

The RV run out of water last night so was a bit of a headache to brush the teeth with bottled water and not being able to flush the toilet. Good that Walmart is open 24hrs so did make some use of their bathrooms. Soon we will show up on those "People at Walmart" emails wrapped in a robe or shopping in a nightie or pj.
Called Linda this morning to ask if she could give us the lock combo to the house so we could check it out a bit more. Wanted to take some pictures too. Also told her that we would go on further north east, the area we hadn't checked out but we had found a lot of homes on the Internet. We would look around some more and if we wouldn't find anything else return after the weekend to write an offer. We had still about 12 really good properties to look at and at this point we couldn't make up our mind which house to buy... the girl scout camp house or the river front house or this last country home. They all had something really unique about them but also something which could be better.
So went out to the property again and just admired the lake and the whole land. Took some pictures and then went back to our RV to hitch up the car and take off.
We followed Hwy 23 (just for Alan so you can follow our journey) north up to Columbus then west on the I-70 and then north again on the I-77. Once we changed onto the I-77 it was like driving through Switzerland. Hills and farms and cows. A lot of Amish farms. Little towns with names like "Schoenbrunn" and "Gnadenhuette"! This is were i want to live. I found this nice RV park on the net, year round open and ahh... what a luxury, with cable TV, WiFi, indoor pool, showers with heated floors and a laundromat. Outside the registration office was a Amish buggy parked and we glimpse 2 Amish women using the washers and driers. Silly, they don't have electric in their houses and then go to the laundromat. Maybe they tell their husbands when they come home, how hard the worked to wash the laundry but secretly snack away to use the laundromat. Anyhow, Walmart just faded away and we were back in civilication with the water and electric and cable all hooked up. Driving up to the RV park we passed a couple dozends of Amish buggies, passed by a sign prommissing great food in Swiss Village (a town) and another turn off was the way to the original baby brie location. We will have to check it all out.
Got to go off and watch a movie. Am on TV withdrawl!

November 23, 2009

Got picked up by Linda, the realtor who showed us the properties yesterday. She had a bunch of print outs and we started driving. 1st, 2nd, 3rd all bummers. Then the 4th one was a hit. Beautiful 10 acres with an old house which will need some work like paint, flooring and trash out. The house is a repo and people just left so much junk in it. But it had a good structure, beautiful bevel cut widows and a huge, huge, I mean huge kitchen. There are so many cabinets one won't know what to do with it. The floor plan is a bit funny since they did some remodeling and came up with some weird rooms. But it was big enough to accommodate a bunch of visitors with a huge finished basement and a 2nd kitchen down there. A lot of work with cosmetic fix up but it was so inexpensive that there would be enough money to do some remodeling.
Then there was the huge barn were all our cars and the motor home would fit in and still be enough room for David to have working space.
Then there was also a livestock barn, smaller but with milking stands, separate stalls and a big hay loft. Attached were 2 fenced pastures just waiting for my goats and Alpacas.
But the icing on the cake was a short walk up the hill and then there is private 3 acre lake belonging to this property. Just incredible pretty. Unfortunately it is behind a dam so the lake is really above the house and you can't see it. But never less, a beautiful serene hideaway.
Then there are fruit trees, a garden spot and a heated green house. Everything a bit overgrown but nothing a good mower couldn't handle. A couple of huge black walnut trees complete the pictures. And this all about 8 miles away from Chillicothe a little town who has everything and is only about 1 hour from Cincinnati and 40 min from Columbus.
The house would probably take a month to rehab but would then be truly a piece of haven. We looked at more houses until Linda keeled about over from driving since all the properties were about 30 miles apart going south, west, north, east and anywhere in between. It was dark when Linda dropped us off at our favorite hang out and RV park, at Walmart. We told her that we would see her the next day around 2pm to write up an offer since she was to tired to do it today.

November 22, 2009

We decided this morning not to stick around Hillsboro but to move on to Chillicothe which is south of Columbus. Hillsboro is just to far away from bigger towns and itself is a small, small, village/ town. After unsuccessfully trying to get a hold of a Realtor who could show us the 3 properties in Chillicothe we just started rolling. We tried over and over again to talk to one of the agents but as we later learned, everybody is in church on Sunday morning.
Arrived in Chillicothe and finally received a return call from one of the agents. We hooked up with her in her office and started our tour. First house was so,so, 2nd was so,so but the 3rd house was amazing. Huge practically new brick house, and inside it was HUGE! The problem was that somehow water got into the basement and since it is a bank repo they turned the electricity off and the sump pumps didn't work. So the basement got flooded with 6 feet of water for months. Now just think, the whole basement is about 1000sqft and that all under water including electrical boxes, water heaters, propane heaters and everything a modern house has. Then the cement walls and wooden stairs started to wick the moister up and the wood floors in the house started buckling. It was pretty much a mess. Also the guy/owner who built the house just doctored some of the stuff, unfinished base boards, weird cutouts in the counter tops and strange unfinished spaces. But there are 5 bedrooms and each one had it's own full bath with those absolutely high tech showers which looked like space capsules fully automated with remote control. Weird. But it was a million dollar home now to have for $ 255'000. But one would have to put in at least 50 grand to fix everything up. David was ready to make a real low ball offer but man, I am scared of that place. Just to many unknowns because of the water damage. I worry that once you start fixing things up one would open a can of worms. We will sit on it for the rest of the weeks and continue to scout the country side. I love this part of Ohio because it looks like Switzerland with a lot of cattle and dairy farms and not just cornfields like in the north of Ohio. We are parked at Wallmart and the Realtor promised to have a few more properties to look at tomorrow.

November 21, 2009

Hitched up the car to the motor home and off we went again on the road. Today we drove all the way down to Hillsboro in the south, south east of Dayton. Actually the country side is a bit hilly here in contrast to the flat, flat north and center of Ohio. For my Swiss family remember our trip to Holland? Ohio is mostly just like that, flat as a plate. And all you can see are corn fields after corn field. A lot of the corn was still standing because they had a very wet October so the farmers hoped for a dry spell to have the corn dry on the stalk before cutting. The last few days we saw a lot of harvesting going on because it hasn't rained since we have arrived in Indiana and Ohio except a few sprinkles here and there. knock on wood but we sure had the greatest of luck with the weather. Today during the day we had a balmy 60 to 65.
Parked our motor home in a nice RV park with WiFi so are busy searching for houses to see tomorrow. We are worn out and hopefully by the end of next week have something picked out. if we can't top the river house or the girl scout property we will return next Sunday to make an offer on either of those properties. Will see. Hope we have more exiting properties to look at. We like the countryside here but it is a bit out of the way. I like the house to be closer to a bigger town. Will let you all know.
Had a wonderful time skyping with Michelle for almost an hour while cruising the highways. Then this evening Gabriel called and we chatted for a while. So am keeping everybody in the loop.

November 20, 2009

River house
River house
view to the river
Girlscout house
outdoor area
pond
Got up early this morning to jump into the car to head back to Defiance for a last try to find a house there. Our Realtor Michael had 3 more houses he wanted to show us before we are heading south. Well got on the road and 5 minutes later remembered that we left our cell phones at home. Turned the car around and ....I tell you it is really easy to go to Phil's house, straight ahead and at the T intersection we go right...but we had our head up our a.s and turned right before the T and got so stupidly lost that it took us a solid half hour to find our way back even being less then a mile from the house. Man, we sure are tired of driving and looking for directions. Thanks to our trusty GPS we finally got back, got our phones and went back on the road.
In Defiance our our Michael was waiting with a handful of print-outs and promised us some good properties. The first one was a flop, nothing either of us wanted. The 2nd one was more interesting and hot, hot, hot. A house with a girl scout camp attached. 10 acres with a 1 1/3acre pond/lake with a golf whole on a little island in the lake. A huge covered outdoor area attached to the house for grrrrrrrrrreat outdoor entertainment. A 1000sqft finished basement for a rec room or additional guest rooms. And a delightful old house with wood floors and an adorable 3 season sun room I could use as a studio. WOW. We were just about ready to make an offer but the price was a bit higher than we wanted. We could though make a lower offer, but Michael found out that the owner just about owed that much to the bank so had nothing extra they could lower the price for. So we went to the next property.
Old house, huge barn but trashy. Next property to small, to close to the road, not good! So on to the last of the bundle of print outs and...
WOW! An almost new house on 4 acres with a huge pond with a fountain in the middle and on the Maumee River. Huge river, with a dam about half a mile down streams so that it was more like a like in front of our property. Perfect for kayaking, water skiing, fishing and in winter ice skating! The front porch is halfway into the pond so you can also fish from the porch. Crazy. The house is pretty, but with a lot of dark burgundy walls and white carpet but it is so inexpensive that I could afford to rip all the carpets out (all pretty new though)and replace them with wood floors and have the whole house painted. There is a huge attached 2 car garage and a huge detached 2 car garage which also could be a barn. Then there is this sun room the lenght of the front overlooking the pond and river which would be my studio. Then over the garage is this huge room which could be made into 2 additional guest rooms in addition to the 3 existing bedrooms. The house is a bit to new for me but I think that I could countryfy it enough to make it homey. WOW, WOW, WOW!
So we went all to this cool diner to have late lunch and to brainstorm. Which one, the girl scout house or the river house??? I had to see the girl scout house again. So we went back. Oh my, I can't make up my mind. Michael the Realtor was already late to go to a fundraiser dinner and David and I still wanted to see some properties south so we decided that we would take off tomorrow to go south. Michael was going on vacation for a week leaving tomorrow. So we will cruise the south for a week and if we can't find anything else we will return the Sunday after Thanksgiving to Defiance and make an offer on the river house. Yeah!

November 19, 2009

a doggy wellcome
farm life
David's cousin Paul and his wife Yvonne

OH NO, WE DID "N O T" GET THE HOUSE! Phone rang at 9am and the Realtor shared the bad news. David was really upset but for some reason it didn't hit me that hard as I thought. Yes I wanted that house but I feel that there must be a reason why we didn't get it and that there is one out there which will be perfect for us. The only thing I am upset about is that we have to continue to look instead being able to return to San Diego. I am tired of all the driving and the weather forecast is predicting snow by the end of next week.
So anyway, we went to Port Clinton on Lake Eerie where David's cousin ones removed was living. I really didn't feel like visiting today but just wanted to work on finding a house. Drove into the drive way of the cousin and saw this picture book farmer on a tractor pulling in. Well it was Paul our relative. I tell you if there is ever a typical farmer, he was it. Actually he was a professional fisherman and just looked so cute with a golden retriever mix jumping around his legs. Tall, about 6'4" and rugged looking. He invited us in and here was this sprig of a small women even a few inches shorter as me and lively as a bouncing ball. We got ushered into the living room, and the chatting started. Time just flew and we hit it off so great. I LOVE those people. After coffee and cake and a lot of laughing and cuddling our dogs we said our good byes feeling as we would have known them all our life. The feeling was mutual as we were told. I am so glad we went to see them. I can hardly wait for many more returns. So will tomorrow go and look at more houses, phew!

November 18, 2009

Phil and Royce at Panera Bread

Had a nice warm shower then we all went out to Panera Bread for breakfast. Good call on Royce since Panera is my absolute favorite place for breakfast or really anytime. Unfortunately there is none around our house in San Diego and I am on constant withdraw for goooooooooooooood bread. We were lucky because today was the 10year anniversary for Panera and every customer got free coffee and a free baguette.
So the day started out real good. We hoped for continuation.
Royce then went back to the University and Phil wanted to show us a bit the area and also his beloved ultralight. We drove to this regional airport where the boys were again discussing all the angles of flying, engines, motors, wind and......! Trina and I enjoyed outside the sun which then moved behind clouds and a few drops started falling soon after. On we drove through a town called Ada where a friend of his recommended a Realtor for that country side.
I tell you, I don't mind slower speed in Ohio but the agent who greeted us at this Century 21 was pure krypton! We told him what we were looking for and he handed us a booklet and told us to look in it if we could find something we liked. Man, did this guy newer heard of the Multiple Listing Realtors are searching for the clients and then give them print outs? Here we all were standing in this office with a booklet in our hands (he never asked us to sit down) and paging through the magazine and this other agent working on a computer and not helping either. Finally the broker walked in and actually asked the agent on the computer to give us some print outs about properties we might like. Sheeeeeeeesh, whats wrong with those people? It didn't look like business was booming exactly either!!!
So drove by one of the properties on the way back to Phil's lake house. We only drove by but wow, it sure looked like a close 2nd. A lot less land, only about 6 acres but what a barn. Of course we would have to see it inside but the outside looked god. But we were still waiting till 3pm for Fannie Mae.
So went back to our motor home, said our good byes and thank yous to Royce and Phil and on we rolled again back to Phil's dome house close to Toledo were he let us park the motor home and spend another night so we can drive into Toledo tomorrow to visit with a cousin of David's mom. Meanwhile 3pm came and went and NO phone call. We are not to worried because typically banks do not reply that fast even as our Realtor said they would in this part of the country. We will give it a couple more days befor we start to worry.
So spent the evening watching TV which we hadn't done since we left home because our TV in the motor home is analog and we haven't bothered buying an adaptor yet.