The New House

I feel like this is a little early because this isn't technically our house yet and you never know what could happen between now and closing. I only have a picture of the outside right now so once we get moved in I will post more pictures. Here are some of the house features:

Downstairs:
Living room, large kitchen with island, non-formal dining room (a.k.a. eat in kitchen), family room, sun room, laundry room, and half bath. There is also a two-car garage which is worth mentioning here because a lot of the houses we looked at only had a one-car garage or no garage at all. It seems to be fairly common in Augusta or maybe Georgia as a whole?

Upstairs:
Master suite includes the bedroom, sitting room, 2 walk-in closets and huge master bath. There are three additional bedrooms and one full bath.

The house was built in 2006 and has approximately 2,922 (heated) sq. feet. The yard is small being less than a quarter of an acre but it's a decent amount for us and enough for me to have a garden on the side of the house and still have plenty of grassy area. I guess it means less yard work and landscaping, right?

This house was a foreclosure and the people who lived in it before took anything they could including vanity mirrors, faucets, door locks, dishwasher, stove and microwave, light fixtures, and even the kitchen sink. They did leave the garbage disposal for us though. It's dirty inside and smells like animals that were never bathed. We'll have some work to do but it was a very good price for what we are getting and it will be fun to make it our own when we paint and put in new carpet, hardwood floors, tile, kitchen counter-tops, etc. Again, I will post pictures of before and after.

This leads me to my question for anyone who would care to share an opinion on the matter. The stairs leading to the second story begin in the entry-way. We plan on doing hardwood floors in the entry-way and Jaren wants to include the stairs. It would look beautiful to have the stairs be hardwood as well but I am very reluctant. I worry that having young children one day that are learning to go up and down the stairs could be more dangerous with hardwood than carpet. I would be as responsible a mother as possible employing baby gates and whatnot but even when they are a little older they can be careless. If they fall down some stairs, hardwood will hurt a lot more than carpet. Also, the hardwood would be easier to slip on. Am I just being overly worried again? Even as an adult I've got going down the stairs too fast and ended up sliding down a few on my rear. So my question to all, would you opt for the better looking hardwood stairs or would you go with carpet that might be less hazardous? Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated. Thanks!

Kind of Crazy

This is about as exciting as it gets here in Sparta. Read on if you care to.



Yesterday afternoon around 3:00 pm I heard sirens, lots of sirens zooming down the highway in front of our house. I hadn't really heard that many at one time before so I thought there must have been a serious accident. I didn't even bother to look down the road or anything. I've heard sirens before so I didn't think much of it.

At 6:30 pm I left my house to go take Jaren some dinner at work. There were still police cars outside and they were blocking the highway. When I returned home they were still there except this time I couldn't even get to my normal turn. I had to take an earlier turn and drive through another neighborhood because the highway was blocked off. When Jaren came home at 11:00 pm they were still there! I found out the reason why...

At about 3:00 pm there was a semi-truck driving erratically through the area. Police tried to pull him over but he refused to stop and instead led them on a 23 mile chase through little old Sparta, sideswiping a dump truck in the process. They used tire spikes to get him to stop. Even after he stopped, it was over an hour before they could get him out of the cab. When he finally got out he would not obey officials' commands and was shot with bean bags and non-lethal plastic rounds. In the initial conversation with authorities the driver was asked if there was a bomb inside the truck to which the driver responded that there was. A bomb-sniffing dog was alerted to something inside so the Bomb Squad was called in. The FBI was also there to assist local officials. Meanwhile homes along the highway were evacuated and the highway was closed in that area. In the full search of the truck nothing was found but energy drinks.

The man was treated for minor injuries before being taken to the Monroe County Jail where he was questioned by federal authorities. He did not speak English but spoke an Indian dialect of Punjabi. An interpreter was called in from Fort McCoy to assist in questioning the man. When Federal agent asked him to confirm that there were explosives in the cargo he refused to do so and went on to say he didn't remember making such a claim in an earlier conversation. It is possible he didn't understand them. There is no proof that this was intended to be a Terrorist attack.

The man picked up his cargo of energy drinks in the Twin Cities (St Paul/Minneapolis, MN) and was supposed to be heading back to Canada where he was from but got lost, heading East instead of North. He had turned back around toward Minnesota when reports of his erratic driving came in. He is being held on suspicion of felony fleeing and reckless endangerment.

Like I said, this is about as exciting as it gets here in Sparta. How many of you have had police cars blocking your road for over 8 hours with homes evacuated just down the street from you?

Our Next Move

We have known for a few weeks where we will be moving next when Jaren received a new job offer. I didn't want to make it public knowledge until it felt real to me. Well, two weekends ago we made a very last minute trip to the location of his new job to search for a house. After making an offer, having it accepted, signing a purchase contract and going through the steps to complete a home loan, I think it feels pretty real now. So our new home will be in...

GROVETOWN, GEORGIA

This little town is about 9 miles slightly south and west of Augusta, GA. Jaren will be working as a Civilian Contracting Specialist at Ft. Gordon which is about 6 miles southwest of Augusta. The distance from the home we are purchasing to the closest gate at Fort Gordon is less than 4 miles. We are VERY excited to be moving there! We will be in Georgia for at least 3 years but it may be longer depending on how much we like it and how badly we want to move closer to family. Our first impression of the area is that it is gorgeous! We are plenty close to shopping areas so I won't have to drive 30 minutes to get to a mall...or anything other than Walmart or Piggly Wiggly. Atlanta is about a 2 hour drive west and the coast is approximately 3 hours to the east.

We did have a chance to attend the ward we would be in. It looked liked two-thirds of the ward were couples our age with 2-4 kids. It's exciting to be moving to a ward with more couples our age, even if we don't quite fit in without being part of the parents club. I will post about the house we are buying when we can officially call it ours.

Here are a few pictures I found online of Augusta:


Augusta is located next the the Savannah River


The Riverwalk Amphitheater looking at the Savannah River


James Brown Blvd

A few facts about our closest major city:
- Augusta is the second oldest and second largest city in Georgia.
- Augusta was once the second largest inland cotton exchange in the world and has the second largest state-run welcome center in America.
- Augusta’s official nickname is “The Garden City.”
- Augusta is host to The Masters, the most prestigious golf tournament of the PGA tour.
- The city is also host to the Augusta Futurity, the largest cutting horse event east of the Mississippi.

As we were driving around looking at endless houses and housing developments, we came across this speed limit sign. I couldn't resist snapping a picture to post on my blog. Does anyone else have such a unique speed limit in their area?