The Mullens of Murphy Circle

It's hard to write this post and not insert "YAY" into every other sentence, but that's definitely how we feel. YAY! We bought a new house!

Kevin and I first started looking at houses in the spring, and we were all over the map. We didn't know if we wanted North Shore, South Shore, Western Suburbs, etc. We didn't know if we wanted a Cape, a Colonial, a Victorian, or what. All we knew was we wanted a yard and a driveway and not to be renting any longer.

Househunting is very time-consuming. Kevin and I spent lots of weekends going to open houses and trying to educate ourselves on what to be looking for. I did learn that I really didn't want a Cape style home because the footprint of the house is almost always the same, and they weren't big enough for what I wanted. We also knew we didn't want a Ranch because we wanted two stories. I love Victorians, but many of them were either prohibitively expensive or needed extensive work. We kept an open mind on things, but in the back of my mind I knew I was looking for a Colonial.

Brookline is a beautiful town and we miss it a lot. But it was never an option to buy a house there because we aren't millionaires. We waited until Em graduated from high school before buying so that she could stay in that school district (which is one of the best in the state). Nearly all the towns surrounding Boston are also very expensive (or very seedy), so we knew we'd have to look a little further out. Both of us grew up in areas where we had to drive to get anywhere, so this wasn't a huge problem for us. But we both also hate traffic so certain areas got ruled out that way. South Shore? Ugh. The highway is a parking lot. North Shore is not much better. The Western suburbs started looking better and better.

Kevin went to Spain this summer and I was supposed to continue looking at houses, but that plan fell apart. For one, Em had a million things going on -- prom, graduation, college stuff -- that filled up our weekends. But the other thing is that I wanted to find our house with Kevin. I didn't want to find it alone. Kevin came home on July 6th, we had an appointment with the realtor on July 9th, and the 4th house he showed us was the one we fell in love with. It had an open house two days later and we went to see it again, this time with Emily as well. We put in a written offer two days later. The offer was a little low -- I was 80% certain it would be turned down. It wasn't. They chose us! Or maybe the house chose us. This house just feels right. It feels like home.

The rest of the summer was a whirlwind of packing, home inspection, getting Em to college, and then we closed on our house. The closing was 1 week after moving Emily to North Carolina. I was still nervous up until the day of the closing that somehow the deal would fall through, but it didn't. We moved in the very next day.

Our new house is big (still a little too big for us), but I think that means we just need to have visitors come spend time with us more often. We can finally repay our friends and family for their generosity and host weekend sleepovers and cookouts. We can't wait for you all to come and visit us!

Emily Ann, College Student

To say that I am a little behind in my blogging updates would be an understatement. In my defense, this has been maybe the busiest summer of my life. We've had a LOT going on!

At any rate, I wanted to post an update about Emily since she is off to school now. I miss her terribly. I know she is having a great time which is a huge relief to me (I was also afraid she might be really homesick). We moved her down to college the 3rd week of August -- a loooong drive to North Carolina, but we broke it up by stopping at Sandy & Bob's on the way down and back which made the trip much easier to do. When we got to North Carolina we spent the night at Scott and Rachel's, and then Em, Kevin, and I got up early on Friday morning to meet up with Em's dad in Cary and then drive out to Greenville. It's an easy drive, didn't really even need the GPS we'd borrowed from Scott (although it did come in quite handy on our 2 trips to Target in Greenville). Em's dorm is not the prettiest on the outside, but inside is great. Her room is much bigger than I (and she) expected. They have a lot of storage as well which is good. My dorm room in college was a good size, but I saw some that were teeny, so I think she totally lucked out.

We were at ECU for a few hours before Tori, Em's roommate, and her family arrived. We had actually gotten Emily all unpacked and mostly settled in by then, and shortly afterwards Em was ready for us to leave. I couldn't believe how confident she was, and comfortable about us leaving. I think she really was eager to get started on the next phase of her life. I did pretty well all day, no tears in front of her, although when she was first signing into her dorm and getting her keys I got all choked up and had to turn away and blink back the tears. I know she would have been mortified if I cried in front of people.

When we left Kevin and I drove around the campus a little bit -- it really is a beautiful school. I waited a little while before texting Emily that I loved her and already missed her. We've kept in pretty good touch since she's been gone. I think we touch base almost every day either on the phone, texting, or emailing. Still, I'll be happy to have her home for Columbus Day weekend and be able to see that freckle face in person.