Update: The new house

We finished our new home, Vision Quest, and we moved in. We closed on the house June 30, although it still wasn't finished. Normally, a house must qualify for a Certificate of Occupancy by meeting all the local codes and standards, and you can't get a final appraisal or mortgage without one. However, since we are out in the middle of nowhere, there were no codes and standards to follow (our builder didn't even have to get a building permit!). And since there were no codes and standards to worry about, there was no Certificate of Occupancy to obtain, which meant that the appraiser had to do his job on an unfinished house.

We chose to go ahead with the closing because June 30 was the deadline for obtaining the large home-buyer's tax credit (even though it was later extended). So, we got the closing and signed the motgage on June 30, and finally moved in on August 7. The house is still not completely finished, as our builder is taking care of our little list of doo-dads to be taken care of, but he's pretty close. He still has to do a couple of things, like attach a towel bar, attach a mirror, attach two door knockers, etc. Little things like that.

And we're still in the process of moving stuff in a little bit at a time (from our storage unit and the old estate home), but we're mostly finished with that, too.

The house itself is incredibly gorgeous, and we're hundreds of acres away from our nearest neighbors. It is perfect. This morning, I walked 2/3 of a mile to get my newspaper and then back again - all along a country road in the dark. When I left for work, I drove around a pond and through a pasture and stand of pine trees. When I got home from work, I watched my wife slip and fall in the pond. She laughed all the way back to the house, riding in the bed of the pickup truck since she was wet and covered in mud. She took off her clothes on the front porch and I threw them in the washer.

Life is wonderful.