I was scheduled to depart from Indiana on Thursday in the late morning. Wednesday was spent loading up the second U-Haul (yes, you read that right) by me, my dad, and two of my nephews helped for an hour or so. During the packing process, I got a call from Chris, who demanded my undivided attention. He proceeded to tell me that the appraisal for the Tennessee house had not been submitted yet. And we were to close on Friday morning. Huh? The last thing I had heard from the mortgage company was that they had everything they needed and we were good to go.
Apparently the appraiser had called to ask for directions to the house the Friday before Memorial Day, but failed to follow through. We found out later that the appraiser is an older gentleman who does not know how to use his computer software, so he had to wait for his assistant to return from vacation before the appraisal could be sent. And once said assistant had returned, there was an issue with their system crashing. After many frantic phone calls escalating the issue, we found out that as long as it was in by Thursday morning we should be able to close on time. Whew! Or so we thought.
Thursday morning came and we had no news. We had calls in to the appraiser, our realtor, the processing manager, etc., and yet we could not get a firm answer out of anyone. I decided I would continue as planned, but wait to leave until I heard for sure whether or not we would be closing. There was still quite a bit of packing to do at my parents' house, so I was just working away, waiting to hear. My plan was to take the pets with me if the closing was still going to happen, so that my parents could just bring the kids.
Thursday afternoon, we found out that the appraisal was finally submitted. A few hours later, we found out that the appraiser could not find a specific document detailing the maintenance of the private road that leads up to our driveway. Amazingly, someone from the title company found the elusive document and sent it to our realtor. Whew? Not yet.
The underwriter who was handling our case had an issue with the way that this particular document was worded, but could not get a manager's assistance because all of the managers had already gone home for the evening. Since the prospect of closing on Friday was still up in the air, I decided to go ahead and go on down to TN with the U-Haul, and my parents offered to bring the kids AND the pets with them, driving both of our minivans down.
So I left at 7:00pm for Tennessee. I arrived at 2:00am on Friday (which was, incidentally, my brithday). I pretty much collapsed into bed right after I got there. Chris got called into work at 4:3oam (which is VERY rare), and didn't get back until 10:30am. At that point there was still some question about the document regarding the private road. Our realtor called his lawyer to look it over. The agony of waiting! Once the lawyer sent a letter stating that this document is valid and complete, we discovered that there might be an issue with getting the funding on time.
Around 1:30pm, we found out that all of the paperwork got pushed through (after many hours of many people working very hard to accomplish it all). Hallelujah! We were overjoyed that we were going to get our house after all. But then...after trying everything he knew how, our realtor had to break the news that there was no one available from the title company to perform the closing for us. After everything! The closing had to be postponed until Monday afternoon. Chris had already made the changes for the refrigerator delivery, the U-Haul, and the moving guys. But the utilities went through as planned. At least there is still water and electricity!
I decided to go ahead and drive back up to Lafayette in a rental car so I could be there to help out with the kids. I would drive my parents' van with the pets on Sunday, and they would come on Monday. But we found out that the rental car prices were through the roof ($117 per day!), so that plan was tossed aside.
So I've been here in Tennessee, living in Chris' room. It has been so strange not having a million things to do and not having my kids around. I am usually begging for a break from them, and yet when I found out that I was going to be without them until Tuesday, I was not prepared. I have missed them terribly! I truly cannot imagine how hard it has been for Chris, being away from his babies for so very, very long. We have taken advantage of being unfettered though - we have enjoyed leisurely shopping trips, meals out without worrying about time limitations or picky palates, and I have been able to nap when I felt like it. And we even went to the movies last night!
Despite all of the kid-less fun, I am ready for them to be here (but not nearly as much as Chris is!). Tomorrow, God willing, we will be closing on our new home. The rest of the day will be devoted to loading and unloading trucks and getting as much stuff done as humanly possible before we pass out from exhaustion. Oh, and that is when Chris is not working, of course. He already has a morning call, and a trip to Chattanooga scheduled for tomorrow evening (one of the reasons we thought it would be best for the kids' arrival to be delayed). He has been working a ton since I've been here - I think he had the busiest work weekend he's seen since moving here.
So that is the latest. Hopefully more interesting posts will be arriving soon - including fun things such as pictures, videos, and entertaining topics.
