Second Happiest Day of 2008

Today was the second day of 2008. We closed on our wonderful acreage at 11:15 this morning. O happy day! We paid our money, signed the papers, and received the key.

Dave had to work at noon, so the rest of us (me, Conrad, Bethany, Luna and Dallin) went out to the property. None of the others had seen the inside of the house before.

Alas, on the way there, Bethany's car stopped and would not go again. We had to arrange to have it taken to a garage. Then we all squished into our car (with skinny Conrad between the two kids in car seats) and proceeded to the property.

We were disappointed that Dave couldn't be there for our first time in the house as the real owners.

Apparently the house was disappointed too, because it wouldn't let us in. No kidding. The key would only turn part way and the front door would not budge, even when persuaded by my hefty heinie. Acch. We all took turns trying, as people do, and then went around to the back.

The back garage door opened with no problem. Yea! But the knob to the door going into the house was broken. We all took turns trying to pick the lock with a variety of objects found in the garage. When that didn't work, Bethany took the pins out of the hinges. Great, we thought. But alas, the door was fitted firmly into the frame and could not be budged. We took turns trying to pry it off the hinges. None worked. We trudged to the car with the kids so they would be warmer. (Outside temperature was 23 degrees F.)

I called the realtor. He said he had used the key just two weeks before to get in and it worked just fine. He called one of the daughters of the former owners and she came with her copies of the keys. She tried the front door. It did exactly the same thing for her as it did for us. Ah, she said, let's try the back doors (they had storm doors that were all locked tight). She opened the garage door and went through all the things we had tried. She called her husband, who suggested she try all the things we had tried.

At long last, we gave up and left. I won't get to go inside my new house until next year.

On the way home, we feared we would run out of gas, as I forgot to fill up before leaving Norfolk. The estimated distance said zero, but we did make it to Battle Creek and got gas. So you see, not everything that could go wrong did.