And we're off

We finished moving everything that we possible could move into our new place tonight. My body is sore and my feet are throbbing. I feel like I did when I ran the marathon. (BTW, congrats Bri!) Huge thanks to my mom who was by our side the whole time cleaning like a mad woman. If you've ever wondered why I like cleaning or like things to be clean, I get it from my mom. Also thanks to in-laws who brought good food over and kept encouraging us on! For our dear friends, Simon Lee, Gordon and Amy Leung, Suemy and Chae Cho who came in waves to provide the muscle and the sanity. And my sis and her boyfriend Mike.

So our marriage is still intact even though we had a couple of spouts here and there. (As you know, I'm a little demanding.) Note to self, save enough money to hire movers to keep from fighting.

[y] will be hosting some parties soon. It was after I moved into our townhome, all parties ceased because we simply didn't have the room. We feel blessed to have our home, and we hope that we will be able to bless others with it.

As promised . . . mortgages.
Finding financing for your home is a hair pulling event. There's so many banks out there and you have to dig through so many websites, and make calls in order to find their rates. My first advice, check with your personal bank that you have. Bank of America, our bank, didn't necessarily provide the lowest rate for us, BUT, they didn't have any additional lenders fees for closing. (This is usually a large amount for other lenders.) They also provided us with an additional $250 for closing. So basically what you want to do to compare rates it to look at the APR, the lower the better. To learn more about mortgages and the going rates out there, check out Bankrate.com

vday and more...

[y] i finally have time to post about some exciting stuff after an exhausting week of making 2 trips to dallas in less than 5 days and going to 6 furniture stores in 5 hours from north houston to downtown to west houston!

first off, gordo was so sweet to order a cookie bouquet for me on valentines day. i LOVE iced thick soft sugar cookies. luckily he got me cookies instead of flowers too, because i had to fly out to dallas 2 hours later and i wouldn't have been able to enjoy my flowers...but i did enjoy a cookie on the plane =)

and now, pictures of our new house! it's still empty...but our official move-in date is feb. 23-24. if you're free, let us know if you can help out! the painting is all done...just need to install the new carpet and we're good to go! here are some preview pictures of the new house!

the dining room

the living room

the kitchen...yes, i had to have green walls in the new house too =)

Crazy in Love by Switchfoot

Best of both worlds. sweetness.
Switchfoot covers Beyonce's Crazy in Love.

So everyone staying warm in this cold weather?

trinity magazine

[y] for my trinity friends who went to my wedding and still receive the Trinity quarterly magazine, look at page 62!!

just sign on the dotted line...

[y] and you might be asking why g posted about shopping for electricity providers and mortgages. well, this past wednesday, we closed on our very first house together! g and i are super excited...we finally have a place that we can call 'ours'. g didn't really consider my condo 'ours' and when g moved in, we realized that my condo wasn't big enough for all of our stuff. we went back and forth about buying a house, but we finally decided to go for it! the house is in shadowlake and we're probably moving in mid-february. we'll post pictures soon and send out updates with our new address!

New Deals

[g]
Electricity Company
Boy, I really don't understand the deregulation of power. I spent the last 5 hours comparing different plans and companies. Googled companies and wanted to see customer satisfaction. We finally settled on Spark Energy. We didn't like Gexa, because of bad customer service. Y would say horrible customer service, her blood pressure rose everytime she called them to complain about something. Spark, the pros: no monthly service fee, no deposit (depending on your credit), setup automatic payment with your credit card, online billing, and the last 3 months bills are online. They have different plans, we chose the monthly plan for now so if we had to switch, we don't have to pay a termination fee. But they have plans where you can lock your price for a whole year. Electricity prices are estimated to go up about 2% in 2007. So, you decide. Sign up for Spark Energy.

Savings Account
Everyone tells you to build your little nest egg for emergencies. But why just let it sit there? We have a savings account with ING DIRECT. You earn 4.5% interest and it's tied to MY banks checking account. That's right, you don't need to sign up with a checking account with them. It took about 10 min to sign up for. And if you sign up through one of these links, you get $25 bonus! They also have a cool website Planet Orange to teach your kids about saving and spending. There might be other banks that provide a little bit higher interest rates, but Ing Direct has been around awhile and the account is FDIC insured.

1) Sign me up and get $25 bonus! - used!
2) Sign me up and get $25 bonus!
3) Sign me up and get $25 bonus!
4) Sign me up and get $25 bonus!
5) Sign me up and get $25 bonus!
6) Sign me up and get $25 bonus!

Coming soon . . . my recommendations on mortgages and alarm systems.