Here we go!

Sara posted some great photos a few days ago of the property we were hoping to break ground on.

We've been extremely excited as we've worked through the design and the specifics of our house plan with our builder TJB. (www.tjbhomes.com). After considering a handful of different lots within the Aspen Bay development in the Lakes of Blaine, TJB came back to us and offered up the same house on the cul-de-sac lot you see in the photos from Sara's earlier post.

For us, it is really cool to be able to see the empty lot, the neighboring homes and be able to picture the home we've been designing situated right there on the land you see vacant.

Thursday night, we met with TJB to go through the edits we've made to the spec book, and discuss how the home would be situated on this particular lot.

At the end of that meeting, we signed a purchase agreement!!!

The lot Sara photographed is. . . ours!

We are very excited about the next steps, and the many decisions that are quickly coming. The first big decision was to decide exactly how the home will be situated on the lot. We rotated the house a little bit from where they initially positioned it to get a little better view of the lake across the street. We didn't rotate the home quite as much as we initially thought we were going to, but the end result is something the builder seems to like better than what they proposed to us initially.

By tomorrow afternoon, the lot will be fully staked out on the property, and TJB will be off to the races (racing, of course, methodically and with great care).

When we were there this evening we had the opportunity to meet (once again for Sara), the immediate next door neighbors. Along with them, a neighbor two houses further down was also there. First impressions are always important, and our first impression of the neighbors makes us enthusiastic about the people we will be living near starting later next year. They were very friendly, and seemed excited that the empty lot would soon be occupied by us. The next door neighbor coaches his young kids' hockey team, which is an added bonus.

This week will be permitting, surveying and other preliminary issues before they can start construction. I'm excited to post some pictures in the next couple days of the land staked out with the outline of our home.

Stay tuned. . .