WHAT A RIDE!!!

YES! We are still here! We have been consumed by the home buying roller coaster that we have been riding since we put our first offer in on Valentines Day, 2011.
Long story short, banks suck, and they've been stalling this process, which took little more than 2 weeks to actually close.
Want the long story? Here ya' go...Bank of America (BoA) was the primary lender for the seller, who bought the house for $350,000 in 2007, and Wells Fargo (WF) was the lender for the second mortgage of around $50,000. The house was worth $400,000 at some point! The guy defaulted (after a divorce) in August 2010, and the house sat empty for 6 months before we saw it. The pool was clear, but lots of leave and such on the bottom, the yard was a mess, but Mara loved the house. We put an offer in on VD Day (:P) and then waited for nearly 3 months before we heard anything back from the banks.
In the meantime I started taking care of the pool. Our realtors were great and had the water and power put in their names so we could run the pump and get it cleaned up. Everyone thought the sale was right around the corner... The pool ended up being a disaster. Nothing structural, just dirty! There was a HUGE algae problem, and the organic material from the leaves wasn't helping. We drained the pool and refilled it with clean water, then fought algae for the next couple months. In this interim Mara became a D.O., I had a birthday, and our lease ran out on our apartment so we were renting week-to-week for an obscene amount of money...it's only going to be a few more weeks, right?!?!
Wrong. We closed, once on the house on July 11th...then got an e-mail right in the middle of signing documents.  It stated that the banks could not agree on the monies doe to them at closing...grrr...  The way it usually works is the 2nd mortgage (WF) get's $3,000, and the primary (BofA) gets the rest.  Kind of a "you shouldn't have given this guy any more money" to the 2nd lender.  WF wanted $5,100 instead of the $3,000, essentially 10% of the defaulted 2nd mortgage.  BofA said "No".  We talked it over, and we said we would pay the $2,100 to close this deal out.  WF said, fine, but it has to say "$5,100" on the paperwork...BofA said it had to say "$3,000".  Then the stalemate began.  The two banks were having a pissing contest, and essentially holding our house hostage.

Then the next stage of our saga began...  Our apartment complex didn't like us renting for an indefinite amount of time, and we sure as hell didn't like paying $400/week to stay there, so we moved out...but where?  Heather & John offered, but Rohan's daycare was about 30min past downtown (where we were both going to be), so it would have been a hassle that way.  We ended up crashing at our friend Jeanette's place.  Single, lives in a 3br home, and close to the house we are trying to buy.  She was such an awesome host!!!  She made a little bed for Rohan out of a futon mattress, and took us, our dogs, and a rambunctious 2 1/2 year old in without blinking an eye. Truely a great person in every sense. Thank you SO much Jeanette!
We stayed there for about 3 weeks before the good new came that WF finally accepted the $3,000...now we wait for paperwork...they had to get new HUD documents and new offer acceptance letters in.  Just in time for one guy to take a vacation and not tell anyone.  Our realtors, title company, and lender all tried contacting him, but he never responded (no "out of office rely" either).  Finally someone contact his supervisor, and within a week we had the new documents, and then we could start the closing process all over again.  Locking in rates (which went up almost a percent from when we started this deal!!!), credit checks, bank statements, the works.
FINALLY...we closed on the house, and we can start the next chapter in this saga...

For those interested, here are some pics of the house from when we toured it with my parents, back in MARCH! :)  We've already started some projects so look out for those pics.  We'll also be updating the last month or so of being "homeless"...:)