The birthplace of chocolate chip cookies

I realize, of course, that the next Terrence is pending and that this post is yet another post that is NOT a Terrence episode. However, I've been noticing that most of my blogs that I regularly read are not posting as much, either, so I don't feel as much of an obligation to post as nobody is on the Internet anyway.

I have news and big news.

The news is that the Hansens are famous.

The BIG news is that we made an offer on a house, and it was accepted. So we are stepping into the big, bad, money-sucking world of home ownership. I have been talking with numerous banks/mortgage companies and have been learning a ton about all that stuff.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago we realized that our stay in Boston was going to be a lot longer than originally planned, for at least the next 5 years. So I figured, if it's going to be that long, we should look into buying. We got the bug and checked out every real estate site possible, looking at listings. At first we were looking north of Boston, in our current area and a little further out. We went to a couple open houses and our balloon got a little deflated as we checked out these townhouses that seemed so nice in the pictures, but were so small and cramped when we there. Also, it's rare to get a little plot of land with your townhouse here. I was hoping to get a little parcel to plant a garden and a lawn and what-have-you.

So we set our expectations a little lower and kept looking. We expanded our search to include the southern suburbs, and we realized that those were a little more affordable. We picked out a few places to visit and our realtor lined up showings for last Saturday. On Friday evening, I decided to check out the listings one more time, and I saw (by divine revelation, I'm sure) our place, called up the realtor to make sure we could see it the next day.

I woke up at 6 am Saturday morning, totally excited to check out places. I had a feeling similar to the feeling I had on mornings where I was going on a big trip, going out with a hot chick, or going snowboarding: just excited to be up. We headed down to the first place, a single family home in Hanson. The first strike against it was the fact that they spelt Hanson wrong. It was brand new, in a new development with carefully manicured lawns (read: you pay a lot for the HOA dues). We didn't like the layout, however, all the rooms were perfectly square and the master bedroom was no bigger than the other bedrooms! Who doesn't want a huge master bedroom? Also, the lawn/land was not yours, you couldn't just do anything you wanted with them, although I'm sure a little flower bed would be okay.

We skipped on over to the next place, which was a HUGE condo/townhouse development in Abington. These places were really nice inside, with hardwood living rooms and kitchens, black granite counters, etc. They were at the very top of our budget, but they seemed desperate to sell, as there were so many empty units. I really liked the places, but it would still be like living in an apartment complex, with multiple neighbors. But it was definitely the best place we'd seen so far, and we were considering them pretty seriously. This one also had no land of our own.

That is until we saw the next place, the house of our wildest fantasies down the road in Whitman. Okay, maybe it wasn't THAT great of a house, but I didn't think I'd be able to get a place that great with our budget. It's a duplex, connected at the garages, so we don't have to share walls with the neighbors (unless you count the garage wall). It has an acre of land that we'll split down the middle. It's on a dead-end street, making it very quiet. It has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a HUGE kitchen with an island, a sizable living room, and a large unfinished basement. We also get to choose our own carpet for the upstairs and paint. The one thing we didn't like was the layout of the master bathroom, but hopefully we'll remodel that. Once we move in, we'll send much more pictures your way, but the only one I have so far is this, which doesn't really do it justice. We checked out the vacant right unit. The neighbors in the left unit were home and they were very outgoing and excited to have a young couple looking at the other unit. Since our unit wasn't completely finished, they let us walk around their place to see what it would be like after it was done, and I really liked it.

After a week of haggling, we got the price to come down just a bit, but not too much. Since all other places in this price range paled in comparison, we were fine with that. New construction in the Boston area is VERY rare, so you have to pay a premium for it, but I like the piece of mind that comes with the fact that my house won't fall down at any moment. Most houses on the market are built in the early 20th century, some of them in the late 1800s, and I saw a couple in the 1700s! I guess it'd be kinda cool to live in a ridiculously old house, but I think the novelty would wear off during the cold winters when your heating bill is around 1000 bucks.

Now we get to choose the carpet and the paint, buy a fridge, washer, dryer, dining table, etc. It's all very exciting, I think. The coolest thing that sets this house apart is that we won't have to move after 2 kids. Everything else we looked at had 2 bedrooms and little storage, but this one we can really grow into. It's got 1800 square feet and an unfinished basement that would add another 600. This means that we no longer have a good reason to leave Boston, so we are now here indefinitely. Which is a kinda scary thought. Will our kids grow up with Boston accents? I certainly hope so!

Our new community, Whitman, is a small town of 13,000 and has been settled for about 300 years. It's not far from Plymouth, where of course the pilgrims landed. Whitman's claim to fame is that the chocolate chip cookie was born here, not 2 blocks from our house in the Toll House Inn, hence Toll House cookies. The Toll House Inn burned down in 1984, but there is a historical marker in the parking lot of Wendy's, where it used to be. I think that's rather cool, and I'm pretty sure your town can't top that, unless you live in Palmyra, NY. I believe that the order of history-altering events is this:
1. Gospel restored
2. Chocolate chip cookie invented
3. Your stupid town's founding

To be honest, Whitman isn't as "quaint" as Melrose, but it's definitely a little more small towny. I'm sure as we get to know the area better we'll find that we like it just as much. We'll be taking the commuter rail into work, our commute should be around 45 minutes, 10 minutes more than now. So not bad. We are definitely sad to have to leave our ward that we were just coming to love, and the calling that I was so excited to have. I have heard that the church is true elsewhere, so I'm sure our next ward will be great, too.

I believe congratulations are in order.