Jeff Galper

The sale closed today and I took possession after work. Our first shopping trip to Lowe’s (other than appliance shopping) was to get hedge trimmers and door locks. We ended up getting several other items as well in a preview of what I’m sure will be many shopping trips to come.

Yesterday, my waiting finally ended (temporarily) as I went to my signing appointment. I signed a huge stack of papers about my loan, the house, and promising I wasn’t lying about anything. The picture is my copy of the documents with a paperback book on top for reference.

In theory, I’ll get the keys Tuesday evening after the seller signs and the documents are recorded by the county.

Yesterday, we completed the septic system inspection.  The system needs new baffling (~$600), but it can go about two more years before it needs to be pumped.  It passed the stress test with no problems.  After the inspection, I took some pictures around the property.

Today, I signed the loan application.  My understanding is that I don’t need to anything except supply my signature and possibly a few more bank statements when required.  Time to start planning the new trim color.

We completed the home inspection of the property today.  There were a few small issues, but no deal breakers.  The two biggest problems are wood rot fungus and the deck covering.  The wood rot is localized to two locations and our inspector estimates we can have the wood rot and a few other minor fixes completed for around $500.  The deck membrane will run about $1800 for the long lasting vinyl membrane or $900 for a cheaper one that will need to be replaced in three years.

We’ll also need to get our furnace replaced, but it can wait a few months.  My current plan is to replace it with a heat pump system, that will let us heat and cool the house.  It should run us $8200.

Our inspector, Matthew Hummel, was very helpful and had answers to all our questions.

After a day and a half of anxiety filled waiting, we finally heard back from the bank.  They accepted our offer with the contingency that the house is sold as-is.  Melissa and I are both really excited, but we’ll have to see what the inspection turns up before we really know if we’ll get the house.

Today I went white water rafting on the Wenatchee river in Cashmere, WA.  The group was several people from work and Melissa and her sister, Megan.  Nobody on our raft fell over, but three out of four people on the other raft went for an unintentional swim.

On our way back home, we stopped at Deception Falls Nature Trail and walked around for a few minutes.

I just got back from an awesome trip to Hawai‘i.  We stayed at the Royal Sea Cliff resort on the west side of the big island.  We’re still waiting for the underwater pictures to be developed, but I’ve uploaded some of the dry ones Melissa and I took.

On Sunday we arrived at the Kona International Airport and discovered it’s a series of stand-alone buildings, with mostly uncovered walkways.  Once checked in, we spent some time at the pool and then went grocery shopping.

We spent Monday driving around the island.  Our first stop was at the Punalu’u Black Sand Beach, where we took some pictures of the lava rocks and then went swimming.

Our next stop was the Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park.  We had wanted to drive through the caldera, but most of the drive was closed due to sulfur emissions.  We were only able to see it from a distance, but we did get to stand right next to some volcanic steam vents.

We woke up early Tuesday morning to go on an awesome Zip Lining trip.  We didn’t take many pictures during the first part of the trip due to heavy rain, but we managed to get a few on the later lines.  After the Zip Lining, we drove to a nearby hiking trail and took some pictures, but didn’t make the trek down to the beach.

Wednesday we went to two farmer’s markets and bought some apple bananas and jam, followed by snorkeling.  In the water, we had a sea turtle swim near us and we took several pictures with the underwater camera.

On Thursday, we did our Snuba trip and got a taste of what Scuba would be like.  We were able to touch an octopus that the guide found and we saw the silhouette of some dolphins.  After Snuba, we went boogie boarding at a beach close to the condo and were surprised by some sea turtles enjoying the waves with us.  Every few minutes we had to stop boogie boarding to wait for the turtles to swim out of our way.

[No Pictures for Thursday yet...]

Friday morning we bought more jam at the farmer’s market and then went jet skiing.  Melissa and I had some trouble staying upright, but we had fun regardless.  That afternoon, we went to the Puuhonua O Honaunau (City of Refuge) National Park.  There we played with some hermit crabs, took pictures of a few sea turtles, and were briefly followed by a tiger snake moray eel.

Saturday marked the end of our trip with a final drive down the highway and then to the airport.  Our plane left Hawaii at 12:30 PM and arrived in Seattle (via SFO) at about 12:50 AM.

After spending the day doing laundry, dishes, organizing clothes, and goofing off, we finally have everything (except toiletries and chargers) packed and ready to go.  In just under 13 hours, we’ll be landing in Hawaii and it’ll all be worth it.

I ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast today for the first time. That shit is good.