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Corey took me here for my birthday: Chez TJ

We had a lengthy tasting menu meal. I'd lost count after about 10 courses, but the food was wonderful and service excellent.

And now the house

On Saturday, October 30th (less than 24 hours after becoming engaged), we made an offer on a house in San Carlos.

We'd driven by and gone in to see this place before and had arranged to come back on Saturday with my parents. The house had been on the market for a few months which is really unusual in this environment, so we thought we would have the luxury of time to have additional inspections and to mull over the disclosure packet. However, when we got to the house on Saturday, our real estate agent informed us that another buyer had made an offer. So, if we wanted to seriously consider this place it was now or never!

We hemmed and hawed a bit (we were already decided on making the offer, but the strategy as to when and how much had suddenly changed). We drew up the offer after lunch with my parents and on Halloween morning, our agent called and told us it'd been accepted!

We're in escrow now, and likely won't move in until mid-January, as the current owners wanted a longer escrow so that they wouldn't have to move before the holidays. Also, we are planning on doing some minor maintenance and repairs (fumigation, refinish the neglected hardwood floors) before we move in.

The house as it is today: http://www.imolaracing.com/regent/regent.html

The house is built in 1972 and has some traditional 70s "charm" (pictures of the family room should confirm this for anyone doubting). We are now trying to plan out what we want to do to the home to make it "ours". First on the list is a kitchen remodel. We're thinking of moving the kitchen from where it is now into the breakfast nook area, which is larger and gets us out from underneath the stair well (where the refridgerator is today). This could happen as early as this coming Spring. There are other projects needed as well. The bathroom floors have some water damage and the family room is simply ugly. We expect that the family room will be the main hang out area, since its a large space and has a beautiful view. Further down the line, we could possibly excavate out the land to the side of the house for a proper yard. The house sits on about 1/4 acre, but its largely unusable due to the slope.

We're still in the idea phase.

We're Engaged!

He popped the question on Friday, October 29th. In the morning. Early. He woke me up gently and asked me to marry him. I don't think I answered him right away, it took me a bit before I realized what was going on (I'm not a morning person). I didn't have my contacts on and could feel that he was putting a ring on my finger. He pulled out a flashlight to shine on the ring (the room was still dark) and show me how much it sparkled! He then went on to explain the details of the diamond, its cut and about all the others he'd looked at. Leave it to an optics engineer to get into diamond shopping.

He confessed that his original plan was to wait until my birthday the following week, but he didn't have ring in hand for more than 24 hours before he couldn't hold it in long enough. :-)

Apparently find "the" ring was a bit of an endeavor. He'd been sick a few weeks back and had stayed home from work to recover, however, this was only partially true as he spent a large part of that time running around to different jewelers looking at diamonds and settings. He'd decided on the type of diamond, but was trying to come up with the accompanying setting. He finally found "the" ring and diamond at http://www.designsbycontinental.com/shop/, a shop recommended by our friends, Bryon & Dawn. He picked up the ring on the prior Thursday up in Novato, drove to my parents in South City to ask their blessing and then back to work. After work he'd agreed to help my brother by picking up his car and going down to Laguna Seca to set up in the paddock for the upcoming weekend. Poor guy what a day. He later told me he didn't sleep well that night with the anticipation (me, I had no problems) :-)

The following weekend was hectic as well .....