House Hunting in Michigan

I spent most of my 15th week of pregnancy in our new home of Michigan!  I was a bit nervous to fly out and visit because we are for sure moving there sometime this summer.  I was hoping that I would like it. 

Thankfully we took this trip now instead of a couple of weeks ago.  My energy has significantly improved- which helped, because we were non stop busy the entire trip! We left on Friday morning, flying out of the Provo Airport (because it saved us $100), had a lay over in Denver and then on to Detroit. 

Saturday we spent most of the morning house hunting.  We saw many horrible and ugly houses that were in serious need of rehab.  I kinda knew this before going into the trip  (because of the property taxes, Brody's school and the new baby coming) we are staying within a strict budget.  We don't want to be house poor either.  All the houses in Ann Arbor in our budget will have to be redone!  We could afford to live in a nice, new, big home in the neighboring town, but we are worried that that type of house would not be a good investment- (won't be as easy to sell in a few years, nor will renting it out be as simple)  Ann Arbor has a great rental market- so even if our house doesn't appreciate in 3 years, we would be able to at least rent.

Holding our house hunting book- in our not so nice hotel.

Saturday night we went out with some new friends (Brody had reached out to a BYU alum in the part-time program)  We went to dinner with him, his wife and baby.  I am excited to at least have one friend when we get out there.

Sunday we went to church and then drove around forever! We investigated every corner of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor.  We wanted to make sure that we know all the neighborhoods, in case a house comes on the market that we are interested int (while we are out in Utah).  This drive solidified my desire to live in Ann Arbor and not the neighboring town. 

Monday we did more house hunting.  This day we found a house that I really liked.  It had a ton of potential.  It will be alot of work, but I really liked the bones and the yard.  So far its the only one that I was actually interested in.  Tuesday was spent with Brody in interviews.  While he worked, I explored the mall.  It actually has a lot of good stores, but it is very small and there is no Nordstrom. 

On Wednesday, our last day, we explored Detroit.  The poor city is so run down and scary- and we didn't even drive through anything dangerous.  We explored the GM building, looked across the river to Canada and went to Detroit's great art museum. 

GM building- I only took pictures of the nice parts of Detroit

On the 'people mover'- from here we got to a bird's eye view of most of the city. (we got to see many burnout and abandoned buildings!)

Overall, it was a fun trip, but very busy.  Hopefully Brody will be hearing good news from the job he wants (this week or the next) and then maybe we can make an offer on the only house I liked!


In other news- I think my body is reverting back to first trimester.  The last 2 mornings I have woken feeling nauseous and last night I had a bout of first trimester exhaustion.  It was a good reminder of what I have to be grateful for..I'm hoping that was only for a day!! I will update next week after my 16th week appointment.