Sold! To the family from Naperville

We closed on our new home on the 15th. We had a chance to enter the house for the first time today. Within 15 seconds in the house Duke made an impact -- running right into a large mirror that was propped up along a wall and shattering it to pieces. Hopefully, since it's so close to Halloween, that broken mirror superstition is waived. 

The actual closing was a pleasurable real estate transaction -- if there is such a thing. We feel like we are buying a home, not just a house. The sellers are moving back to Holland and are so nice.  The closing was so pleasant it was as if we should have uncorked a bottle of wine. (They did leave us several bottles of wine at the house). They also left us with a huge binder with "instructions" about the house, every warranty card, invoice and receipt for any work they have done on the house in the last seven years. This is important to us because we don't know any "guys" like plumber guys, appliance guys, electrician guys -- you know what we mean. Yet another difference in Quebec is at the closing we received a large legal sized envelope with all the deeds of ownership from the past owners -- dating back to the original purchasers in 1970. In Canada these deeds follow the house. It's like having the history in one envelope. In a few weeks we'll receive another envelope with our "Welcome to Canada" tax bill -- it's basically a sales tax on the purchase of the home. What the heck, we're already paying sales tax on home and car insurance.

Fall is here, despite the fact that Louis still insists on wearing shorts. We assumed ownership of the house just in time to rake the leaves.