Unexpected findings

We looked at a bunch of houses a couple weeks ago. We'd planned on looking for 2 days in a row, but the 2nd day, something came up. There was a round of bad moods, with a long conversation. I was going to resume the search with the rest of the list I forwarded to the realtor. Then a phone call with a question was met with "Let's just put in an offer on the house on B. Lane"
::blink blink:: "wha? .... ok" So we did that Friday. Given the circumstances we expected the sellers to accept our offer. We picked up our copies of the sale contract today. We are waiting on approval from the sellers' lender for the short sale.
I was not expect to find something in the neighborhood we found. We're cautiously optimistic. I've gone from praying to find the right house to praying that we can pay the bills and keep up the house if the bank approves the deal.
We apparently liked the place, because we were there looking around for like an hour, and the realtor was able to talk at length with his son, and take about 10 other calls. I talked to the next door neighbor who happened to be outside, and asked about the house. She seemed nice enough and said most of the kids in the vicinity grew up and it was a lot of older folks and empty nesters or people with early adulthood kids still at home. Lord, just don't let us be the bane of the neighborhood with 4 busy (aka loud) kids, and the Devildog with his friends.

I'd hoped to not tell the kids till after we got the contract back, but Devildog told them about it already, so we're getting a lot of questions about the new place.
Who's sharing a room?
Can we get a cat? (no pets, I just don't want any animals, regardless of "whose" it is etc)
What school is it assigned? (Oldest, b/c the other 2 are in magnet programs)
What is near it? (Publix, McDonald's, and named off several friends nearby, the PAL, the Fort, it's a quick ride to the beach via the WW, and my sister is moving out across from the state park at the beach, so she'll be nearby too.)
Can I use Aunt C's addy to go to the other high school out there? (::shrug:: that depends on a couple other factors, as well as the aunt and roomies' permission.) I think that school may have German, which would alleviate the need for him to take 2 years of a foreign language, instead of the 2nd year of German. I think. This other issue has to be addressed and he has to comply with all rules otherwise it's not gonna work or happen. I think he's attempting to do things different, but I remain cautious to my expectations and his delivery.
Who knows, maybe an extra 900 square feet with some elbow room and less chaos/clutter will help his mindset. It will likely help mine. Living 6 people deep in a dinky 1100 square foot hovel as I've come to call this place, makes everyone in it a little cranky for lack of turning space.
Again, the phrase "cautious optimism" is the prevailing theme on many fronts. We'll see how it goes, however long it goes for waiting on the bank approval. I was fully not expecting to find something this early in July. I was expecting that I'd have my paper clutter sorted and disposed of before we found a house. Which reminds me, I need to finish that bin of stash-n-dash paper, and my goal is to be done by the week's end. Oh and in that bin, I found my power of attorney paperwork...go figure.

This is what I have left to do:









And this is the stuff pulled from that bin that needs to get filed.