First Night

We moved out of Elly's cousin's house this morning as her son, his wife and their two year old from Connecticut were taking our place as house guests.  I had to call the electric company, the gas company and Verizon to start the new service in our names. When we got to Murrieta, we went to the club office to register, pick up our gate transponder and get all the info such as rules, phone numbers etc for the association.
The bed arrived from the bed store around 1:00, then we went shopping for sheets, towels and other things we needed.  Tonight we will spend the first night in the condo on the new bed.

Moving Day!

Panoramic View from the Patio (click on picture to enlarge)

Yeah! Today we picked up the keys from the owners and received a copy of the completed lease from the realtor.  We also went shopping for a mattress so we can sleep there.  The rest of the appliances can wait until we move in.  The mattress will be delivered tomorrow.  Tomorrow we can also go to the club's office to get the transponder to open the gate automatically.  This will allow us to use Gate 2, which is closer to the condo, rather than have to go to the main entrance with the guard shack.

We got to Murrieta a little early, so we decided to go up the road about 2 miles.  Wow!  It a place called the Santa Rosa Plateau.  The views and houses are incredible.  We stopped at the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve, they have miles of hiking trails.  We picked up the trail maps and chatted with the Park Rangers for a while.  This is definitely a spot we will frequent often as it is just up the road.  Will post more pictures after we take them.

I shot small movie of Elly moving in and unpacking along with a tour of the condo. I will post it here when I find the bandwidth to upload it since I am over my 3GB Verizon limit already on my Xoom tablet.  Maybe I can do it at Starbucks tomorrow.

Just saw the weather forecast, we are expecting colder weather this week.  That means the daytime temps will be around 60-70 degrees. Brrrrr!

Almost There!

Our Honda Element in the Condo's Driveway

Today we got the lease via email, went to Kinko's to print it out, sign it and fax it back to the realtor.  We have an appointment tomorrow at 10:00 to pick up the keys from the owners and start the move in process.  We are going to bring our boxes of "stuff" first to get them out of our cousin's garage.  Then we need to buy a mattress.

Will post more pictures during the move-in process.

Success! We Have A Place to Live



View from our Patio

After sending in the application, all of our financial information, credit history and references we finally had an appointment to meet with the landlord.  At 1:00 today we met with our realtor, the landlord's realtor and the landlords.  They agreed to let us rent the condo. Hurray!

We gave them a deposit and told them we would like to move in Sunday.  Now just need to sign the lease.

Indoor Atrium for Elly's Plants









The living room has a gas fireplace that opens into the kitchen and a center atrium for plants that is open on top for sun & rain.  It also has hose spigots and a center drain. Elly just loves this feature!

There are two bedrooms and a den. The Master bedroom has a his & her bathroom with two separate counters and sinks.  The spare bedroom has private access to the second bathroom.  The den is on the other side of the atrium.

 The condo is at the Bear Creek Golf Course in Murrieta,CA.



More Looking For a Place to Live

Elly made appointments with a realtor that we have been working with in Murrieta.   The first house was not as nice as in the pictures, it was in the shade all day and had a "yappy" dog next door.  The next house had potential from the outside, it was in a nice neighborhood, had a nice pool, and had a great layout with 4 bedrooms.  We would have considered renting this house, but the interior workmanship was atrocious.  The paint job looks like it was done by a 10 year old with paint splatters all over the woodwork and wall.  There were no smoke alarms, doors were smashed, wall had holes in them, etc and the landlord was not going to fix them.  I told the realtor that I would fix up the place for two months free rent, but that offer went nowhere.  Oh well off to another showing.

The realtor did not have the "lock box code" for the next place, but we decided to drive over and look in the windows anyway, hoping that the listing realtor would call with the codes on the way (wishful thinking).

Condo Kitchen

 The place was a condo home in a golf club community.  It was absolutely spectacular!  The condo was on a man made pond with ducks, turtles and water jets!  As luck would have it, the realtor with the codes called and we were able to see the condo.

View from Kitchen and Patio

 Elly fell in love with it and we submitted our application for it.  Now we are waiting to hear if our application is accepted.  More pictures to come if we get the place!

Thursday, January 26,  2012

Oh, I forgot! It was 85 degrees today, the rest of this week and next week will be 75-85 degrees and dry!

Redlands & San Timoteo Canyon

Today we took a day off to sight see and visit friends because our cousin was feeling a little better from her surgery. We decided to visit our friend again in Redands and to drive by a few houses that Elly saw online.  Theses houses were for sale, not for rent, but Elly wanted to see them regardless. Maybe we will see some 'For Rent" signs.

San Timoteo Canyon - click for a larger view

After picking up our friend, we went to a Vietnamese noodle restaurant called Noodle 21 .   I had the seafood noodle soup with crunchy noodles, Elly had the chicken noodle soup with soft noodles.  Elly commented that the soups were not as spicy as she would have liked, but there were spicy sauces that you have to add at the table.  Nevertheless, I thought the soup was excellent and a good luncheon alternative.

After lunch we went for a ride around the Smiley Heights area of Redlands.  This area overlooks the San Timoteo Canyon.  We stopped may times to take tourist photos at the may overlooks.  It was absolutely gorgeous!  We also wrote down a few realtor phone number of houses for sale and for rent.


PS.  After we got home and Elly looked at the prices of homes in this exclusive area, we decided that we have to look at area in our budget.  We still have not found a place to live!

Close But No Cigar!

The Mission Viejo house in the Casta Del Sol retirement community was just what Elly wanted.  It was real cute and just enough room for us.  After the realtor left we went back to see the little garden plots that the residents maintain.  We talked with a few people who just loved living there.  We decided that we wanted this place.  We drove to San Clemente (a real cute downtown) to the realtors office to submit our application.  Now we just had to wait.  Elly is real excited about moving!

Today, the realtor called today to give us the bad news that there is an application ahead of ours.  Oh well!, back to square one.