Taxes, Taxes, Taxes!

As you can guess, I've been a bit busy with tax season.  It's been crazy and I've been wanting to blog, but I usually have to work a while in the evenings once I get home and there just isn't enough time!  A lot has been going on here in the past few weeks.  First of all, for anyone who hasn't heard, I PASSED MY EXAM!  I honestly totally thought I had failed it.  I had to get a 75 and I got an 81!  When I first opened the score (I had to wait for it to come in the mail), I couldn't read it.  I mean I opened it to read it, but I just forgot how to read for a minute or something.  I was searching all over the page for a score and in that moment it seemed like there were so many words on the page.  When I finally found the 81, I couldn't believe it.  I jumped up and down and freaked out all by myself, since Bryan was at work.  Actually, Finn gave me some excited jumping.  So he celebrated with me ;)  I still have three exam sections left, and today I got my authorization to test (basically my application was approved) for the next two sections I'm going to take.  I scheduled my next exam for May 24th, so I'll have about six weeks to study once tax season is over.  Then I will take another in July probably.  I am excited to get them over with and hope these next tests go as well as the first one did.

Woohoo!

A few weeks ago, Finn graduated from Obedience I!  I didn't get to go to his classes much since they were at 5:00 PM, but Bryan said he did pretty well.  The only thing he wasn't too good at was staying still and sitting when someone approached him and Bryan.  He just gets too excited!  He has been doing really well on his walks with Bryan, actually walking off his leash most of the time.  It's still a lot of work, but it's nice to be able to mold a dog from the beginning.

Speaking of our more difficult dog, Charlie started a new class yesterday.  It's called nosework, and it is his calling in life!  His trainer kept telling us he should go to nosework because all he ever cares about is sniffing things.  In our previous classes, other dogs play with toys and balls during our training for purposeful distraction.  Charlie?  All he wants to do is sniff!  He doesn't care about anything else.  So during yesterday's class, the point was for him to be able to sniff out treats in a box that was surrounded by other boxes that were empty.  He did SO great!  After a few times of learning what he was supposed to be doing, he sprinted right to the box faster than any of the other dogs had, even though our trainer had tried to trick him.  Finally our sweet boy is good at something!  ;)

He's a blur!

Found it!

This box was all the way at the back and he sprinted past all the others--he can't be fooled!

A couple weeks ago (yes, everything happened a couple weeks ago), we had a hangup with our mortgage financing.  Long story short, they wanted us to bring $10k of our own money to the table on top of what we're borrowing.  If we had $10k, we wouldn't have to borrow any money!  Our mortgage broker, who is a friend of mine, worked hard to find a solution for us.  He ended up finding us a new, local bank that would process the loan as-is.  They had more stringent qualification requirements, but we passed and everything seems to be going smoothly now.  We are having our inspection done next Thursday, which I am so excited about.  I can't wait to get back in the house and take some measurements.  I need to be able to buy furniture!  We are still set to close on April 18th and it cannot come soon enough.

Active under contract---still ours so far!

I'm trying to think of what else has been going on.  A couple Saturdays ago, Bryan and I took a concealed handgun class.  We haven't taken the paperwork in to get officially licensed yet, but it was fun and I learned that I shoot better left handed (my left eye is dominant)!  I am excited to get out and shoot again now that I know a little more about what I should be doing.

This Tuesday is our second anniversary.  It's so crazy that we've been married for two years already.  Time has flown by--but I suppose we've been busy!

Dad and his boys

Finn is a happy boy!

This happens...a lot

Charlie looking very pensive