The Sooner State

In honor of our recent trip to find a home in Oklahoma, here's a little background as to how it got its nickname:

In 1889, the Indian Territory was opened to settlers. Thousands of people lined up on the border and, when the signal was given, they raced into the territory to claim their land. Some people went in early to claim their land. They became known as Sooners.
Hence, Oklahoma's nickname today is “The Sooner State”.  
source: http://www.salinaok.com/oklahoma.html

    

We arrived in Oklahoma City, got our rental car and headed to the LDS Temple.  It's a good grounding place for us to start. 

 A peculiar thing about Oklahoma that I noticed right away: There are oil rigs all over the place in some of the most random locations.  There are quite a few right as you're leaving the airport and there are even some downtown.  I guess it's not much of a surprise how much of this state's economy is directly linked to oil prices.  With the oil price dropping really low, the largest energy company in Oklahoma City laid off 1,800 workers in February.  This made it so when we were looking for a house, there were tons of homes just sitting empty waiting to be purchased.  It is quite the buyer's market right now.  It made me feel bad like I was capitalizing on their poor fortune.

We saw 18 beautiful houses in one day!  It was quite the whirlwind.  It was actually a lot of fun even if my brain hurt by the end of the day trying to keep all the houses straight.  We narrowed it down to our top 5 choices and saw them another time the following day.  We're in the process now of trying to put an offer on a house.  We're really excited!  It feels a lot more real now that we possibly have a place to call home.  Fingers crossed that it all works out!