Our First Out of Town Visitors!

My Aunt Mary and Tom, and my cousins Eric and Alex from Binghamton, NY came to visit on Saturday. We were so excited to see them, and wish they could have stayed more than a few hours, but any time we could spend together is better than none. We gave them a tour of the new place, had some wine and cheese and then we went to lunch. We missed my cousin Chris, but I doubt he missed us as he was in Williamsburg.

Aunt Mary and I

Eric, Alex, Mary, Tom, Ryan and I saying our goodbyes

Thank you for stopping to visit us...I miss you all already! Please come stay with us soon and we'll visit some sight of the city. And we're planning to visit you all too...and we'll definitely have to take you up on the offer to visit some wineries.

Done!

Oooo....was I in a bad place last night. I don't think I've ever been so frustrated in my entire life....tears streamed down my cheeks for more than 30 minutes even though I wasn't crying...that's how frustrated I really was from this move. Ryan and I moved the last of the stuff from our apartment to our new place last night. We rented a small truck because it didn't appear to be that much stuff. It was more than we thought!

Sometimes I think Ryan assumes I can exert as much physical strength as he can...I'm not ashamed to say - I cannot! Something tells me I'm not supposed to be able to do all that I tried to do, because I'm paying for it today because all of my muscles are weak and more stiff than I've ever felt before. When planning for this move, I asked Ryan several times if we could have someone help move the heavy stuff. He insisted that we could do it ourselves since we sold a lot of the large furniture. So, we did. And we were oh, so smart to leave only the heavy stuff remaining. Determined to help, I tried my best to be a man...literally! Out the door, through a gate, up a hill and into the truck, we hoisted, lifted, pushed and pulled furniture and box after box of books...me - in heels. Yep, in heels! Who moves in heels? Stupid me who didn't plan for schedule changes, I guess!

I had an extremely important meeting at 9:00am that couldn't be missed, but I planned to leave work at 2:00 and have Kate take me to get the truck and meet Ryan at the apartment by 5:00. My very important morning meeting got moved to 4:00pm, so I couldn't go home to change out of my suit and heels or pick up the truck (as it was, I didn't arrive to help until 7:00 because of the meeting, traffic and the fact that the truck rental company forgot to give us anything besides the truck, so I had to go pick up the stuff first)...which I think weighed heavily into my frustration for at least the loading-part of the evening.

We were both exhausted in the end (1:00am), and Ryan worked like a dog, but I'm 100%, completely DONE being a man. Never again - I swear! I can't imagine how Ryan feels today, after bearing the load that I couldn't, but I'm in pain and absolutely exhausted! In the end, the job got done and the frustrations are gone. Only the clean up remains.

New Furniture

Here are some images of our new furniture, which is scheduled to arrive sometime between now and the beginning of June. We'll let you all know when it arrives so you can visit! Right now, we just have two chairs to sit on.

The sofa and chair will be a burnt orange color.

The master bedroom set will be all the natural wood color...this is not our house..

And here's our dining set. It'll be this pattern, not the model shown below.

Here's the whole set. Not sure if we are getting the bakers rack you see here or the wine cabinet below (haven't ordered that yet). All will be in the cream color above.

Cherry Blossoms!

I haven't had much time to blog lately, and I've been holding on to some awesome pix for when I do have time, so I thought I should just post them.

These are from Ryan and I went to DC after work to see the Cherry Blossoms. It was packed on a Tuesday afternoon.

Welcome to Washington DC...

Find anything wrong with this image, on government property?

How pretty!

Ooo...Ahhh

Check out the crowd!

I loved this tree!

I am still in awe of the DC sights...

Here's Ryan, looking like I pasted him onto a background, interesting!

Getting late, time to head home!

Ok, this one isn't SO bad, but it isn't correct either!

Whew...I'm Beat!

Wow, this weekend was a whirlwind! We've been moving, cleaning, organizing, painting, and finding a place for all our stuff....and running out to get the stuff we need when we figure out we need it. We haven't showered as there wasn't time and we have only eaten when we were absolutely starving, which has been about twice a day...I think I need to be busy more often!

Everything is going so well...we really love being here. It feels like home! We have even had two visitors so far, Robert and our friend Kate and her little boy, Nuri. We found the playground for Nuri, which is two seconds away and very nice. We can't wait to explore more of the neighborhood once we get settled in.

So far, the kitchen and downstairs bathroom are pretty well complete. Our kitchen is completely full of anything we could ever want, but everything is neat and easily accessible. That's how I spent most of my working hours over the past three days.

But the best part of the results of all this hard work is our little walk-in closet that Ryan and Robert worked so hard getting together this weekend. It is so fantastic! There is a place for everything! Ryan got the short end of the deal by having the smaller side of the closet, but that's what men are supposed to get in a closet. I think we may end up sharing some of my side, but right now it is nice and roomy, with the exception of the floor. It is completely covered in shoes - I never knew I had so many shoes because I could never put them all in one place. I'm so excited to be organized and everything has a place.

Monday through Wednesday after work, we are bringing one car-load each, of stuff over to the new place. On Thursday, we rented a truck to bring the bigger stuff over. We're hoping, with the exception of the furniture, we will be completely moved in by the weekend. So far, we are doing well by moving a little at a time and unpacking as we go. We have more than half of all of our stuff here and not one box is left unpacked...and all the cardboard and garbage is out of the house. I don't know if we can keep up at this pace (I can barely walk my calves hurt so much and Ryan, who never complains about anything, has even said how he hurts), but we are doing well so far. All the work is worth it!

New Home!

We are officially very excited home owners! We closed on the house yesterday and have been busily working ever since. A few more weeks of this and we'll be all set.

Yesterday, while we were beginning to get settled, we had the locks changed, carpets cleaned, and air ducts and dryer vent cleaned. Today, we had the house cleaned from top to bottom and the cable installed. Ryan and Rob worked like mad to get the walk-in closet in our room prepared for the installation of the organizing system we bought the other day. Hopefully that will be put together tonight some time. I cleaned the patio, did some weeding and brought over another car load of stuff. The kitchen will be in order by then end of the night.

By Thursday we will be all moved in, waiting to paint and furniture to arrive. Painting begins May 1st and furniture is yet to be determined, but should be here sometime in the next few weeks.

We love visitors and want to officially welcome you to our home! I sent out the address, so no excuses...

Still so busy!

I just wanted to let all our readers know that we haven't stopped blogging! We're both crazy-busy with work and the home stuff, and Ryan with his class...that we honestly don't even have a second of peace and quiet to think about blogging...or anything else for that matter. I have begun several posts, with great pix, but I can't seem to finish any to post. Soon...I promise!