Progress.

Well, we have been going non-stop all weekend moving and unpacking and I was sure we would crash eventually. But Monday morning I woke up wide-eyed at 6 a.m. for a run. Then we worked all day, came home and made dinner. We put a movie on around 7 p.m. and we both fell fast asleep!

I guess we needed it because Tuesday after work, we were ready to get some serious work done. The kitchen is D.O.N.E and you don't know how happy that makes me! Everything has a place and is neatly organized. Beautiful! The kitchen is narrow so it was hard to get pictures, but here you go:

The deck was the first finished. It was easy and we were anxious to start using it. We have been drinking our coffee out there in the mornings. And last night we had a glass of wine out there and there were bats and fire flires everywhere! It was quite the display.

Home Sweet Home and we're loving it.

Moved!!!

We did it! We are actually moved in to our new place. It feels so surreal since we have been waiting so long for this. I cannot believe it has actually happened.
We had 7 AMAZING people help us move into our new place and we seriously don't know what we would have done without them. They made moving fun and fast. We finished moving around 4 and we bought dinner and drinks for everyone. Then we played games the rest of the night. It was such a great first day at our new place with some of my favorite people in the whole world.
Sunday Garth and I had to take the moving truck back and then finish cleaning our old apt and turned in the keys, woohoo! Then we went grocery shopping and started the long process of unpacking. The kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom are half unpacked. Notice a trend? I would start unpacking a room, get overwhelmed, and move to a new room. But we'll keep unpacking everyday and we'll get there.
We did get the dining room and the patio furniture set up. We had coffee on our deck yesterday morning and we're going to have dinner out there tonight. Amazing!!! We just love our new place and the short commute to work.
I also dyed my hair last night and I'm a red head! I will post pics soon of the new do and the new place as soon as I find my camera cord...

Packing.

Garth and I make the best team EVER. Seriously, we had this amazing system going and we had almost everything packed up in 2 days flat. We were on a roll, but I say almost everything packed because we still have some kitchen and bathroom supplies to pack. But we still use these items on a regular basis so we can't pack them until the night before. Ahhhhh that is a great big sigh of relief. 9 days left and we are 95% done packing, that is big for us since we are procrastinators. But pour us some wine, pump up the music, and we pack like mad.
I will tell you the NOT fun part of packing, and that is finding stuff from Garth's bachelor days. A zebra print picture frame, and a beer candle are among the things I have tried to dispose. But then Garth throws the "But it's from South Africa" bit and I can't make him get rid of it now!
Last night we battled over these black crock pot looking salt and pepper shakers, and this is how the conversation went down:
Me: "Hey babe can we get rid of these? We never use them."
Garth: "They are from South Africa! These are heritage!"
Me: "So we will never get rid of them?"
Garth: "No! We will pass them on to our kids, and they will pass them on to their kids, and their wives will nag them to get rid of them. It will be tradition!"

Fast Forward 5 Years

As I sit in our tiny apartment that just keeps getting smaller and smaller due to all the boxes, I grow increasingly more claustaphobic. I know it's temporary, but these two weeks are going incredibly slow and we just want to get into our new place!

Instead of complaining about how there is hardly any room to move because boxes have taken over, or how much I loathe packing, I've decided to dream about where we will be in 5 years. I will be 30 (YIKES!!) and Garth will be 32 years old. I hope we'll be living in one of these houses:

Garth plans on driving his Sebring (his other love) until it dies, so he will hopefully still be driving that in 5 years. If we weren't being realistic here, he would be driving a Corvette Convertible. I turn in my leased car next year and we plan on buying this:

I see us with one beautiful little baby and another on the way. I hope we're living in North Carolina or Georgia. Or anywhere that shuts down with one inch of snow and is only an hour from the ocean. Garth will have opened a web design business and I'll be a stay-at-home mom working very part-time as a wedding coordinator. We'll have a Golden Retriever named Chandler (my fave Friends character) and an English Bulldog named Manchester (after Garth's fave soccer team - Manchester United). We will have a big deck facing a lake, complete with a firepit. We will have a gorgeous speedboat and kayaks tied to our deck. THAT would just be perfection.

Of course, this is just our plan. We all know that we make plans and God laughs (wise words from my Dad). But it will be fun to look back at this in 5 years and see how close we are to this dream. But no matter where we are in 5 years, I know it will be where God wants us to be and that is enough for me.

17309

Garth and I were reminiscing about our time in apartment #17309. I thought I would share some of the memories we've had in our 1.5 years here:

01. The large naked lady across the courtyard. She liked being naked and she liked sitting next to the window or on the balcony. She freaked Garth out so bad he would never open the blinds. Thank goodness she moved out shortly after we moved in.

02. The air mattress my parents gave us since all we had were twin mattresses. Sleeping on that for the first few months was funny and shopping for a mattress made me really feel married.

03. The klutz that I am knocked over a glass of red wine all over our carpet. A tiny stain remains, but it still reminds me of the many nights we played cards and drank wine at our kitchen table.

04. Setting down our luggage down so, in true tradition fashion, Garth could carry me over the threshold after returning from our honeymoon.

05. Carrying our huge dresser down 3 flights of stairs to return to Ikea for damage. Only to learn we only had to bring the damaged piece, thus having to carry the huge dresser back up 3 flights of stairs.

06. The tiny bedroom closet that only fit my clothes, forcing Garth to use the hallway closet for his clothes. Marriage is sacrafice.

07. Walking downtown for coffee and sitting by the fountain.

08. I don't have a nightstand on my side of the bed, I have bikes. I'll laugh about this one later.

09. Riding our bikes to the lake and dreaming about buying a boat and picking out our favorite houses on the water.

10. I still can't believe we witnessed a FBI drug bust across from us. We saw real guns!!

11. The constant smell of cigarette smoke in my closet that no matter how hard I try I cannot get out!

12. There are very unhappy marrieds across the hall and we hear their fighting all. the. time. I got out of the shower and Garth was sitting by the window (ease dropping!!) and he says to me "Ok, he screwed up her birthday party and she is NOT happy."

So they aren't all happy memories, but they are funny, and we certainly won't forget our time at apartment #17309. Afterall, it was our first home as a family.

Moving

This weekend we signed the lease to our new place. As tempting as a house is at the moment, we know it's not our time. We've prayed about it and feel that now is not our time to buy. We aren't planning on staying in Michigan that much longer and we have no desire to mow a lawn and take up all the responsibilities that a house entails. And in all honesty, we rather travel. We don't want a house until we are ready to have kids. And we are not ready for kids for a couple more years so we rather rent and travel. Live it up before we settle down, buy a house, and have babies. I don't know why I feel I have to defend our decision to rent again, but there you go.
I waited until the lease was signed and things were finalized before I mentioned moving, since our move in December fell through. And when it did, we felt at peace. Relieved even. So we knew it wasn't the time. But 6 months have passed and we are itching to get out of our tiny apartment that is too far from work. We are moving so much closer to our jobs and we're getting double the space we have now! We could not be more thrilled, we're even counting down the days until we move. June 27 to be exact. YAYAYA!

Unproductive?

I have not done ANY Christmas shopping yet.

We move in 26 days and I have not even begun to pack.

We have decided not to decorate since we are moving two days after Christmas - BUMMER.

I have not done laundry in two weeks.

I blame the cold and snowy weather. It makes me not want to do anything but cuddle under the blankets! Which is exactly what I did last night. Garth brought home sushi and we cuddled and watched "Hancock." Perfect evening.

I will start packing and doing laundry tomorrow. I did clean and unpack from Florida so that was productive, right?

I Need a Vacation!

We were stressed out when we realized we had to move out of our apartment. The drug bust was a sign we needed to get out of this place. Especially since the neighbors were bailed out of jail and are still living next door.
We didn't feel safe anymore and with Garth going back to school next semester, there was no way he was going to leave me alone at night at the apartment. After some intense apartment searching, we found a really nice apartment close to my parents (so we know the area is safe!) and very close to our work. We were getting ready to move and THEN we find out we must give our old complex 30 days notice. So now we can't move out until end of December during the holdiay season. Ugh. We are not happy about this.
My precious husband is being optimistic. We will get the winter rate moving in December and we have time off between Christmas and New Years so it gives us plenty of time to pack up and move.
So, we're stuck in our old apartment one more month. I can handle that because I will miss this place. I'll miss our red wall. I'll miss the purple bathroom. I'll miss being on the top floor. I'll miss the crazy neighbor who talks to the squirrels. I'll miss the cheap rent. I'll miss walking downtown for happy hour at the coffee shop. I'll miss bike riding to the lake. I'll miss this first place I ever lived with a boy and the great memories we made.
Here is Garth and I on our way to church:

That's right. It is COLD in Michigan. I mean winter jacket and scarf weather with snow coming down! This is my least favorite time of year. I am so ready to bust out my flip flops and tank tops where the weather is warm and palm trees are plenty! 9 days people!!! WOOHOO!