i think we are moved in now...

most things are put away, only occasionally I can't find what I need and there isn't much art on the walls yet - but we now call this place home.

The house from our driveway. Whoever built this and landscaped it liked privacy! It is set back off a cul-de-sac and has high fences and tall trees to block it off more. (we love it!)

The front door. There are a few flaws in the design of the house, one of which is no coat closet.

Living room with a real live fireplace. They left behind their real piano too.

A different view.

They also left behind enough house plants that we will never worry about air quality.

Jeff slaving away in the kitchen. This is one of the weird things about the house - no big fridge in the kitchen. There is only a small bar fridge (big fridge in the garage).

One of the stipulations of moving in to this place was that we take care of the hummingbird and bird feeders. They also left a big bag to feed the squirrels (or large rodents as Jeff fondly refers to them).

We have a pretty spectacular view out of our dining room. Right now the sunsets are amazing with the tree silhouettes. Don't know if we will see it once the leaves come back...

Again, the effort that went into landscaping is well appreciated. The decks will be great for BBQ parties.

A firepit...needs to be cleaned up.

We have some lawn too...don't know if it is large enough for a volleyball game, the ball would probably be hit down into the ravine on one of Teresa's great spikes.

A note to those youngin's: we got ourselves swings, sandbox, fort (ok a platform) etc...so work on the old folks to get you out here. (sorry Courtney...we don't have an extra car!)
And of course the hot tub that we have been raving about: set down on the edge of the ravine. It is quite wonderful - especially when it is a clear cold night...moon, stars , trees - it makes you feel like you're not a mile off hwy 99!The massage room. It is lovely to have a room dedicated to be my office. This one room is the size of the room I was living (and doing massage) out of in University district...

Office/recording studio/hangout. Pretty nice lighting and view in here. And we like the floors...think we will do this in whatever house we end up in.
The chair is in the closet, because we don't have so much stuff that we need to have the doors shut on it!
Our room. Again design flaws...huge room which I suppose is nice, but not good lighting, not good use of space...and a sort of hotel atmosphere. There is a walk in closet, a sink and a cubby-hole where there should have been a master bath and walk in closet. Instead the upstairs bath is divided several ways with doors... And the TV? hmm...not the most aesthetically pleasing!
The said cubby-hole: my art studio, currently a mess.

We also have the garage set up, but pictures just make it look messy (isn't that what garages are for?). But we are proud to say that we now have a washer and dryer! No more laundry matting! And now instead of being a living room band, Curiously Strong is a garage band again!

the huge ugly mess

So to back up a little....here are some pictures of our apartment before we vacated (and this weren't the worst of it!). Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures after the mess was cleared up, but who can blame us when we weren't done until 2am Thursday night?

We are moved....

As of 2am on Thursday morning we are moved in. Thanks to Dan for helping us so much! We really would not have managed otherwise! We had even more stuff that I realized, even when I was complaining about it!

So now all of our stuff is stacked in the garage, in mostly unlabeled boxes, and without pathways to get to them. It is a challenge to find anything. Today we have to sort things through, do laundry, buy a mattress, etc. We plan on rewarding ourselves with Thai food later :).

It is a sunny day, and I woke up happy to be somewhere new!

the whole moving thang

This week we are moving to Everett. Jerry and Linda Cormick's son Brian and his wife Michelle and kids are moving to Italy for 6 months to a year, so we get to rent/take care of their place while they are gone. It is a 3 bed, 1.5 bath 2 car garage, hot tubbing sort of place, located close to Forest Park. It is close to a few parks, 15 min walk from the beach, 15 min from the Whidbey Island ferry, but also on a ravine with lots of trees on a short street. So it will be close to stuff, yet far away enough to feel like we aren't in the city! Yeah!

The big dilemma at this point is that Brian as been in Italy most of the time that Michelle has been trying to pack up the house (with 1 toddler, 1 baby) so understandably she hasn't gotten as far as planned. We are supposed to move most of our stuff into the garage today, but it looks like that may or may not happen. Michelle called to let us know that there is a little, but not much room, for us to move stuff into. So unless this changes, we will be moving most of our stuff on Wed. Anyway, somehow we will have everything out of the apartment by Thurs. Who knows where we will stay if Michelle can't get everything out of the house by then....

That is the big update.
Cheers.