Moving into our new home...

Wow!  I forgot how much I dislike moving.  We're exhausted!  For some reason ... I thought this move would be way easier since we had left so many things in storage but boy was I wrong.  When we moved up here from Asheville I wasn't working which gave me so much more time to prepare for that move.  This time I was working full time and Trip was traveling a lot plus we were trying to coordinate getting several projects done at the new house prior to moving day which left absolutely no time to actually pack.  We took two days off work leading up to the big moving day and we worked ourselves to death from dusk to dawn both days and still had tons to do after the movers arrived to load the trucks.  Thank goodness Grandma came down to look after Jake!  I can not even imagine what we would have done without her.  She kept Jake entertained and on schedule and also pretty much packed up our entire kitchen.

One of the projects we were determined to get done prior to move in was painting the interior.  In Asheville, Trip and I painted every nook and cranny one area at a time and it took forever.  It is so much harder to paint a house when you have to move all the furniture in and out of each room so we wanted to avoid that situation again.  We struggled over the color choices this time.  You may remember from seeing the pictures of our old house that we love color and we weren't afraid to slap it on the walls.  We loved all the colors we used then but our new house has black slate floors which really hung us up.  We really wanted to use some yellows but it just didn't work with the wood work and the floors.  On the advice of Trip's sweet cousin Sharon, who studied interior design, we painted all the color choices onto big pieces of poster board so that we could get a good feel for it in the space.  We tried greens, blues, grays and finally landed on a pallet of browns.  We love it and it was great to have someone do it before we moved into the house.

I did allow myself to take a night off for me this month and Trip graciously agreed to stay home with Jake.  I attended Football 101 for Women at Appalachian.  It was such a fun night!  I learned a ton about football and had an opportunity to meet Coach Moore which was such a treat.  I had dinner with a couple of ASU's coaches and then actually got to attend classes to learn how to better read plays and why they make some of the decisions they make on game day. I'm ready for some football now!

Home Sweet Home

I labeled my own boxes...

I love my new yard!

It's like having my own private driving range...

 

 Starting to look like home...

 

 This is what I did as soon as I woke up after our first night here...

 

 A good place to take in the view...

 

 Mama & Daddy were so thankful to have good movers!

 

 Starting to move our stuff in...

 

 I need to investigate every inch of my new yard...

 

 The last morning in our rental house... 

just waiting on the movers...

 Mama & Daddy moved a lot of stuff themselves...

 Daddy was giddy with exhaustion at this point!

 

 Is this stuff multiplying?

 

Mama is smiling because crying would take more energy

than she has left at this point... 

 Look ... Grandma made me breakfast...

 

 And... we ate our breakfast outside!

Calm before the storm...

 View of great room from upstairs...

 Standing in the great room we can see upstairs, the 

dining room upfront, the entry way, the edge of the 

kitchen and the laundry room way in the back...

 Standing in the breakfast nook looking into the kitchen.

Doorway to the dining room is past the fridge

 

 Happy 42-Month Birthday to Me!

 Look Daddy... it's a baby frog...

 

 View from the front porch of our new house...

we can't wait to see this every day!

 Pep talk from Coach Moore in the ASU locker room...

 

 I was thrilled to meet Coach Moore!

 

 Go Appalachian!

 

 This year's ladder to a championship...

 

Off into the wild blue yonder...

First bit of news is that we FINALLY received an answer on the house we made an offer on in April and the answer was YES!!!  We closed this past week and we are absolutely thrilled.  We can't wait to move in so we can get Jake settled in his own home again.  I'll update and share some pics after the move.

Grandma retired at the end of last year and she and Grandpa are going to move from Rockville, Maryland to their retirement home in Southwest Virginia in a few months so we decided to go up for one more visit before their big move.  We could only take a long weekend so we decided that flying was our best option for travel.  Jake was super excited to fly on a real plane and he did great in the airport and in flight.  We flew into BWI and Grandma picked us up which was great.  We were all starving when we landed and thankfully Grandma was prepared with sandwiches and grapes.  My wonderful Mother-In-Law is just good like that!  We ended up visiting on the hottest weekend of the year.  We had a chance to visit a little on the way home and then Jake and I took a nice nap before our sushi dinner.  Grandma introduced Jake to raw Salmon after an edamame appetizer and he LOVED it.  As a matter of fact when we went for pizza two nights later Jake was disappointed because he wanted sushi again.

It was 109 degrees when our flight landed and it didn't cool off until the day we left so we had to change our plan to spend a day outside at the National Zoo and instead went to the community pool in Grandma's neighborhood.  Jake loves to "swim" so he was thrilled to go play in the water for the afternoon.

Trip and I love live music and we're big Hayes Carll fans and he happened to be playing at the Rock & Roll Hotel in DC while we were there so we bought tickets and Grandma & Grandma entertained Jake for the evening.  Hayes Carll wrote and recorded our song.  We got there for the opening act and were in the very back trying to figure out how we could get closer to the stage for Hayes when I realized that he was standing right next to me... actually shoulder to shoulder.  We had the amazing experience of meeting him and actually thanking him for our song.  He autographed our tickets too and then he went backstage to prepare for his show.  We managed to work our way down to the front of the stage for the show and then got the actual set list when it was over.  It was a great "date" night for us and Jake had a blast going to the park and doing arts & crafts with Grandma & Grandpa.

The next morning we decided to get Jake on the metro and down to DC to see the big trains.  He was too tired for that little adventure and by the time we got down to DC he was in serious need of a nap so we didn't stay very long but at least he enjoyed the metro ride.  That night (after a nice long nap) we went to one of our favorite restaurants in the whole DC area which is a pizza place.  They have THE best white pie I've ever eaten!  I have loved to eat there since the first time Trip and I visited DC 20 years ago.  I'm going to miss that pizza when Grandma & Grandpa move!  

We had a really nice, relaxing visit and flying was so much better than spending two full 8 hour+ days on the road.  It seems hard to believe that we won't visit that house again because we've been going there for over 20 years and we even lived there for a couple of years after college.  But... it's time for the next chapter and we're looking forward to spending time at Grandma & Grandpa's new house which is only about 3 hours away so hopefully that will mean that our visits will be much more frequent.

Jake continues to enjoy golf and loves to go to the driving range with his Daddy.  Sometimes they go on Saturday morning while I clean and do laundry but I played hooky from my responsibilities and went with them one time this month so I have some good golf pix to share below along with our vacation photos.

I like to practice bunker shots.

 

Me and Mama...

Hitting it to the numbers!

 

I think I'll go with my 9 iron.

I love to play golf!

My firefighter water hose squirts REAL water!!!

 

We had fun at Grandma's house and now it is time to go home...

 

Don't you want to fly home with me Grandma?

 

Resting a little before we take off.

 

Grandma gave me a bath...

 

I love to take baths!

 

Cutting and pasting with my Grandma...

 

The BEST White Pie in the world!!!

 

Mama & Daddy's favorite pizza place...

 

Painting a picture frame for my room in our new house...

 

Here I am telling a big tale...

Grandma & Grandpa took us to Union Station to watch the trains in DC

 

I'm a happy boy!

 

Grandma & Grandpa riding the Metro to DC.

Grandma ... this metro train is awesome!

I'm about to ride a subway train for the first time.

 

Mama & Daddy went to a Hayes Carll concert in DC

and this is the actual set list from the stage and their

autographed tickets.

 

They were stage front for the show...

I stayed home and played with Grandma & Grandpa while

Mama & Daddy went to the concert.

Thanks for sharing Grandpa!

Grandma & Grandpa took me to the park.

 

This thing is AWESOME!!!!!

They had a cool motorcycle too!

I love to swing and Grandma pushed me.

It was fun to ride in Grandpa's convertible!

 

My Grandma at the pool...

 

I LOVE going to the pool in Grandma's neighborhood!

 

Hanging out with my Daddy...

 

Isn't this hat great?

Cover your ears Grandma...

this blender is sooooo loud.

Grandma taught me how to make a peach smoothie...

We had fun eating edamame!

 

And... sushi....

I really like the raw salmon!

 

Wow Daddy... it's a real airplane!

This donut is DELICIOUS!