Gettin Ready

We decorated for Christmas Friday night. We turned on some music and sipped some champagne!

Now we're ready for Christmas season to begin!

Ding Dong, The Bed is Gone!

The water bed is DEAD! Can you believe it? And it was completely out of my hands!! No, I did not sabotage it as everyone has asked me. John had a really hard time putting it back together when we moved in. He was able to drill some extra screws in it and make it work. I was a little sad because I thought I was finally going to get a new grown up  bed. One week later (this past Sunday) he was tucking in the sheets and realized 2 boards that were screwed together had come apart. (It's the 2 boards he's standing next to). I even tried to help him put it back together. It wasn't happening. The bed had died and IT WASN'T MY FAULT THAT HE HAD TO GIVE UP HIS BABY!!!! The weekend before we had went to Ikea and both fell in love with a bed that we decided would be next. I told him he had about 3 more months with his precious water bed then it was time to go and he had agreed so he knew it was coming. Anyway, so Monday morning I trekked to Ikea and bought our bed. John and I would go buy the mattress Tuesday night. This is John letting the water out. (see the orbs in the picture? Just sayin)

While he was at work I moved all the water bed pieces to the side and unpacked the Ikea boxes and put the bed together myself.

Tuesday night I met John at Ikea after he got off from work. We met around 5:20pm. We bought our king size mattress and box springs. The box springs look like 2 twin size beds and they fit in the back of the car and we tied down the hatch. The mattress, well let me tell you, that thing had to fit on top of the car. We tied it down with the bits of tweed string that Ikea gave us. The moment we got on the highway I started to feel the mattress slipping off the car. We pulled over. And by "we" I mean me, John, and the cop who was pulling us over. He pointed us to a truck stop place where we would find some rope and we left, thankfully without a ticket or causing an accident. We finally make it to the truck stop and bought some ropes as well as a huge strap with a lever thing on it that tightens the rope as you move it. It worked but we had to take back roads home and I couldn't go over 30 mph. It was horrible!! We got home at 8:30pm and I threw dinner (that I had pre cooked thank goodness) in the oven. We didn't eat dinner until 9pm and we had to put the mattress in the house. This is what the car looked like the next morning.

But this is the end result. :) Our water bed sheets are a little short, they don't cover the whole mattress on the sides, as well as our quilt. But it is soooo comfortable. We love it!

The bed with the curtains. See the orbs again? Uh huh... just sayin (again)

Riley loves it too.

Moving Vacation (Day 3)

I was wrong. I ended the last post with "Tomorrow, Nebraska". I forgot we stayed in Lincoln that night. So this is a little bit of a continuation from the first post. On day 2 we drove through Iowa, then about 80 miles into Nebraska. Our overnight was great! We drove downtown and they had an amazing Mexican place to eat at. It was so good and has kept us hungry for it ever since then.

 The next day was a 6 and 1/2 hour drive. We drove straight through Neb. and about 60 miles into Wyoming. This is a really cool bridge we drove under.

 We stopped at the Pony Express house. It was really cool to see. The Pony Express was a fast mail service from the plains to California in 1860.

 The Pony Express house. You can see how small it is just by looking at John.

 Riley and I posing

 Family picture

 We drove for another few hours and came to a very small town with a winery. This is a mural painted on a wall next to the post office.

 The town. This is about it. The lady at the winery said 492 people lived in this town. I asked if everyone knew everyone's business and she said yes.

 We mailed some things at this post office. Wasn't sure if anyone would get it. It was sooo tiny inside!

 Winery where we bought a bottle of wine.

 Nebraska view. You can see for miles.

 As we neared Wyoming, it was getting a little bit more moutainous (is that a word?)

 Riley looking bored.

 Big Mary statue just a mile from entering WY.

 Welcome to Wyoming!!!

 View for most of the way from NE to WY.

We stayed in Cheyenne that night. I have tons more pics to post!

Our Moving Vacation! (Day 1 and 2)

I finally have the time to sit and write about our little family vacation. I'm not so sure if packing up our life and driving 2,200 miles, as well as moving to an entire different state is "little", but you get my drift. It started on Moving Day, as you can see. We loved our driver. He was really cool and took great care of our things. This is the first day the movers arrived.

 John not looking so happy about everything going on. He was such a trooper. I know how hard it is to move away from family but he was pretty positive, even when I knew it was hard to manage. I'm really proud of him.

 The movers came on a Monday. They packed Monday and loaded the truck Tuesday. John and I locked up the house, said our goodbyes, and took off around noon on Wednesday. Our first night we stayed in Moline, IL. Not the best place in the world but it was a 5 hour drive and we knew we would be exhausted. Moline is also in central time. We lost an hour that day. Welcome to Illinois!!

 Not sure what city this is, John had the camera. Everyday I drove the first 3-4 hours then we switched.

 This bridge was kinda cool, especially with the clouds. We were really lucky in having pretty great weather for most of the trip. It rained in Nevada, but it wasn't bad at all. Mostly just drizzle. Moline was pretty good. The hotel was ok and we ended up ordering food from a little bar. We didn't know it was a little bar until we got there, but the food was amazing!

 Day 2! Welcome to Iowa! I've never been to any of these states when I wasn't flying. It was really interesting to see the landscaping. It was what I pictured, but picturing it and seeing it were two different things. It was all very beautiful.

 A picture of Riley and all of our stuff packed up. Ri did a great job traveling. He mostly slept and hung out in the back looking out the window.

 A water tower with a smiley face :)

 The wind mills were the coolest! You can see in this picture how big they are compared to the cars. They were everywhere! It was really cool.

 We saw a sign for a winery and decided to exit. It was  a little off the beaten path but we were only driving about 5 hours that day so we had all the time in the world. It was a really cute shop and the vineyards were right behind the shop. It was literally in someones back yard. The lady was really nice and took the time to draw us a map to a little town to get food. (The town was about 100 people, it was so small!)

 Riley had to wait in the car.

 We did alot of eating on the road! We picked up McDonald's every morning, lunch to go every afternoon, and we either ate out or take out every night. We were so tired of eating out by the time we got to CA. We tried to find different places so we weren't stopping at the same places. We were known to go out of our way for a Popeye's or something. Tomorrow...Nebraska!

The House!

We're here! We finally unpacked (mostly) and this is somewhat of the ending result. We are LOVING our neighborhood. The house is wonderful, just a little smaller than our Indy house but it's actually working out really well. Just know that when you come visit, it'll be close quarters :)

 This is the front of the house. We went looking for chairs to put in front of the window today. We didn't find any but I know once spring comes around there will be patio furniture and plants all in front.

 Thanks for the sign, Mom! It's next to our front door.

 Our living room. And new TV :) The right corner with the globe, bookshelf, and wine will all change here shortly. The bookcase is going in the spare room. The movers lost the hardware pieces to even put the shelves up. It's on our to-do list to buy soon. We're looking for a big double chair to put there to serve as a reading area for me, extra seating, and a place for John and I to sit on and drink wine in front of the fire.

 Our wood burning fireplace that we are so excited to use. There's alot going on over there but like I said, a few things will change and mostly it's a resting place for pictures and stuff while we figure out what's going to be happening to the bookcase.

 Another view of the living room. Between the couch and chair is one of the two openings to get into the kitchen. You can also see the front door. And did I mention our (ahem) new TV. ; )

 View from the front door.

 Our dining room. I am so excited that I can fit my great grandparents dining set (minus the bench) and china cabinet in here. The bench is an old church pew that John got. Mom made 3 small pillows in the same fabric as the chair cushions to place on the bench so it all ties together. The boxes on the left are now in the garage. I'm going to put these curtains on the other side of the fireplace and buy these fabulous curtains I saw at Target to put here. It's also the door to get to the backyard.

 Our kitchen. When we first saw pictures I thought it was pretty small. However, it's really wide. I was very surprised with how spacious the kitchen actually is. Maybe if 5 of us try to get in there it may get crowded, but it's perfect for us 3.

 Here's another view of the kitchen. We have plenty of counter space and I have already used all of it! I believe I have cooked dinner every night and breakfast most mornings. I went through a few cajun cookbooks and wrote down about 20 new recipes. I'll let y'all know how they turn out. Tomorrow night, Crawfish Stew! Yummmmm! I love having a husband who adores my cooking. Makes living with me easy :)

 View from kitchen to living room in second opening. You can also see the hallway.

 First bedroom is our spare room. Yes, it's your bed when you come visit. I will say now, the mattress sucks, so sleep at your own risk. A new mattress is in the works and hopefully we'll have it soon. This room is actually kind of long. On the other side of this picture is a dresser and TV. There is also enough space for the bookshelf to go in here.

 The second bedroom is pretty small. It's our office/ second spare room if we need it to be. The couch is a pull out so we have the extra sleep space if it's needed. We also have a blowup mattress, so there's plenty of room for people to sleep! It's also our office and (hallelujah) we got internet today! Both rooms also have closets.

 This is the hallway bath. Pretty cozy. It's also the only bathroom with a tub so I'm in here pretty often.

 Small hallway into our room. Bathroom area is on the right side.

 Vanity with really large shower. It's not a double shower, but it easily could have been. It's a really small room and probably only one person could stand in there, but 3 people could fit in that shower! Not that we'll ever have 3 people standing in the shower at once. Unless we're fully clothed and seeing if, indeed, 3 people could actually fit in there. Ok moving on...

 Yes, our king size water bed fits perfectly. Originally we were giving up the water bed but we're going to wait a few months and buy the things we need now then we're going to buy a new bedroom set. I want a new bed and dresser.

 Both of our dressers. Again, I'm ready for one of those really large dressers that we'll share. Our curtains aren't up yet and we have alot of crap on top of the dressers b/c we're still getting situated. On a side note, we tried getting curtain rods up today but we won't finish until tomorrow. Or December when Keith comes to help. "We" really means John. I'm not strong enough (or maybe just not tall enough) to get those nails in the wall.  Anyway, we're putting up the red curtains that were in our living room in Indy. Over the door and window. I can't be having any light shining on me at 9am. That's way to early to be getting up. Just kidding. 7am is apparently the new 10am.

 Yes, we have the 70's closets complete with mirrors! I opened it a little so you can see that they are kinda deep. All of our clothes fit well, as you can see they fit plastic drawers.

 Our spacious backyard. Today is the first day it's rained in the 2 weeks we've been here. Every single day has been 75 and sunny. Today is like 60 and rainy. Anyway, look at all of the room we have! We went to an outdoor place today to look for outdoor furniture. We probably won't buy anything until early spring. But we're looking at table and chairs as well as a small outdoor couch and chair. Riley is just hanging out. He is loving it here. Besides his allergies, he has really enjoyed our house/ neighborhood so far. I didn't take a picture of the entire backyard but it keeps going on the other side of the picture.

This is an area on the side of our house. It's kinda nice though it's also a waste of space. It holds our trash cans, grill, Riley's pool, and it has a shed for the lawn mower and things.

All in all, we have really enjoyed this house. It has everything we need and it's centrally located. We're walking distance to the important things like Starbucks, Baskin Robbins, and a great Chinese place. The grocery store is also a couple of streets down as well as a ton of places to eat. There is also a Blockbuster right down the road. Less than 4 miles from our house is the Walmart, Target, and a huge Galleria mall. Across the street from the  galleria is another huge area with stores like the Barnes and Noble, Best Buy, Petsmart, PF Chang's. Those kinds of places. Everything is so close and so clean! I've never seen an entire city so clean. The people here remind me of Lafayette. They are the most friendly people and so many have gone out of their way to help us one way or another. John and I found another favorite. The In-N-Out burger place. OMG! Delicious! We ate there today and we're going try out a Mexican place tonight. (Today is our eating out day). Anyway, this is our house and next week I'm going to post pictures of our trip here. Bye!