Ahhh must keep trying to catch up –  I hate being so behind!  Started yesterday morning off by tackling the kitchen – quite the project.  I made a lot of progress though!

Rather than spend another full day trapped inside among the mess and boxes, we thought we’d treat ourselves to a break and head out to the city to show my mom all of the wonderful reasons we wanted to move here. 

It’s pretty amazing to pass things like this when you are simply walking to meet a friend for lunch…

We took the Metro from our house up to the mall, and then walked up past the Capitol to meet Blake for lunch in Capitol Hill.  The original plan was to try Good Stuff Eatery – a burger joint owned by Spike from Top Chef!  But sadly they were closed on Sundays, boooo.  So we went down to Barrack’s Row and went to a fun little Mediterranean place instead.

A lovely afternoon lunch eating outside with the most PERFECT fall weather!  I am so excited that after ten years of living very far apart, Blake and I are now about 7 miles from each other.  :)  He is my very best boy friend!

After a fun day out in the city, we headed back home for a monumental event – my first home cooked meal in my new kitchen.

New kitchens always take a bit of an adjustment, especially when half of it is still in boxes, but I can already tell I am going to love it.

My new Front Burner!  :)

It wasn’t exactly a complex or fancy meal, but it was a nice break from all the eating out we’ve done.  There are so many wonderful places to eat out here, so we are setting a rule that we can only eat out once a week!  Delicious spinach salad with grapes, strawberries, apples, and olives – topped with my perfect sauteed tofu! 

We didn’t eat until after 9pm – hence the dark kitchen photos.

Soooo nice to eat a home cooked meal again.  The first of many to come!

And now it’s getting late, and I’m off to attempt meal number two!  I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing Labor Day weekend.  :)

Our first full day at the new house and it was just as glorious as I had dreamed it would be!  Even though we had half the truck to still unload, Casey and I got up early to take the dogs out for their first walk in the new neighborhood.  They are still adjusting and excited, so they are pulling SO hard on their harnesses – it makes it very hard to walk them!

We explored the adorable streets of Old Town and with every passing block I was reminded more and more of why we moved here. 

We headed up a few blocks to King Street, where we suddenly stumbled across the most amazing farmer’s market on the plaza of the Old Town City Hall!  There were soooo many vendors and people out already at 7am on a Saturday – my kind of place.  Too bad we had our dogs with us so we couldn’t venture in (they are not so good in crowds), but we are already marking our calendars to head there next weekend.

On our way back to the house, I stopped inside this cute place called Firehook Bakery to pick up some breakfast.  I grabbed a few different croissants and muffins to take back to the house – yum!

After some quick breakfast fuel, we were back at it unloading the truck, and ready to face the dreaded 400 pound dining room table.  Since my hands were killing me from carrying so many other boxes and pieces of furniture, I came up with the clever idea to wear our biking gloves to protect our sore hands. 

The table slowly but surely made its way inside.  I had to stop to take breaks about every 20 feet, just to get it in the door!

After the disaster with the box spring yesterday, I was not giving up so easily on the table.  A few bruises and welts later, we had SUCCESS and got it to the second floor!

Meanwhile, the dogs are loving their private backyard patio.  The gorgeous cool weather this weekend was absolutely perfect for moving in and relaxing out back!

This is the scary reality of what the moving process can do an otherwise normal girl. 

Many boxes and trips later, we were all moved in and piled high to the sky!  My kitchen is scaring me.

Could these two get any cuter?

Once the truck was unloaded, we wanted to take advantage of the few hours we had before it needed to be returned.  Acting on a blog reader tip (thank you, Lindsay!) we headed to the Crate and Barrel outlet that is less than a mile from our house!  It was totally meant to be because we walked in the door and found a couch that we loved within the first minute.  Love at first sight!

Getting it in the door was another story.  You guys, I know I’ve talked about moving being draining and exhausting, but this couch pushed me over the limit.  I declared that there WILL be movers when we leave this place after we got it inside!

But it was totally worth the pain, because…check out our living room so far!  I am so excited – it’s all coming together really well.  I LOVE the new couch – it has super deep cushions, which is exactly what I wanted.

Indy gave it the lazy dog seal of approval.

At that point it was time for a lunch break.  While Casey and I moved the couch, my mom ran around the corner to a cute little gourmet food mart and picked up some delicious avocado sandwiches – YUM.

Even though we had already had a busy day, we pushed on and headed to every mover’s paradise – IKEA!  Believe it or not, we needed a second couch, since we are making our office into a combination guest room.  Three hours later, I left a lot poorer and with a huge load of goods.

Kitchen shelves, trashcans, spice jars, coffee tables, light bulbs, a few things for my friend Blake, and a giant pullout couch!

We had a close call with the boxes almost not fitting into the car, but we arranged and rearranged several times and made it work. 

Unfortunately when we brought the stuff into the house, Blake slipped and fell down the steps and twisted his ankle.  :(  Indy did his best to comfort him!

We stayed up until way too late assembling furniture and trying to sort our way through the boxes.  By tomorrow I should have some really good and organized photos for you guys!  Slowly but surely.  It’s still a mess, but it already feels like home.   :)

Happy holiday weekend!

Ohhh my gossshh I have so much to tell you guys about!!  Sorry for the disappearing act – I am JUST now getting internet access!  Let’s start at the beginning…

Thursday night, Casey and I wanted to get the entire truck packed up, so we spent our last night in the house sleeping straight on the rock hard floor, with just a pillow and blankets.  I barely slept a wink, and when the alarm went off at 5am I was already so anxious about the move.  We spent about an hour getting every last little thing into the cars and truck, and then said our final goodbyes to our big blue house on Brynmar.

My mom and I cleaned every nook and cranny so that the house would look fabulous when we left.

Casey headed out first since he wanted to get a head start, so I waved goodbye in the darkness of the morning. 

The funny part is that just seconds after I took this picture, I heard a horrible SCRAPE sound, to discover that our moving truck actually bottomed out at the bottom of our driveway.  About ten minutes of panic and the threat of having to UNLOAD the entire truck later, Casey announced that he had an idea.  He gunned the truck out of it’s stuck position in the ditch of our driveway, and then built a bridge out of a rolled up rug and some wood planks, to propel the truck over the dip where the driveway meets the street.  It was HORRIBLE and I was holding my breath, but it worked!  He is a genius.  I waved him on and he headed north!

Back inside, I said goodbye to my kitchen.  So many great cooking memories in this house.

Recognize this image?

Thank god for my mom, I never could have managed the cleaning and the dogs without her. 

We wanted to give Casey a good lead, so the two of us decided to take the dogs for one last walk around the old hood.  They were VERY excited and incredibly anxious.  The empty house made them so nervous!

One mile later, we piled into the car and headed toward our new home!  The dogs were not totally convinced that this was a good thing.

Before long, we took our first break for some much needed coffee.  At this point I had been running on three days of hard-core physical exertion and VERY little sleep.

One of the things I was most nervous about for this trip was physically getting the dogs there.  When we moved from OH to NC I drove them in the back of our Honda, which was NOT a pleasant experience.  I was crossing my fingers that the combination of more space in the SUV plus cushy dog beds would be a better scenario.  They were a little anxious at first…

And did a bit of bouncing off the walls…

But within about ten minutes they had calmed down and were happy to snooze in the backseat. 

Meanwhile, I had mom behind me following the caravan.  It was so helpful to have her to help with the dogs at the gas stations and stops.

I stopped to let them out after about 4 hours, and found this fun grassy area where I actually ran them for a bit to burn off some energy.  The other folks pumping their gas thought we were insane.

Before I knew it, Virginia welcomed me!  MY NEW HOME STATE!!

Unfortunately, Virginia also made me sleepy.  Or perhaps that was the 36 hours with almost zero sleep catching up to me.  Either way, I got a disgusting sugar-free energy drink out of sheer desperation.

My mom tried to get away with eating a Snickers ice cream bar and NOT have it documented on the internet.  Doesn’t she know me?

A little over six hours of driving later, I pulled into Old Town, Alexandria and immediately remembered how much I LOVE IT here!  It is seriously the cutest neighborhood I’ve ever seen.  And here’s what you’ve actually been waiting for this whole time – pictures of our NEW HOUSE!

I only have a few for now, but trust me there are many many more to come.  Starting with the main side of our beautiful, updated kitchen.

Bright, sunny living room with a working wood-burning fireplace…

Big master bedroom, which we are actually going to use as an office and guest room combo…

My personal favorite room – the most amazing bathroom EVER!  Check out that soaking tub and the double headed shower…

And the third floor loft room, which will be used as our bedroom…

After I ran around and took pictures, we got to unloading.  It was a nightmare.  My muscles and energy were just so dead from moving everything INto the truck, and I had so little left to give for the move out.  One of our biggest obstacles was this box spring, which we tried to get to the third floor. 

About two hours of attempting and one sawing incident later, we determined that the box spring was NOT going to make it up the steps.  I had a minor breakdown and then decided that it was just a bed, and life would go on.  The box spring now lives in a dumpster and our mattress is on the floor – sad.  We ended up unloading a little over half the truck before declaring ourselves too tired to continue, and left the rest for the morning.   

Casey ran to the store to get snacks and dinner, and while my food itself is undocumented, I can assure you that the majority of it was eating about half of this huge baguette smeared with jelly.  Delicious, indeed.

That’s it for day one!  Much more to show you tomorrow – things are starting to come together!  But for now, I really need a good night’s sleep.

Thank you so much to everyone for all the warm wishes and happy thoughts!  It’s so fun to share it with you guys.  Can’t wait to unpack my kitchen and COOK again!