Monday, July 28, 2008

Just posted this on my blog, thought I'd share.

So I didn't take any pictures of the actual building, which is a shame cause the pool and commons area would blow your mind. They are so nice. It makes me feel like I'm spending a lot more than we are, and trust me . . . we are spending a lot. I looked at housing in Denver today and about croaked! It's so cheap! Which means I only have things to look forward to. Anyway, here's a tour of our new place.

Ben about croaked when I spent $200 on a new bathroom. But I love it! And I love all the cabinet space, we don't have to leave everything on our counter anymore.
Our bedroom, well part of it. I gave Ben the lamp, he was stoked. I had to put it on that side of the room to balance out the dresser on the other side.

My closet is possibly my favorite part of our new place. It's so big. You'll notice I can't even fill it. Also notice the cute monkey wearing a Muslim, Malaysian Flag hat in the top left hand corner.











We have two storage closets like this. I love it! Definite bonus, our last place barely had a coat closet. The other picture is Ben's study corner. He misses the den, having his desk out in the living area means he has to keep it tidy. But he manages.

Our living room. Do you think either of us like to read? Once we can afford a house we're going to have a library.
Our kitchen is a lot bigger here. I love all the cabinet space. And on the opposite wall there is even a pantry for our food (and hopefully some food storage, when we get some spare cash). Don't be thrown off by the door, it's not our entry way, we have two doors.









You can't see it very well but I have all my Malaysia/Singapore trinkets up above the kitchen cabinets. I think it adds a special touch. I also hung the sweet elephant on bamboo on the opposite wall, to give a real Asian kick. The other picture is, obviously, our dinning room table and the door to our balcony.

I love our palm. And you can't really tell, but just past that big pot (by the palm) there's a nice little table with two seats. We love spending time out on our balcony. Our two trees only cost us about $50 each. Money well spent.

I love our cane tree. It reminds me of my sweet Malaysia. And the pot on the right was only 26 bucks. A real steal if you ask me. Now, if only we don't kill it.





The view from our balcony seats (summer/fall time dinner table) is gorgeous. The picture doesn't do it justice, but there are just tons of trees off in the distance. Maybe I've just been here too long, but I feel like you can't even tell we're in the city when you look over our balcony. It's a lot better view then our last place.

And now for some 4th of July photo ops . . .










At lunch with Lauren, Jessica, and Katie. As we were waiting for our food this huge barge pulled up on the canal just off Lake Erie. It was cool to watch.

On our way to the mall Ben saw this huge puddle and couldn't resist. He's such a little kid. And a fool. He thought it would just shoot straight up over his head, not straight up his behind. He looked like he wet his pants for about an hour, and his shorts stayed nice and moist for a good three. Serves him right.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Moving Day Fiascos

So as you all know Liz and I recently moved to a new apartment. We really like it, and it is quite a bit cheaper per month which is always nice. We don't have a washer/dryer but we will learn to cope somehow. Anyhow, I thought I would just set out some of the pitfalls along the way, in case any of you haven't heard them.

1) We found out the Tuesday before we were planning on moving that we did not have an apartment, because the previous tenant had not been evicted as planned. The best part is the apartment managers did not call us to tell us, we only found out because Liz called to finalize some details about the lease! So who knows if they ever would have gotten around to telling us we didn't have an apartment. Luckily while we were looking for other apartments we found a building just up the road from us that had an opening for that very weekend!

P.S. I talked to a guy I work with and he said that under D.C. law it can take as long as 6 months to a year to actually evict an unwilling tenant.

2) I made a reservation for a moving truck with Uhaul online about a week and a half before we moved. I even called the rental place on Thursday to confirm our reservation. Friday afternoon I get a text message telling me that my reservation has been moved to a different location and my truck won't be ready until 1:30pm. This was a problem because we had already announced the move in church, recruited friends, and reserved the freight elevators for 9am! So, I called and after being told there was no way I could get a truck before 1:30pm I sweared at the guy called him incompetent and he hung up on me (not wholly surprising). We ended up renting a truck from Penske (though it was significantly more expensive they guarantee their rental reservations).

3) After loading the moving truck and getting ready to drive over to our new place I realized that I didn't know where the truck key was. I thought maybe Liz had it, but she didn't. That's right within the space of 2 hours I had managed to lose the key to our fully loaded moving truck! So after a mini stroke, I called up the rental office and luckily they could make me a new key (for a small fee of course) and we were on our way.

4) Due to the delay of losing the key and having to get a new on we missed our reserved time on the frieght elevator. If any of you have ever moved into/out of a high rise building you know how important it is to have a reserved elevator. So we had to take up most of our stuff in the regular elevators and endure countless dirty looks and turn people away when we had the elevator stuffed full of junk. Luckily, the people that had it reserved after us were kind enough to let us take up a few loads of really big stuff (i.e. our bed and couch) and it turned out ok.

That's most of the moving drama, now we are just trying to get unpacked and situated in our new apartment. I'll be sure to post some new pictures once it looks presentable!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

New Address

1600 S Eads #1026S
Arlington VA 22202

Notice we are on the same street as our previous address.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

More friends come to visit.

There are about a gazillion pictures here. But I thought you might enjoy them. And it might make you want to come to DC . . .

Norfolk VA

Washington DC

Ben and I are moving this week. I hate the stress of packing. And to add on to that, the person who was suppose to be evicted from our new apartment hasn't left yet. Sweet! We may be homeless come Sunday.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

More Ohio Pictures & A Video

Synchronized Diving

Lauren @ Bucco di Beppos

Heron @ Shooters

Heron @ Natural History Museum

There are more pics posted here.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Ohio Pictures









I just thought I would share some of my favortie pictures I took in Ohio