settling in

Ok, it's completely true that we were sad to leave our old home.

But....the fact that the new home was going to have a McDonalds was a real bonus.  [Those of you who live in America, don't judge us.  A double cheeseburger tastes 10,000 times better over here.]

I believe the first day we arrived, we hit the golden arches.  You can't imagine how excited our kids were! 

We had a lot of work cut out for us when we arrived.  [Part of the problem was due to the fact that the moving company got in a wreck and our stuff was delayed by several days...!]

The fabulous little playhouse we had on our old patio would fit nowhere in our new home.  So instead, we donated it to the common play area downstairs.  The kids seemed to come out of the woodwork to inspect the new toy.

Abby was so thrilled that the new play area had a swing.  The girl loves herself a swing.

Also adding to the fun of things, Silas' birthday came just a few days after we arrived in our new city.   To make up for not making him an awesome birthday cake, we took everyone to Dairy Queen.  [This is a major step up for us.]

As we settled in, we made lots of trips to the trash area throwing out boxes, trash, etc.  We've thrown out some crazy stuff in our time, but finding this orange-hand-chair at the trash area might just be the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.  It was a bright spot for me one day during unpacking.

Josh picked out our apartment for us before the whole family made the move, and I hadn't seen it at all (not even a picture!) until we got there with the moving truck.  He found us a wonderful apartment, within walking distance to every possible convenience you could imagine.

Even with his mad apartment finding skills, the place still needed some work.  Not wanting to spend a bajillion dollars gutting the kitchen and starting over, I decided instead to try using contac paper to cover the oil-stained walls.  Here's the before (sorry about the pizza prep you see there):

And here's the (almost-finished) after:

(I was amazed at what a difference the contac paper made!)

And here is the living room (before):

And after!

Just behind the living room is the dining room (before):

Dining room (after fitting in our enormous table!):

Once things were painted and furniture arranged, there were still lots of odds and ends to pick up....like this big basin (our makeshift bathtub) and a plunger.  Why Abby has the plunger on her head, I'll never know.

Our apartment complex is set up in such a way that it's safe for our big girls to go ride scooters and play by themselves outside, which is a wonderful feature!  This particular day though, the blue skies lured me outside too!

We quickly found our closest indoor playground:

And also made frequent trips to the nearby fruit and vegetable market:

We checked on a few places for Abby to attend local school: 

(but have since decided to hold off on that.)

We had our first fall picnic (and living in a place where Subway can make that happen? Amazing!):

And got our first package!

Shortly after getting that "settled" feeling again, we started a system of weekly "dates" that Josh and I do with the girls.  He does one afternoon a week and I do Saturday mornings, so each girl gets 2-3 dates a month.  That has been such a fun new routine to start, and we've all really enjoyed it!

Settled in.

Starting again.

It's gonna be great.