Apartment pictures

I've been holding off posting pictures of our apartment because I keep thinking I'm going to have time to actually finish unpacking and get the place set up, but since it's been over half a month already and we're going to be gone this weekend, and if I'm honest with myself, next weekend is the earliest I would even get around to hanging a picture or a curtain. Since our schedules are a bit crazy right now, I'm not sure how long it will be in reality, so without further ado, our unfinished apartment:

Living room

Dining room, with an extra couch in it :)

Kitchen

Our bedroom

Other bedroom - where you will be staying if you come to visit! 

Deck

That is pretty much it! We have two bathrooms and a walk in closet in our bedroom, as well as a washer and dryer. Hopefully over the next couple weeks we will get around to making the place feel a bit more lived in, but as our families have been waiting to see what our place looks like, I wanted to post pictures now - so enjoy!

Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!

Chris spoiled me tonight by making french toast for dinner. I haven't had french toast since last Valentine's Day when we decided to make brinner a tradition. We are home tonight watching the Tribe game on tv and relaxing since I just got home from 11 hours at the hospital. A weird shift length - I know, but half of it was my clinical and the other half was work. Anyway I really appreciate the fact that I didn't have to think about dinner when I got home after a long day like that, and have another 12 ahead of me tomorrow :)

I hope you were all able to spend some time loving on the important people in your lives today. Our love goes out to all our friends and family (especially my Opa, whose birthday it is today!) and hope everyone was able to eat some form of chocolate. Because how can you have Valentine's Day without a single piece of chocolate?

Snow in the burg

It snowed last night in Williamsburg - first snow they've seen all year, I think! Chris was in a meeting yesterday afternoon and some of the people started taking pictures on their phones out the window. You can tell snow is kind of a once in a year occurrence around here. It was pretty sunny this morning which is a good thing because I didn't see a plow/salt truck anywhere and our street was pretty iced over. Of course, the roads that where being driven on were melting down a bit.

The other reason you can tell that snow is a rare occurrence here is because where Chris and I grew up, this amount of snow wouldn't even cause a delay of school, yet when we got to church this morning, this is what the parking lot looked like:

Empty. I guess snow keeps everyone indoors! It is already melting away so I'm glad I got to enjoy it last night and this morning while we had it.

Also, we found out that we either have a cat, raccoon, or some other type of small animal visiting up during the night. I heard meowing the other day when I was home but I couldn't find the source. I really hope it's a cat and not some other weird animal.

Casualty of the move and an attic

The unpacking/setting up in the apartment is going well, but a little bit slower than expected due to life...oh well! Pictures will be forthcoming; hopefully sooner rather than later. The only thing we've found thus far that's been broken in the move is my trusty, old coffeepot. A big crack somehow formed spanning the entire bottom of the carafe, and sadly, Chris only found that out after brewing coffee and coming back in the kitchen to find the coffee leaked all over the counter. We're not sure how this happened, but I suppose it was time. I bought the coffeepot for $14 after coming back from Germany my junior year in college. Germany's afternoon tradition of having kaffeeklatsch hooked me and the rest is history.

Farewell to my old coffeepot - it served well for the last five or six years. We now have a new, (hopefully) trusty coffeepot that will serve us for the next five or six years.

In other apartment news, we have a new feature in this place that we've not had in our previous condo, house, or apartment: an attic! It is quite handy because we can throw lots of stuff up there that we don't need on a regular basis (our moving boxes and bags, Christmas decorations, etc.). I was a little creeped out by the attic at first, but it has now proved its use and I am happy with it. Plus, it is significantly less creepy than our old basement at the Farmville house.

And it has the added benefit of reminding me of the movie Christmas Vacation every time Chris pulls down the collapsible ladder and heads up there.

Vineyard walk

One of our last evenings in the Vineyards, we took a walk through the neighborhood around the loop we had been making the last six weeks. It was such a pretty walk and I wanted to make it one last time. The pictures make it seem like it was later than it was, but it was dusky when we set out.

None of the vines had any grapes on them yet, but over the last couple weeks, we had been seeing people out there each morning and evening getting them ready for the season.

I've always thought that it would be fun to work or volunteer at a winery and learn more about the process. I know there's a lot of hard work that goes into it, so maybe one day when I've got lots of time on my hands again I'll check into it :)

Also, I don't think I ever posted a picture of the house in which we were staying the last few weeks, so here it is:

It reminds me very much of Williamsburg, which is probably what they were going for when they built it years ago, so I suppose they did a good job :)

Norfolk

We (but really only Chris) moved all our furniture into the apartment this weekend and we are in the process of unpacking and setting everything up - so no pictures yet since the place is still pretty messy. I did, however, come across this picture I took last summer of someone moving into our old apartment complex back in Farmville. Instead of walking their stuff out of the truck, around the corner, and through the front door, they put the truck's walkway up over the balcony and pushed their stuff into the apartment. Pretty creative, if you ask me, and it probably saved their backs a bunch of work. I wanted to remember for the next time we moved, in case we had a similar balcony set-up for our move...our stuff ended up coming in the front door again, though :)

In the meantime, while waiting for pictures of the apartment, you can enjoy these pictures from Norfolk:

We went to Norfolk last weekend for a basketball game/event for Chris' work and since we didn't have quite enough time to drive to the beach, we walked down to the river so I could at least see some sand. The event went really well, but the Tribe ended up losing the game. We had a great day though despite that!

Our new place!

We finally signed a lease! We have been looking around pretty diligently for the last month to find the best deal for our budget at the moment and made our decision this past weekend. We'll start moving our stuff over during this week, and Chris plans on finding a truck to move our furniture over this weekend. Hopefully by the end of the weekend we will have everything over there and then can start unpacking and settling in! Here is a picture of the outside:

(Sorry for the quality, I actually haven't taken any pictures, so this is one Chris sent me from his phone when he went to see it the first time.)

We've got two bedrooms and two bathrooms, so as always, we would love any of you family and friends to come visit. You are more than welcome! If you would like our new address, leave a comment below or send me an email and I'll be sure to get it to you.