The furniture hunt continues

It's warm here! Open the windows and wear flip-flops warm! Everyone has told us that March is the month that averages the most snow, so we certainly weren't expecting to have a week of 60's weather. Jon and I took a long walk yesterday out on the trails around our neighborhood. The weather was gorgeous and we found a new trail that we haven't done yet.
Afterwards we headed out to continue our search for a china cabinet and dining set. On the way we stopped at a Mediterranean restaurant that looked interesting. It's definitely one of our new faves. Jon had lamb gyros with rice and salad and I had the veggie plate (hummus, baba ganoush, tabouleh, rice, falafel, a stuffed grape leaf, and salad). We also split some spinach samosas (?) for an appetizer. It was my first experience with falafel and I loved it. In fact, everything was super-yummers!
Our next stop was Moosely Seconds - a furniture consignment store. Most of the stuff they have is brand-new, just being discontinued. We found a dining set with china cabinet that we like, so now we just have to make a final decision. This will be the first major furniture purchase that we have done together - crazy! The good thing is that we tend to like the same styles of furniture. =)

Portland

The past week I spent in Portland at a continuing education symposium that my company puts on for us. There were some nice refresher courses in medicine plus we had other sessions on finance, communications, and stress management. The conference was good, but with everything being in the hotel (our rooms, all the conference sessions, all our meals), I felt a little cooped up. Luckily our hotel was right on the river by the river walk so I tried to get out to walk along the river a couple of times a day. For most of the week we had great weather - apparantly very un-Portlandy. Also the tulips and daffodils were blooming so everything felt very springy and made me want to start thinking about garden plans for our new yard. =)

Valentine's

So, Valentine's day on a Wednesday is hard. Especially when I work until 7pm and have a 30 minute commute. Jon and I planned a casual evening - takeout and rent a movie.
Unfortunately it seems that on VDay you even need reservations for takeout. My first choice was PeiWei (mmm...PadThai) - but that had over an hour wait. For takeout! So Jon called a really yummy Asian restaurant near us - they didn't even answer the phone. Next he tried calling a yummy pizza place - they had over an hour wait too! All this calling occurred during my commute home.
By the time I got home we finally decided to just hop in the car and drive until we saw something promising. "Promising" ended up being Chipotle burritos, champagne, and the movie "Hitch" on DVD. A strange combo for VDay - but it ended up being perfect for us. Hitch is a really funny, really cute movie - gotta love Will Smith trying to teach Kevin James to dance. =) I hope everyone else's Valentine's day was as perfect for them as ours was!

Sidenote from Jon: After Jen left for work Valentines morning, I took a picture of our house. It had snowed a few inches the night before and I wanted to get a good picture before all the cars/dogs/people messed up the snow!

Moving in

We finally moved into our house! The past week has kind of been a blur. We've been busy packing boxes and getting ready for the move. On the evening of the 25th, I picked up a uhaul truck and parked it at Jen's work parking lot. On the 26th, Jen and I woke up early and picked up the truck. Thankfully, we had some help on the 26th. Nate, a great guy who is the fiance of one of Jens co-workers, showed up around 730, and we loaded all the heavy stuff from the apartment. Around 9am, another great guy that Jen works with: Kim, showed up to load some of the remaining stuff at the apartment. We all drove over to the house and unloaded stuff. Suprisingly, we barely got the master bed up the stairs. Supposedly, homes are supposed to be built so that a king sized bed can be moved into the master bedroom. We had to fold our mattress like a taco to get it in there! Nate had to go to work, so I made good use of Kim's services. We finished unloading the truck into the garage, and headed over to pick up a desk that I bought off of craigslist. I got a good deal on the desk (a solid wood desk weighing easily 300 lbs), but for a good reason: we had to move it out of the basement of the owners and up a snow-covered hill! An hour and a half (and many bruises) later, we had it loaded on the truck. Then we went to the storage unit and picked up all the larger items (washer, dryer, fridges, bowflex, etc). We got back to the house, and unloaded it all into the garage. Kim helped me get the desk into the basement. Thankfully, gravity helped out with that and it was easier than removing it from the other guys basement.

By 5pm, we had returned the uhaul. I dont think I have ever been so tired in my life! Jen got off work around 7pm and we spent our first night in our new house!

Since then, Jen and I have spent a lot of time emptying out boxes. I met a nice neighbor, and he lent us a dolly to move some things around the house.

There are still boxes everywhere, but they are slowly getting emptied! We are so grateful that Nate and Kim helped us move... we know we couldn't have done it without them!