Pictures of the new place, finally!

I (Matt) just went back and updated the blog with pictures and everything from the trip, so don't forget to go backwards and check those out! I finally got a computer for my cube at school, so I'm spending some time catch all of you up on our life! Please excuse the messiness of the house, we're still unpacking!

Here is the "pantry", where the kitchen sink, cupboards, and countertops are. Not a whole lot of room, but it's workable.

This is the kitchen. As you can see, there is no countertop space at all, and the washer and dryer are crammed in there as well. BUT it's ok, because it is actually a really big room. We use the washer and dryer for extra counter space.

The kitchen from the other angle. Please notice our beautiful kitchen table that we refinished and repainted!

This is the "front room." The couches may be a little unsightly, but they are really comfortable! We were able to take them up the stairs in 6 separate pieces, which was wonderful!
This is some kind of dining room or something. We're not sure what to do with it. We actually like the idea of leaving it open for now, since we don't have such a tremendous amount of visitors that we need places for them to sit or anything.

Guest bedroom, with our wonderful double-thick blow-up matress.

This is the office / 2nd guest bedroom. The futon is a fun story, because we bought it at a garage sale without knowing how we were going to get it home. We made friends with the guy who delivered our washer and dryer, and then he took Matt over to the sale to pick up the futon! He even bought some stuff there.
This is our bedroom, as you may have guessed by the messiness.
Look how big Dakota is getting!

An update...

We just finished a great weekend. Our friends Margo (of Players fame) and Jack came to visit us. Margo is in Maine finishing up her Physicians Assistant program and it was WONDERFUL to get to spend some time with them. Plus, Jack has a new puppy named Willy who is only about 3 weeks younger than Dakota - they got along great. It was WICKED hot here (see how I'm picking up the boston lingo?) so we spent most of Saturday at the lake where the dogs played and swam and the adults tried to stay in the shade :)
Matt finished his first week of research on Friday and was starting to get into the swing of things though he has had trouble jumping through the seemingly endless string of hoops in order to get things like keys to the labs, access to the computer software etc. Welcome back to academia! :)
Mar is still spending a lot of time at home: playing solitaire, reading, avoiding unpacking. She is VERY anxious to find a job and get out of the house but nothing has surfaced quite yet. She's decided to go ahead and try to start volunteering at some local shelters and stuff to just have something to do.
More later as more happens!

Productive weekend!

We had a very productive weekend! We went garage sale shopping on Saturday morning and got a bunch of stuff including a rocking chair (free!), bookshelf, laudry hamper, and an air conditioner. We also got a futon and convinced the guy that was delivering a washer and dryer to drive over and help Matt pick it up.
On Sunday we went to a flea market in a nearby town and completed our list of needed furniture items by buying a little table and a couple of chairs. We had to refinish the wood and spray paint the table and chairs white (they were green), but that went pretty quickly, and now it looks WONDERFUL!
We're seriously going to try to post a bunch of pictures from the journey over as well of pictures of our new apartment. Matt should be getting a computer at work/school in a couple of days, so he can do it from there. Today was supposed to be his first day, but the Graduate secretary wasn't there, so he couldn't set up any of his accounts or get keys to the labs or anything. So his professor suggested that he start by reading up on a bunch of journal articles related to the subject. So he went home and read for a while, and now we're planning on going into Boston for the first time to visit an old friend who moved there.

Getting Settled

It's starting to feel more like home here. We have moved our belongings to (mostly) where we want them in the apartment and now we are just furiously trying to buy enough furniture to house all those belongings.

But we've had some luck. On Wednesday we found a woman who was moving out of her house and she sold us a bed, two couches, a computer desk, a filing cabinet and a dresser. It was great to get so many things we need for such a GREAT price!

We (sadly) found out yesterday that internet at our apartment is only available from one provider and it is WAY too expensive for us to afford. So we are going to have to use the library and WPI for our internet needs. After five years of DSL at our fingertips whenever we want this may be an adjustment but I imagine we'll manage. However, that also means we probably won't be posting our pictures as fast as we'd have liked but such is life, I suppose.

Dakota is growing like a weed but seems to be getting used to our new home. From our living room to the back door there is about 40 feet of uninterrupted hallway space that is perfect for chasing her ball. So we sit on the couch and toss the tennis ball and she gets a workout. It's great. We hope to check out the park today and find a good jogging route for Dakota and Marilee to take.

I guess that's all for now. We finally got to the grocery store and we are PUMPED about not eating out for every meal! :)

Love you all!

WE HAVE ARRIVED...and so much more :)

First - sorry we weren't able to post while we were on the road. We thought we'd be able to find some free wireless internet access but it was not so.
However, we had a safe and (relatively) fun journey. We made it to Worcester Monday afternoon (a day earlier than we'd planned) picked an apartment the same day and stayed the night there last night!
This morning we hauled all our belongings up three very long flights of stairs in RIDICULOUS humidity. We have some great footage of both of our shirts sopping wet with sweat. Seriously, folks, I consider myself to have a pretty good work ethic but after my first two trips up those stairs I had little to no desire to keep going...sheer will... :)
We also have found that Worcester folks are VERY friendly and talkative. We've met all the other tenants in our apartment (guy on first floor and two women on second floor) and all the people in the building next to us. They really seem to be a fun group. Very diverse, very interesting...I'm excited about what kind of friendships we'll develop with them. And we LOVE our landlord. Every time he comes to take care of business we end up standing around talking for 1/2 hour - he's great.
Oh we also went to matt's school WPI (that's where we're using the internet actually) and it really is a gorgeous campus. We're pretty excited to see what he will do here.
We have LOTS of fun pictures from the road trip we'll post as soon as we get the time.
We love you and all we'd love to hear from you!

5th campsite - Somewhere near Rochester, NY

Apparently we didn't take a picture of this campsite either. Just your average KOA... Maybe I'll try to get one of these off the video as well. When we got to this campsite and set up the tent, we decided we didn't want to do that anymore, so we called a few apartment people and set up appointments to look at them the following afternoon. We woke up super early the next day so we could finish off the 6 hours of driving in time to choose and apartment.

Day 5 at Niagara Falls

This is Matt contemplating the enormity of the event... and the venue.

Mar is trying to figure out, where exactly is Canada anyway?
Dakota is making on small leap into her first international visit.

4th campsite - Walmart in Mauston, OH

Sleeping in the car in a Wal-Mart parking lot would probably have been fine if it wasn't unbearably hot, and if Dakota wasn't so awake and hyper from sleeping all day. We made this choice because we wanted to get closer to Niagara Falls, and we were sick and tired of setting up the tent anyway. Dakota ended up keeping us awake most of the night again by jumping on our heads.

3rd campsite - just outside of Dakota, MN

We didn't realize it beforehand, but this campsite was right on the Mississippi River. We enjoyed this beautiful view from the bluff for about 2 minutes before we ran back to our tent to get away from the mosquitos.

This campsite picture gives us nightmares. Dakota had to get up to "do her thing" about 6 times that night, it was BLAZING hot and humid all night, and a thunderstorm kept us awake with thunder and rain for most of the night. This is when we decided we were NOT excited about ever camping again.

This is Matt after Dakota puked in the car on our third day. Dakota later commented that she just wanted to add a bit of excitement to our journey.

This is Dakota in the car, dreaming about the fast one she just pulled on Matt.

2nd campsite - Mt Rushmore, SD

This is our second campsite though, just North of Mt. Rushmore.

The owners told us that it wasn't supposed to rain, but Matt ended up putting on the tarp after taking this picture anyway, because it had been pouring for part of the drive that day. Eventually the storm did catch up to us and it rained HARD for a couple of hours.

Mt Rushmore

These pictures are from the memorial at Mt. Rushmore

1st campsite - Billings, MT

We didn't get a picture of our first campsite. I may be able to take one off of the video someday... It was the Billings KOA. Basically they just made us pay $27 to pitch our tent on a little patch of grass. We did end up using the hot tub as well, so maybe we got a LITTLE out of the deal...

Today we got a trailer hitch put on the car and packed up the trailer. We were able to fit pretty much everything we had, including the bookshelfs and papasan chair, which was amazing! It helped that we were able to get the next bigger size of trailer, otherwise it wouldn't have been even close. 

Poor Dakota with a swollen eye

We left Dakota with Matt's parents last night when we were hanging out, and she got a bug bite or something! This is what it looked like last night, but it looks much better now.

Last day in Washington

On Friday night we drove up the island to Sedro Woolley and stayed with Jack and Wendy. They had a 2 day old colt that was amazing to see! They also have two big dogs and one small dog who Dakota had a hayday with. On Saturday morning we went down to Marilee's grandparents house in Arlington for a workday / going away thing for us. It was good to see everyone, but really sad to leave. We also got married there at that house, so driving off felt strangely like we were going to our honeymoon again. Except this time no one threw anything at us.
Dakota was wonderful on the drive over to Hayden, she pretty much slept the whole time. We're hoping that she keeps up that attitude for the BIG trip as well! We're really glad that we are staying at Matt's parents for the entire time we're in Idaho, so we don't have to keep moving Dakota's crate around to different houses.
Today is the big going away party for all of Matt's relatives. Then for the next couple of days we'll be dealing with packing up the trailer and visiting a few more people, then we're off!

Whidbey Island

Last night the Widbey Island ferry decided to get back at us one last time. We left Christy and Larry's house with just enough time to get to the 10:00 pm ferry, BUT there was a line and we ended up missing the boat by 10 cars. Of course the ferry only runs every hour at that time of night, so we had to wait there for an hour. Thanks again for the hospitality, Whidbey!

Mar's Mariner luck continues!

Today we are at Christy and Larry's house chillin with the kids and Christy (Larry's at work). Mar got a good workout this morning playing with Luke. He loves to use adults as jungle gums, climbing up legs and down backs and swinging from arms etc. :) It was great fun, but she certainly doesn't need a run today!

Later we are planning to do something fun and exciting with the kids once Elaina is done with school for the day. We just love being with our neice and nephew so much. They bring us so much joy and they use up a lot of Dakota's energy :)

The subject line refers to the Mariners shut-out of the Toronto Blue Jays last night 3-0, which we got to see from behind home plate (albeit in the nose bleed section.) Mar's parents got tickets for us and we had a great time eating hotdogs and cotton candy and cheering the M's on the victory. Mar's Dad got really carried away with buying us candy and such but we're never two to refuse cotton candy even at $3 a pop!

And the best part of the night was that Marilee actually attended a game that the Mariners won! This has only happened one other time and it was the last game she went to so we've decided it is a winning streak - I'm no longer a curse, I'm a good luck charm and we're moving to Boston! :) Oh, well I imagine the M's will survive.

We also had a nice lunch yesterday with Mar's Aunt Patti, Uncle Phil and Noni Linda. It was wonderful to connect with them again and we had a GREAT lunch at Luisa's mexican restaurant. Tomorrow it's off to Whidbey Island where we will partake of the best bagels on earth...oh how Mar will miss Kichli's bagels. If anyone goes to visit the Jolins on Whidbey you've GOTTA go to Kichli's Bagel Shop for a veggie sandwhich on a garlic bagel. Hmmmm, bagels... :)

The first goodbye

We left for Seattle today just after noon. We fed the puppy, said goodbye to Hans, Rebekah, Bren, Levi, and Bruce, and then we drove off. We stopped to see Naomi along the way, but only briefly. We both have to admit that there wasn't a great sense of finality to leaving Newberg. We've lived there for 5 years now, so it's not like we weren't attached to the place, but we think that we're both still in vacation mode. It probably won't hit us until we've been in Worcester for a while and we're ready to go "home" from our vacation, then we realize that the Northwest is not home anymore.
We are now at Tim and Meg's house for the night. The puppy is pretty stressed about being in new places all of the time, but she seems to be surviving.
By the way, Worcester is pronounced WUSS-TUH. We feel like we're just doing a bad job of pretending to have an accent when we actually pronounce it that way. BUT when we pronouce it WAR-CHEST-ER like it looks, people laugh at us.