Apartment Living

Well, we did it. 

We closed on the house on Thursday, packed like crazy people Friday afternoon/night, and moved out on Saturday. We started at 6:00 Saturday morning and didn't technically get finished until 4:00 that afternoon. We had some amazing guys help us and we could not have done it without them. They were the cutest and most muscle-y men I've ever seen. And precious, precious Kaley kept the girls for us so I could pack and move light stuff and clean the house. 

Bye house!

My fingers are ripped to shreds and unforgiving. My sciatic nerve and I aren't on speaking terms right now. But, we're getting there. David and I unloaded one last half-load from the Uhaul at the end of the day and literally, on the last trip inside, my back said, "Okay, that's it...we're done or I'm leaving." I feel like I overdid it a little bit, but we had to do it and now we're moved in and have gotten two great nights' sleep, so it's been nice. 

We figured it had to happen sometime, so David converted the girls' cribs to toddler beds. We got rid of their cage enclosure nets and now they're free as birds and they definitely take advantage of it. We've got their room set up with just their beds and toys in there, so they have at it and we don't even care. No more house showings, so I just let them go crazy. And when they're done playing at night, they crawl up in bed and lights out. Not once have they freaked out about being in a new place. They have transitioned SO well. I was surprised and relieved. They're totally chill about the whole thing. It's actually been a really smooth move. Being pregnant didn't help, but all in all, it wasn't bad. 

There's a great playground nearby and we are about 10 steps away from the pool. It took David 6 minutes to get to work this morning. Chick-fil-A is about a 4 minute drive. The mall is across the road. What more could you ask for. I miss having a yard, but the other stuff makes up for it. And we'll have a yard in a few months, so we can make it. 

There's about 50 more square feet in the apartment than we had in the house. Our bedroom and kitchen are just a SMIDGE smaller than at the house, but the other two bedrooms and living room are bigger. I'm not even painting or hanging a thing on the wall. I have a few plants set up, but that's about it. We couldn't have asked for a better set-up, really. 

Things I learned from moving...

- We have a lot of crap.

- It's actually amazing how few things you actually need to live off of. We have it down to the bare necessities at the apartment and we're totally fine. I don't even remember what we have in the storage unit. 

- You become less sentimental over things when you realize you have to either pack and store them or just throw them away/donate them. I was pretty surprised by how unattached I became to things after #1. watching too many Hoarders episodes and #2. I totally forgot we even had and couldn't really remember why we still had it or where we got it from.

- A lot of companies have your address and you have to change it for all of them. 

- Weeds grow really fast when you stop caring about how your yard looks. 

- Being preggers doesn't actually give you any extra strength...a common misconception. Dwight Schrute was wrong. I do not have the strength of a grown person and a little baby. I pretty much just have the strength of a little baby. 

- I am never moving again (except to the new house and then y'all will have to pry me out of there).

We had a security system at the house with video surveillance. And at the closing, we asked if the new owners wanted to transfer the service to their names. We can't have it at the apartment, and if they didn't want it, the security company would just come and get the equipment and we'll have it put in the new house. They asked about it and we told them you could control everything from your computer or phone and we mentioned the video surveillance and the girl asked, "So, you can watch us?" And we were like, "Yeah." You should have seen their faces. Huh-larious. We laughed and told them we never had it on. It would automatically come on if the alarm went off so it could record a robbery for the police, but we never turned it on and we would actually unplug it once we left on Saturday. But, I bet you they're sitting in their house right now wondering if we actually did. Heh heh. Bet they don't do anything naughty until they know for sure. 

Anyways. I'll have Alaska pictures up this week!

Closing Day

Kelly, I thought the SAME THING about the painting in the hotel! Great Gatsby eyes.

Today is the day! We close on the house at 1pm. And technically, it'll be theirs then, but we're not actually moving out until Saturday. And I know anything can happen between now and 1pm, but all of our paperwork has gone through, all of the buyers' paperwork has gone through, the buyers close on their own house at 9am, so all of those buyers' paperwork has gone through, and they closed on their house yesterday, so all of their paperwork obviously went through. Yeah, three houses involved with this, which is weird.

And the couple actually wanted to come by last night to do a "final walk-through," which confused me because they had already done that. But, they actually just brought their parents to see the house. Which also was kind of weird because they're moving in on Saturday...just see the house then. But whatevs. They seemed to still like the house. The dad and son (buyer) walked out in the yard for awhile. David got all grouchy and mumbled to me, "Stop talking about what you're gonna do with the yard. It's not your yard yet!" And I'm like, "Dude, they can do whatever they want with the yard. We're just very thankful they bought the house." They're actually a very nice couple. I'm guessing a few years younger than us. No kids. Just 2 dogs and 4 cats.

Anyways. Just pray it all goes smoothly today!

We started moving stuff into the apartment on Tuesday. I met David up there after he got off work and I cleaned while he watched the girls. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised by how clean it already was. I just did one more Ruth clean and was happy. It's actually about 10 square feet bigger than our house, so we won't be missing any space. We officially decided on a builder and we're meeting with them on Sunday to finalize everything. I'm hoping they start on the house right away and it's done next week. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Had a doctor's appointment yesterday for baby boy bean and everything looks good! I'm having some sciatic nerve problems, so my left butt cheek has been pinching like a mad dog. I've had to crawl around a few times to get from point A to point B. Thankfully, it's just the girls and me here during the day, so they think it's a game and don't laugh at me. It's just annoying, especially since we're packing and it just comes out of nowhere. But, Dr. Mac and Mom gave me some good stretches to do to help it. Dr. Mac suggested getting a maternity belt to "lift and support." He said it sounds like a bra commercial, but for your belly. I'm 22 weeks and 5 days, but I'm measuring 24 weeks. So...yay for that, says the heifer. Baby is measuring right on time, so it's just me that's huge. But, then again, at this time with the twins, I was measuring about 28 weeks, so that makes me feel a teeny bit better. And instead of my belly being round like it was with the girls, it sticks STRAIGHT out. It literally is like I'm smuggling a watermelon. It's so weird. Maybe the belt will help.

Alrighty, y'all have a good Thursday.

Our Alaskan Adventure: Vancouver

Okay, so NOW begins our last week in the house. Got a lot done this weekend. Still a lot to do, but we're making good progress. I keep telling myself, "If we can just make it to Sunday..." But, in the grand scheme of things, it's just moving stuff. No biggie, right. RIGHT? 

Totes agree with you guys about Hunger Games. If I were to write a story, it would be like, "Mary Sue was a nice girl who met a nice guy, Joe, and the worst thing that ever happened to either of them is that Mary Sue's hair got singed at a bonfire and she had to cut it, but she liked it short even better, and one of Joe's shoestrings broke and he had to buy a new pair. And they lived happily ever after. The end." I'm predicting it would sell about 4 copies...3 of which would be bought my my Mom...but it would be a happy story with no stressful or tense moments. But, HG is a good set of books, I will admit. Very captivating and they really make you root for the characters. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the 2nd book now and it's like COME ON!!!!! President Snow can kiss it. 

Anyways. 

Guess what? I have a few pictures!! Starting with Vancouver. 

That Wednesday morning, we were up at 3:30 and left the house at 4:00 in order to get to the airport about 4:40. Our flight left at 6:00 on the dot, so we thought we had pleeeenty of time. The Birmingham airport is an international airport, but it's not a huge airport and I mean, how many people are flying out at 6:00 a.m. on a Wednesday, right? Apparently, everybody. We've left tons of time super early in the morning and literally walked right through security. Wednesdays seem to be a pretty popular day. Took us about 5 seconds to check our bags and get our tickets. Then about 100 hours to get through security. I'm not kidding when I say the line went back 1/2 mile. So serious. Actually, it moved pretty quickly and we got to the gate about 15 minutes before they started boarding, which is about 30 minutes before they actually leave, so we had plenty of time. But, it scared me for a second.  

By the time we laid-over in Houston and then got to Denver, I was starving and all I could think about was pizza and ice cream and little Hugsy found me some. 

From Denver to Vancouver, I thought, I'm gonna get a cup of decaf coffee. Remember when they used to give you tons of free stuff on airplanes? Cookies, peanuts, granola bars, drinks, etc. Now they just barely give you a small cup of coke or coffee. So, I was getting my free coffee. The lady said, "It's instant. Is that okay?" I've had instant coffee before. Sure, that's fine. No big deal. Now, I was expecting Starbucks Via or anything, but HOLY COW...this was the worst thing ever. I have never drank (drunk?) anything so repulsive. It tasted like a porta-potty smells. 

Finally made it to Vancouver! BEAUTIFUL city. We got a taxi from the airport to the hotel downtown and it was such a nice drive. The houses are beautiful. There are flowering gardens everywhere. It's so lush and green and surrounded by snow-peaked mountains. It's a perfect city, really. And so clean and it smelled so nice. Canadians are healthy, y'all. Like, crazy healthy. Even the McDonald's commercials touted the fact that they use free-range, organic chicken with no chemical processing for their chicken sandwiches and nuggets. We ate at a fabulous little diner for breakfast both mornings, Joe's Grill.  Everything was organic. The best bacon I've ever had. The freshest strawberry crepes with creme. Even the waffles were free-range. It was goooood. 

19 weeks with baby boy

Excited to head out for the day!

View from our room.

Our room at the ClubIntrawest. 

Creepiest artwork ever.

They had Gilchrist and Soames bath products in the bathroom. I've never used their stuff before. It was tough going back to my Pantene. It just smelled so amazing. 

We had a telescope in our bedroom. Tried to spy on the office building across from us, but nothing sinister happened. Just people working. Lame. 

On Thursday, we met up with Rebecca and Richard, who were staying at a B&B not too far from us, rented some bikes and headed to Stanley Park. It's about a 6 mile trip around the entire park on the Seawall and Richard figured we'd cover more ground and see more by riding. Such a good idea. The weather was perfect and the ride was so nice. This is the marina.

 

We finished with our ride earlier than we thought we would and decided to walk from Stanley Park to Canada Place and then Gastown.

 Canada Place

We stopped by a chocolatier called Leonidas. Soooo good. I got chocolate...

 And David got macarons.

 Gastown

The steam clock

It's like a mini Flatiron Building.

That evening, David and I went to The Urban Tea Merchant. Okay, yes yes yes, I made my husband go have tea with me. He wasn't thrilled with the idea at first, but warmed up to it. And when we got there, he was more than happy to eat what they served us, which was AMAZING. It was one of the most fun and entertaining dining experiences I've ever had. And you can ask him yourself if he'd do it again. I think he enjoyed it as much as I did. 

It was such a formal, fancy presentation. It was kind of funny, because we're not used to that kind of stuff. We walk in and I made us a reservation, so it was all such a show how they welcomed us and showed us to our table. We were in jeans and I asked the server, in his tuxedo, if we were dressed okay. He said, "This is Vancouver, the most casual place in the world. You're dressed perfectly." So, even though it seemed super formal, it was really inviting and relaxing. 

We chose what type of service we wanted and it came with our own pots of tea. They had over 150 types to choose from. One pot, a Japanese tea, was $75. We forwent that one and each chose something we could pronounce. I got a decaf Chai Rooibos and David got a Black Vanilla Tea. All of their teas were prepared the "right" way. Apparently, tea bags dilute the flavor. You're supposed to just use straight up leaves and herbs and what not and it has to steep for an eternity or something. But, yeah, who has the time, right. But, you could definitely taste the difference. I've had rooibos before, but this was like rooibawesome. 

But, let me tell you about David's vanilla tea. I took a swig just to try it. You guys...I can never drink tea again. This stuff ruined me. It was like drinking hot melted ice cream straight from a Tahitian vanilla plant. It was unreal. We bought a bag in the store downstairs for after I get unpregnant and can have loads of caffeine again.

After a few sips of team, the server brought us champagne classes filled with straight up chilled white tea, the purest form of tea. Nothing else in it. It was supposed to be a palette cleanser. It was awful. That's harsh...let me rephrase. It was AWFUL. I didn't want to hurt their feelings by not drinking it, so I thought, "I'll add some of this raw sugar to it and maybe that'll help." It did not help and then I had huge chunks of sugar in my glass that wouldn't dissolve because of the extremely cold beverage. So, sweet David saved me and swigged it all down for me so it looked like I drank it.

Then, they brought us our food.

Here we have a tier of chocolate-dipped madeleine, gooseberry fruit, petit-four, ganache truffle, tea-infused macaroni, chocolate strawberry, and fruit (with some tea-infued rhubarb).

The second tier was two four-cheese mini quiches and a raisin scone, cream, and jam.

Third tier was egg salad sandwich, cucumber sandwich with tea-infused wasabi spread, beef carpaccio with something foam, smoked salmon on rye, shrimp and green apple spoon, olives and mini pickles, and tea-infused chicken salad in waffle cone. It was all much more fancy sounding and had more ingredients that I can't remember when they explained it to us. The girl who brought it and went through everything had a fabulous French accent, so I couldn't understand most of it anyway.

We ordered a second service that was a smaller version of the first one just to make sure we had enough. We definitely had enough, but we ate everything.

I feel like I'm cheating on Canoe in Atlanta, but I have to say it because it's true. This is the best food I've ever eaten. David agreed. It was such a neat experience and the people were so friendly and welcoming and the food was freaking awesome. And the tea...ooooooh, the tea. I miss the tea. If you're ever in Vancouver, save 90 minutes and go do this. Seriously. 

The Sheraton Wall Center. ClubIntrawest is on the 28th-30th floors.

Friday morning, we had breakfast with Richard and Rebecca, went shopping and then headed back to Canada Place to board our ship! Could not have been more wonderful weather. Actually, several crew members told us they hadn't had this good of weather since the Alaskan season began. It had been overcast and rainy, but the sun came out for us.

Right under the line of trees is the Stanley Park Seawall where we rode the day before. Same bridge I took a picture of.

 You can see the Seawall here again.

 That night at dinner, our waiter, Lyndon, asked me what I wanted for dessert and said, "Nothing." (There actually was nothing that I just had to have and I was already so full.) And he said, "Nothing?!" And I replied with, "Nothing." So, he brought me nothing.