Our New Place!

Here it is...hopefully you can see it well enough by clicking on the photos to enlarge them. We are really thankful for this new place and it is feeling like home now after Mom & Dad helped us get things on the walls and put away. We keep finding more and more reasons why it is wonderful. There are of course things that are not perfect, but we're choosing to dwell on the things that are great. Like, yesterday I found the beach by walking 10 minutes down a new road. A beach! With sand! A bit like the Illinois side of Lake Michigan - pebbly, but beautiful. We have also discovered several restaurants close by with slides and other kid-friendly entertainment inside. McDonalds & Burger King of course, but also a yummy dessert and sandwich/soup restaurant! The trees at our park are the best...still dropping fall leaves mid-December. We are across from a school which means there is a certain vibrancy to the air in an otherwise older neighborhood. We have met two neighbors thus far and both seem very sweet. This building has 16 apartments in it (rather than 4 in our last place), so a good chance to meet more people if we get our oven fixed and bake some cookies. Rick gets to work in less than a half hour and we even have a grocer in the building next to us... a bit like convenience store prices, but fresh produce and really helpful for the things you forgot to get at the bigger grocery stores...like oven bags to cook your Thanksgiving turkey in! We have tons of built-in closets, which is not the norm here...so really awesome for reducing clutter and furniture. And we have these funky window shades that you can raise and lower on the outside to block out streetlights at night and make up for the curtains we took from our old place that are just a few inches to short. :) The oven guy is supposed to come tomorrow, so start making your vacation plans, as we are now set to host!