Move-In

We forgot to call Comcast early enough before our move date to have internet that same day, meaning we had to go for half a week without. Ryan wasn't sure he'd survive. (Oddly enough, my phone still received emails and instant messages, even though we have no data plan. But if I tried to open the browser it'd realize I wasn't supposed to be getting data and stop receiving everything for a while, until it'd forget again and I'd get more emails.)

One thing is certain - moving with an almost-4-year-old is much easier than moving with a 3-month-old. The men who brought our stuff out of storage were great with Gareth - they even let him use their tools to help tighten the screws on his bed. And, here we are, not even a week later, and most of the boxes are empty. When we moved to Manassas it was two or three weeks before my parents came to visit and there were still unopened boxes everywhere.

The empty box room. Eventually we'll get a sofa...

We've been doing well at making sure everything is put away somewhere before moving on to another item or a new box. The basement looks particularly awesome, with all sorts of open space:

Yes, the drum set will go there one day (around that corner, in the area you can't see), but there should still be plenty of space left for Gareth to play in. (He's almost as excited about the drums as Ryan is and tells everyone who comes to the house that we're getting "loud drums!". A junior drum set might be somewhere in our near future...)

The only thing left to do in the kitchen is clean out the freezer. Gareth helped me wipe down all the cupboards, and really did quite a good job of it.

Cleaning the fridge and the freezer has probably been the yuckiest part since one of the previous tenants had a cat and there seems to be cat hair inside the fridge (as well as several other odd places around the house). Blech. Thankfully they were required to have the carpet in the basement cleaned and it smells so much better than it did when we first looked at the place, but every once in a while I still catch a whiff of smelly cat down there.

There is quite a bit of work to be done out in the yard as the previous tenants didn't do much there. We have to get rid of some moles and the grass needs mowing. There's some long ornamental grass out front that needs cutting back so we don't get our recycling/yard waste/trash bins caught in it every week (tangent: one thing I love, love, love about Seattle is that we'll have hardly any trash as most everything can either be recycled or put in the food/yard waste bin). And the couple of gardens have been sorely neglected and need some weeding and clearing away of pine cones (Gareth will enjoy that bit) and probably something planted in them as well (something shade-loving as the pine cones are from trees that overhang that part of the yard). I'm just itching to be done unpacking and organizing inside so that I can have some fun with the yard. We actually had a sunny weekend and it's been killing me to see everyone else outside doing yard work while we're stuck inside unpacking! Of course, we need to purchase a few items (like a lawnmower and a rake) first anyway. The biggest "downside" to move-in day was that our TV was broken in the move (the screen was pushed way in and the sides were cracked and broken), so I guess we'll finally have to upgrade.