First visitors

 

Our first visitors to Virginia were my sister, Katharine, and her husband, Jarey. They flew here all the way from Oregon to spend their Memorial Day weekend with us! They also spent some time with Jarey's brother and sister-in-law, who live just north of D.C. in Silver Spring, MD. One-stop shopping! We are trying to persuade Katharine and Jarey to move out here next year once he finishes his PhD program.

 

Both Katharine and Jarey have been to Washington before, so we didn't do too much sight-seeing. One day we showed them our favorite local park, Hidden Pond Park, and another morning we had a visit from our first cousin, Nikki, who lives in D.C.  We did go to Mount Vernon on Saturday, and I took a few photos of John and Lila with their aunt and uncle before we had our picnic lunch there.

Uncle Jarey is a scientist, so one afternoon when the kids were bored, he showed John and Lila how to do an experiment. I can't remember what kind of experiment it was, but it involved water in our kitchen sink, some plastic baggies and straws. The kids loved it!

More photos of the kids with their aunt and uncle:

A few days after Katharine and Jarey left, our longtime Army friends, the Reclas, stayed the night while en route to their new duty station, West Point. We've known 3-year-old Austin Recla since he was born! Austin has a younger sister, Lauren, who is 3 months younger than Lila. The four kiddos get along fabulously well.

John and Austin:

The kids on the couch, getting ready to eat some popsicles:

We've been fortunate enough to see the Reclas three times in one year, despite the fact that we've been stationed across the country from each other. We're hoping to continue this trend now that they're in New York. Not a bad road trip at all!

Moving to Virginia, part 2

Here are some more photos of our townhouse. I finally took a photo of the outside the other day. I've taken quite a few photos of the 1st and 2nd floors of the house but very few of the 3rd (where the bedrooms are), so that's my next project.  

 

The front of our house:

The kitchen/office area, which is on the 2nd floor at the back of the house:

 

The family room, which is on the 2nd floor at the front of the house:

 

The dining room, which is adjacent to the family room:

Close-up of my mom's hutch:

The playroom, which is on the 1st floor at the back of the house:

Lila showing off the "reading nook." The side table was built by my maternal great-grandfather, Ray Taylor. He was a carpenter, and my mom had quite a few of his pieces at her home. The rocking chair may have belonged to the Taylors, but I'm not sure. It is a really awesome chair, but it's extremely old. I tried to make it a little more comfortable (and fashionable) by adding a few pillows.

The kids posing at the work/craft table with their masterpieces:

 

Posing in front of the "vehicle table," which we got at a garage sale here after we moved. Sometimes the kids set up a showcase of all their vehicles on top of the table. If you take off the top, there's a cool set of tracks for them to use with their Matchbox cars or trains.

Our back deck. It's huge and it has a really nice view of the wooded area behind our townhouse. We all love to hang out there or eat a meal there at our outdoor table.

This Step2 slide is one that we move all around our house and yard. When we first moved in, we had it in our "backyard," which is below the deck. We've also used it on our front driveway, on the grassy area in our neighborhood (in conjunction with our inflatable kiddie pool), and in the playroom. 

Our new Weber grill. Daddy was tempted to buy a much cheaper brand, but I was able to convince him to get the one he really wanted. He LOVES it. Every time he uses it, he raves about how perfectly it cooks the meat. Worth every penny.

 

The grassy area down the street (literally 3 houses down):

We play baseball, Frisbee, golf, and soccer here. Here are some pictures of Lila on her favorite (but now deflated) purple bouncy ball and some of John just relaxing in the grass.

 

We've even brought our kiddie pool and slide to the grassy area. (Our "backyard" isn't really level enough to be suitable for the pool, plus there were a ton of mosquitoes back there this summer because of all the trees. Our front yard is the size of a postage stamp, so there's not enough room there.)

And finally, here's the neighborhood playground, which is adjacent to the grassy area. It's small, but it keeps the kids entertained with two "big kid" swings, two balance beams, and a big slide. They love to ride their bikes there.

All in all, it's a pretty fantastic neighborhood. We are so happy living here! Photos of the 3rd floor to come soon.....



The move to Virginia, part 1

 

 

Ross and I drove out to Virginia by ourselves in early April to find a place to live. It was a little tricky figuring out all the logistics of how we were going to do this, but luckily both sets of grandparents were ready to help. While Ross finished his last week of work at Marquette, I took the kids to Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, where we were meeting Grandma Bonnie and Papa Jeff at Uncle Jesse and Aunt Sarah's house. Grandma and Papa drove the John and Lila back to North Dakota with them for a week-long visit. Meanwhile, Halley, our poodle, was enjoying some quality-time with Grandma Robin and Papa Harry, who also live in Minnesota.

 

So, back to the house hunt....Ross and I weren't sure what to expect from the rental search in Virginia. We'd done a lot of looking online at homes and townhomes in Alexandria and Springfield, and we thought we'd found the perfect house to rent in Springfield. We were so nervous that the house would be rented out from under us!

 

It was still available when we arrived in Virginia, but we ended up falling in love with a much newer (and newly renovated) 3-story townhouse right down the road from the house instead. The townhouse met all of our needs/wants and more.....3 bedrooms, a large kitchen (especially compared to the small one in Wisconsin), an area for the kids to use as their playroom, and a garage (we have a 2-car garage.....a luxury in this area). And, if you can believe it, we now have 2 full bathrooms and 2 half bathrooms (compared to 1 full bathroom and 1 half bathroom in Wisconsin). We are swimming in bathrooms here.

 

Some added perks are the deck right off the kitchen, the huge grassy common area a few doors down where the kids can play, and a playground adjacent to the common area. It's amazing to think that this townhouse has the same square footage as our Wisconsin house (2,000) because we were so sure we'd have to downsize in Virginia to be able to stay within our housing allowance.

 

The floorplan is unlike anything we'd seen before, but we love that it's so different. The first floor just has a small entryway and a finished basement-like area with a half bath. But you have to go up a half-flight of stairs and then down another half-flight of stairs to get to the basement from the front door. Interesting, right? The second floor is very open. There's a living room and dining room area at the front of the townhouse, a half-bath and laundry room in the middle, and the kitchen at the back. The third floor has all three bedrooms and two full baths. We are very excited to now have a master bedroom with an ensuite bath, hooray! 

 







For some reason, we still haven't taken a picture of the outside of our townhouse. And we don't have pictures of every room as they look now, but we have some 2nd-story pictures that we took the day we got the keys back in April.

 



So here's the kitchen....refinished cabinetry, brand-new tile floors, stainless-steel appliances, and granite countertops. Disregard the enormous light-bulb hanging from the ceiling....the previous owner must have had her dining table in the kitchen, but the new owner extended the countertop in order to have counter stools instead. We bought counter stools after we moved in, and we now eat breakfast and lunch at the counter every day! 

 

 

Here's the room adjacent to the kitchen, which we decided to use as an office/sitting area (with one of our televisions, too). We ended up buying some new furniture to fit the space. 

 

 

The dining room/living room combo. We decided to put our kitchen table underneath the chandelier (for obvious reasons), and this is where we eat dinner every night. We would put my mom's large hutch next to this table. The other half of the room would become our living room, with my mom's sectional against the wall at the back.

 

Another view of the dining/living space.

 

Yet another view of the dining/living space. 

 

 

 

My job this week is to actually photograph the rooms of our townhouse as they look now!! And get a shot of the exterior and our street.

Back to the blog, again

 

It's hard to believe it's been 9 months since I last posted on our blog, but it's true!! Time flies when you've got two kids and you're getting ready to sell your house and move across the country. Because I'm so behind, I'm just going to start with a couple photos from the day we closed on our Wisconsin house -- March 29th. That seems like a good transition because these are the last photos we have from Wisconsin.

 

John and Lila did a really good job of dealing with all the craziness of putting our house on the market, keeping things tidy for showings, and moving all our stuff out. We'd been talking about the move to Virginia for so long that I think it was no big deal when the time finally came. Here are the kids in the front yard, all ready to go.....

 

On the front stoop.....notice that Lila has no socks or coat on in this photo, despite the fact that there's snow everywhere. She was having a 2-year-old moment.

 

 

In front of the "sold" sign.....we were so, so glad that we got a full offer on the house just one week after we started showings. The house has a fantastic location and was completely move-in ready, so it almost sold itself, really.

 



 

 

Notice the house in the background of this next photo....it's the home of Mr. Cliff and Ms. Linda, the greatest neighbors ever! We all miss them a lot and are so glad we got to visit them about a month ago when we were back in Milwaukee for a wedding.

 

 

 

The fully-loaded Mercury Milan....it's hard to believe how much stuff we can pack into that car.

 



 

One last look at our house and street before leaving....it was our first home as a family of four! Despite all the many hardships we faced during the 21 months we lived there, we absolutely adored this place. We will always feel blessed to have been the stewards of such a grand old (1941) colonial. And who knows.....we may move back to Wauwatosa some day and fall in love with an even older house!