The end is in sight...

So, since our internet isn't hooked up yet, I've had to wait until now to post anything...  But, everything made it in the apartment.  After hauling everything up to the 3rd floor of our building (there was an elevator, so it wasn't quite as hard as it could have been...), I was aghast at how much we had crammed into our poor, tiny Corolla.  Those 4 cylinders had quite the workout through the mountains, let me tell you! :)  Here is a pic of the mound of stuff (Bridget is in the picture because she also fit in the car... :)  ).

Our stuff and Bridget (unarguably the most valuable item in the picture... :)  )

But before we lugged our earthly possessions upstairs, we took a few pictures of the place without our stuff in it.  Here those are...

The fireplace and bathroom door

Part of the kitchen

The bathroom from a weird angle (Bridget shot this picture)

So, it would be hard to explain the whole layout without a bazillion pictures, but the apartment is a studio (~500 sq. ft.) with a big open room with attached bathroom (which houses a large walk-in closet) and the kitchen (that has far more cupboard space than our old apartment, so most of them are bare... for now).  It doesn't have AC and the heating is run through the fireplace, so we pretty much get to use all of the space (no bulky heaters or pipes anywhere).  We also have a small patio that we can use to grow plants (think mini-garden) or have a small propane grill.  Perfect for us! :)

After moving our stuff in, we turned around and headed right back out to.... go garage sale-ing!  We grabbed a quick lunch and then hit up a good handfull of local garage sales in search of some furniture or other treasure.  We picked up an IKEA table for $10 and it fits perfectly in our kitchen (of course we measured ahead of time...).  That was the extent of our success, but we saw a few things we were at least interested in.  The big items we need are a bed and a dresser, but they will have to wait.  We stopped at Wal-Mart and Safeway and filled our car (again) with groceries and headed back to start organizing everything.

We tossed in a frozen pizza to fuel up before we spent the last few hours of light putting things away.  We haven't purchased a lamp yet, so the main area (which doesn't have any built-in lighting) got dark quickly.  We had a small desk lamp, so that worked well enough to see. :)

Anyway, we stopped by two more garage sales this morning before and after church and got a nightstand and a dresser!  For $55!  And they will deliver for free!  So, we'll have all of our clothes arranged once they bring it by our place tonight.  So excited!  The church we went to is actually pastored by a pastor from our hometown in Illinois, and Bridget's family went to his church back in Illinois.  We thought about introducing ourselves this morning and saying that we moved all the way to CA to hear him preach again, but didn't want to wait in the line... :)

After church and garage-saling, we went back to our place (feels good to call it "our place" now...) and Bridget organized while I washed the dishes.  They sat in boxes for like 2 months in varying temperatures and levels of humidity, so I figured it couldn't hurt... :)

And now I'm chilling at the library using their lightening-fast Wifi before meeting up with some friends and checking out their church group tonight.  Totally stoked about it too! :)

Anyway, that's pretty much a wrap.  We're loving the area and the weather.  The weather is pretty much as good as it gets.  It's cool enough at night to wear a hoodie or sweater but warm enough during the day to shed the outerwear and enjoy the sun.  It kind of feels like a perfect spring day in the midwest, except it's like this everyday here... :)  Not trying to make you jealous, but you can always come visit... :)

So, I'm not sure how often I will post after this.  I start tomorrow and will most likely have a pretty hectic "boot camp" as they call it.  Bridget is already scouring the area for a job and will be busy with that and looking for free stuff on Craigslist (we still need a bed...).  :)  But thank you all for following along with our summer!  It was a wild ride and I don't think we would have changed a thing!

God Bless,
Jeremy and Bridget