Home sweet home, well for 5 months at least

We made it! Just in case any of you were wondering where we have been for the last two and a half weeks, yes we made it to Houston. I don't really have a good reason why this took me so long to get up here, but here you go.

We basically live in downtown, Houston. Technically it is called Midtown, but it's borderline downtown. What do I mean by that? well, if any of you remember that post a few back with the picture of Houston's skyline, the building on the far right is where Dane works, and we literally live 5 blocks from that--and in the 4th largest city in the nation, 5 blocks is pretty close. Wouldn't you say? For those of you who like to look at maps (and I know we have a few in our family) when you look at this city from above, it looks like a giant spiderweb of highways with downtown in the center. If you look at this map, "A" is where Dane works, and "B" is where we live.

Here's a close up:

Our complex is wonderful. It is pretty big and very nice. I don't know when it was built, but it must have been pretty recently updated, because it is nicer than anywhere I have seen in Provo :). There is acyber-cafe where tenants can use free wifi , computers, and even print for free, along with 2 big screen t.v.'s. AND there is a gym for tenants as well. This is a big deal for me because I don't even want to begin to think what it would have cost to get a membership somewhere here for just a few months. The management is great, and most of the utilities are included in our rent. We are pretty happy with it, and I thought I would give all of you a little tour : Welcome to our apartment!

This is our kitchen and yes, that is a dishwasher!:




Small, I know, but a little roomier than our kitchen in Provo. Moving in here was one of my biggest challenges. When we were packing for the big move, we only ended up bringing less than half of our stuff because we knew it would be temporary. I spent a lot of time deciding if something would be put into one of 4 piles: 1-Utah, 2-Texas, 3-DI, and 4-garbage. It was amazing to me how much stuff was actually put into piles 1, 3, and 4. We had a lot of stuff that we seem to not really need. So, to be honest, however, the one room that I had a hard time thinning out, and brought almost everything was one of my favorites, the kitchen. We brought almost everything, and this is probably the only room that has less storage here than we had in Provo.


The rest of our apartment is a little barren, actually. We left almost all of our furniture in Provo because it would have been way to difficult and expensive to bring it with us for only 5 months. We brought two chairs that were easy to take apart, our t.v., and a little bookshelf that now serves as a dresser. Here is our sitting room:



I actually have room (and time) to paint!!!

This was a fun space saver idea-- Our ceilings are so high, we have space to hang our bikes on the walls. Great for a few reasons: one, we know our bikes are safe from being burgled off of some lonely bike rack, two, we can use our storage closets to actually store the things we need, and three, if you didn't notice already our walls are pretty barren and it is nice to have something to cover up some of the white . :)


This is the view looking out of our window. The building you are looking at is part of our complex. The first level you are looking at is a restaurant. Other than the fact that it is close and WAY good we love this restaurant because they have freewifi. It's not too fast but it is how yours truly is able to get lots done all day. Thanks again Cyclone Anaya's!


After we arrived, one of the first things we had to do was get a bed. A really cheap, hard one. Well I guess it didn't need to be hard, but cheap was kind of a need. We found a mattress warehouse in town and got a great deal but it was killing our bodies. Thank yousooooo much to Emalei and Fabio for letting us borrow their pillow-top. I cannot believe how much of a difference it has made! Here's the bedroom:


Thank you IKEA "as-is" section. Bedding set complete with sheets and duvet cover for $17? Yes, please.

Also pictured below: Dane's 737 cockpit posters. These not only look cool, but help him study.


Here is our bathroom and closet, sorry it's a little messy :).



Here is a floor plan--minus the balcony that comes off of the bedroom (dedicated to Kristy). We don't have a washer/dryer so we use that closed for storage. Enjoy!