Move #2

I am calling this Move #2 because after the move from the "Phoenix" house to our new home, now we have the move from our apartment (Oct 31).  And yikes... so much stuff!!!

I don't know how we managed to live in this apartment these last few weeks.  It has been quite chaotic but thankfully, the ever changing weather/micro-climate here keeps things interesting.  For example, this layer of thick fog on the drive back to the apartment:

We were sad to give up our queen size bed but there just wasn't any room for it in the new house as we now have the king size bed from Phoenix.

Or as Charlie puts it... it's the 3-fitter bed because it can now fit 3 people - Daddy, Mommy, and him! Ha ha ha!!!

PS: Dodgers lost again in the World Series!!! :-(  Although I did have my Boston Red Sox shirt underneath my sweater when we were having dinner at this restaurant.  Shhhh....

Okay, we are (sort of) ready for the furniture from the apartment.  It's going to be a tight squeeze:

Here goes!  And yes, we did hire movers for this move as well:

Semi-packed:

Boys' bed were still not even cleared up yet the day of the move. I was so far behind in packing!

I have never seen this dining/study table so clean :-D

Hey look!  A flower!!!

Graham's new massive study/inventor table is finally getting a new home:

Oh wait... still didn't clear up anything in the kitchen yet either!  YIKES!!!

The movers were pretty efficient:

These two on the other hand, were not!

Did I mention I still had the kitchen to pack up??!

And somehow this pile of boxes were never sorted through after our move from Abu Dhabi a year ago.  So I get to take them to the next place and hopefully I will go through it this time around???!

Hmm.... I should have had the movers pack up our clothes too!

The couch, love seat, chair, and coffee table are in!  We really need to manage the sizing of the furniture a little bit better next time.  Everything is massive!

Hey, but at least our door mat is perfect :-)

Since the garage is full, the boxes have overflowed onto the back patio. So glad we have this additional option and so glad it doesn't rain much here:

O... M... Goodness... we should have bought a bigger house:

I have no idea what we are going to do with all this stuff!  Good thing Goodwill is just around the corner or perhaps we need to have a garage sale.  Should have done that before moving.  Hmmm... didn't plan that one out very well. Ha ha!

The boys get one more last swim before the lease is up:

One last load from the apartment (Nov 5th). Thankfully we had a few extra days to get everything else out of the apartment.  It took me almost 3 hours alone just to pack up that tiny little kitchen!!!

Graham and Charlie have already taken over the "adult" living room.  How is that??!  Oh wait... their living space is a bit messy.  Remember my O... M... Goodness remark and "we should have bought a bigger house?"  That's suppose to be their living area.  Okay, okay...

At least we have a new light fixture in the dining area:

And some additional lighting in the kitchen.  The electrician is still working on some things.  Can't wait till everything is done!

He still has to fix this hole too in the ceiling.  Oops!

And oh... we still have to pick out the paint color for the house.  Unless we want to live in an "abandoned house" as Charlie puts it. Maybe we should just call our house "Patches" and call it a day :-)  It's not looking as bad as before now that the stucco is drying up more?!?

At least Graham's new desk is looking AWESOME in his bedroom!  That "antique red" color on his accent wall is really RED!!!

The new adventure continues!!!

More home update

Gosh... where do I start??!  There has been so much going on lately I haven't even had the chance to update the blog!  So here goes...

Some clean up along the side - overgrown ivy and who knows what else. There are lots of butterflies around so looking forward to planting some butterfly-friendly flowers!

The shrubs were quite overgrown too so that got a trim as well:

Those shrubs in the backyard are really tall!!!

Graham and Charlie are taking turns with the push-mower.  Too cute!

The plumber was also here to fix the leak under the kitchen sink.  It took them a couple of trips but all fixed now! I am not sure if Graham actually learned anything:

But he was busy fixing up his little table:

And Charlie is busy putting together some toy "laser pistol":

Tada!!! New fancy faucet which he boys picked out plus water filtration plus new dishwasher as well. Yay!!!

The work outside continues... the stucco is being repaired at the front of the house.  Charlie says we live in an "abandoned" house. LOL!!!

The side of the house was repaired as well.  So much manual labor having to fill up all the cracks and cementing the bottom parts by the soil:

And we got a new electrical panel as well.  I am glad the electrician knows what he is doing.  Looks complicated!

He raised the wire a little too. Hopefully Graham and Charlie don't have any crazy ideas about throwing the ball over these wires!

A few thousand bucks later... a nice new panel!  It still has to go through an inspection with the city.  The electrician still needs to come by and label everything.  Who knew!

The house is coming along slowly but surely.  Still have about 85 boxes in the garage... but at least we can have meals at the dining table :-D

Our first meal in our new house... Halloween (Oct 31).  Happy family!!!