We're in! Then we're off!

     We finally moved in! The floors were finally finished on Thur Dec 7, so the weekend before last (Dec 8 & 9) we packed stuff up, rented a truck, enlisted some help, and finally moved our butts into this house. We started Friday night and finished Sunday afternoon. Moving 5 miles across town is waaayyyy easier than moving 2500 miles across the ocean.

     One of Suthee's coworkers helped us to move the big stuff with the u-Haul on Saturday and one of his friends helped us move the last few medium sized things in his truck on Sunday. They both asked "where's the rest of your furniture?" To which we replied, "this is it, dude." We had enough furniture to make our 500 sq ft apartment in Honolulu look cramped, but this 2100 sq ft house looks pretty sparse right now. The only things upstairs are the extra bed and a bunch of unpacked boxes. We've been warned not to worry about this, as the accumulation of stuff will happen without any intention on our part and before we know it the house will be full.

     Speaking of unpacked boxes, that seems to be the theme of our decor right now. The kitchen is completely unpacked (because we like to cook) and the bedroom is mostly unpacked (because we have to sleep and get dressed), but everything else is still mostly packed. This isn't going to change any time soon either, since we have been and will continue to be busy traveling.

     This last weekend (Dec 15 & 16) we drove to Vail for the weekend... which we will never do again. Driving seven hours each direction is not worth it to spend Saturday in the snow. We did enjoy spending time with the Epsteins (a family whose children Suthee tutored when he lived in Vail in 2002-2003) while we were there and they were eager to finally meet Hope. We also were able to stop at Ikea in Denver on our way home and pick up some furniture and other items for the house. The stop also provided dinner (and dessert) in Ikea's lovely Swedish cafe.

     This coming weekend we're off again. We leave Saturday morning to spend time with Hope's mom, sister, niece, and nephew in Atlanta for the holidays. After that we have a quick stop in Texas to see a lot of Suthee's family who have come in from Thailand to see his cousins graduate from Texas Tech university. We'll be back in Albuquerque Dec 30 and Suthee will be right back at work, but Hope has another week off from school so she doesn't have to go back until Jan 7 (so maybe a couple of boxes might get unpacked).

     Hopefully we'll be seeing a lot of you soon!

p.s. Our holiday cards finally arrived, so we'll finally be sending those out with our save-the-date cards later this week.

the realtor let us keep the sold sign

Floors! And holiday plans! And cards!

We're moving next weekend!

We've been waiting for the floors to be finished and they're nearly done.

The carpet has been installed on the stairs and in all of the rooms upstairs. It's very nice, but we haven't remembered to take a picture of it yet. We'll do that soon and post it. It's a nice medium brown, like a teddy bear.

The master bathroom has new tile and all of the carpet downstairs has been removed. Now we're just waiting for the flooring that we ordered to come in and be installed. That should hopefully happen early this week and we'll move in next weekend.

After that we'll be off to Atlanta to spend Christmas with Hope's mom and sister, then a quick stop in Texas on the way home to see Suthee's family. While we're in Georgia, Hope has an appointment to try on wedding dresses at "Lori's Bridals" which is the shop that's on Say Yes to the Dress on TLC. It's a cheesy show, and all of the dresses are waaaayyyy out of our budget, but it will be fun to go try on some fancy dresses.

We are ordering our holiday cards right now and will be sending them out soon with our save-the-dates. We may need some addresses. If your address has changed or you think we might not have it please let us know so that we can send these to you.

See you all soon!

Last time we were in Atlanta (Jan 2010)