Apartment Pics

Here's our new place! Our floor plan is the mirror image of the model we saw, so our hallway is on the right and everything else branches off to the left. Here's our living room, from the dining room.

The living room from the opposite direction, looking from the hallway towards the dining room. This shows our nice new couch, chair, and curtains well (thanks again Mom and Dad G!). It was pretty fun to pick out our own new furniture, and we love it. We've decided it's a really good thing we both have the same favorite color! :-)

Here's a closer look at the chair. We might still move the lamps around a bit, but this layout seems to work pretty well.

This is a close up of the fabric on the chair. The pattern came out well, but you can't tell how pretty the colors are. It's a nice match to the couch and curtains, and worth the wait (it arrived on Monday).

Here's how Mark likes to use the chair. It gives him a good close-up view of the video games on the PS3.

Along the cutout in the hallway we have our books. Also, notice the super cute desk on the right, another gift from my parents. I haven't had a desk since I lived in the dorm, so I'm still getting used to having it. It is really nice to have, though!

Here's the kitchen and dining room. We got a new stove and fridge (although we had to ask for them). Notice the curio cabinet in the right corner of the dining room.

From the dining room. I also switched the microwave and toaster oven around, so the microwave is between the stove and fridge now. We're still using a bookshelf for a pantry, but I changed up the curtain.

We got a great deal on this furniture for our screened porch. We're supposed to get new siding, but it hasn't happened yet.

This is the view looking out to the side from the porch. (The view straight out the window is the parking lot).

Our bedroom, with new curtains.

Mark's room still needs some work, but otherwise, we're all settled!

Oh, and the bathroom. We're enjoying the double sinks.

Sorry for taking so long to get these posted. We're enjoying our new home, and thanks again to all of you who helped make it happen.

Our First Tornado Warning

Well, Grandma, I told you I'd post again when I had something interesting to write about.
Tonight we had our first tornado warning, and thankfully, the tornado missed us here in BG. Before dinner, Mark noticed on the news that our county had a severe thunderstorm warning. I had noticed some other counties had tornado watches earlier in the day. I said to Mark, "I guess if there's real danger of a tornado here, there will be sirens or something, right?" We weren't quite sure. Well, about half an hour later while we were just about to finish dinner we heard this weird noise--a siren. We wanted to make sure we knew what was going on, so Mark turned on the news (while I cleared the table). Sure enough, we were under a tornado warning. Mark looked it up online, too, and confirmed that this meant we were supposed to take shelter. Luckily, as some of you know, our apartment has a nice, roomy bathroom with no windows. We're also on the bottom floor of our building, which is halfway below ground level. I had joked before moving here that we'd have a pretty good spot in case of a tornado (as if I really knew anything about that :-). Well, I did feel better there than I would have up on the 3rd floor! So, we took our laptops in there and hung out for about 30 minutes while we waited for the warning to expire. Whew! We made it! (Although a tornado was sighted about 9 miles east of here). I guess we'll probably have a few more of these during our time here...

In other news, I made chicken spaghetti tonight--the same recipe Heidi made for us when we came through Oklahoma City. It was good. But I mention it because when I went to the website for the recipe, I noticed a cute pic of a basset hound on the side bar. It turns out that the same lady who wrote the recipe has a whole blog about her basset hound, starting from when he was a puppy. Since we had a basset hound, Penny, when I was growing up, I found it very entertaining. She has tons of pictures and funny stories about the dog. I started reading from the bottom of the page up, and I'm hooked. I thought some of you might also enjoy it (at least the pics!).

Whew!

It was one week ago yesterday that we left Tucson. Four days ago we unloaded our truck here in Bowling Green, OH. Although we've still got some work to do, the apartment is starting to feel like home. The whole experience has been quite an adventure, but everything went pretty smoothly. We were thankful to have help from our friends and Mark's dad in Tucson, and from our families and Mark's new professor here in BG. Along the way, we were really happy to spend some time with Mark's sister and her family as well as his grandmother and uncle. If you have to make a cross-country move, it helps to have something to look forward to at the end of each leg, like a nice dinner with family. It didn't seem to take too long to unload here, and of course it was nice that it wasn't as hot as loading was in Tucson. Unpacking, though, has been a big project (along with organizing and shopping). Besides that, we were able to show our families a little of the town, and we really enjoyed sampling some more of the local restaurants. I hope to finish setting the apartment up in the next couple of days so I can post some pictures. We've got space for guests, so let us know if you ever find yourself in the area!

Farewell, Tucson

Moving day is almost here. Today, Mark's dad flew in and helped us finish up the packing. Tomorrow morning, we'll pick up the moving truck, load it, and start the first leg of the trip. We've got a bit of a journey ahead of us, but we're excited to be in Bowling Green soon, setting up our new place! Sometime after we get settled in, I'll post pictures of the whole adventure.

Family Trip

Note: I wrote this a couple of days ago and intended to add pictures before I posted it. But, since I still haven't downloaded the pics, I thought I'd better go ahead and get this up. I may or may not add a few pics later.

We got back in town on Sunday after our long trip to visit family. We were first in ABQ for a few days, then went with Mark's parent's and Katie to Arkansas to visit his dad's family, then up to Missouri for the annual reunion with his mom's side. They spend a few days each summer at a camp called Bunker Hill. It had been 5 years since Mark and I last went, so we were really glad to be able to do it this year. On the drive both going and coming we stayed with Mark's older sister and her family (we slept in our nephew's bunk beds, which was kind of fun). She and the kids also came to Bunker Hill, and we got to share a cabin with them. I think most of my readers are family who already know about our adventures on this trip, so I'll just mention a few highlights.

In ABQ, my mom hosted a nice open house for me to see friends from work and church. I really enjoyed having some time to catch up with people, some of whom I really hadn't seen since we moved out to Tucson. Mom's food was also great. I was also able to swim in Grandma's pool one afternoon, which was super nice (except that I got sunburned). On Sunday morning, Mark and I went to Mars Hill, where one of our good friends recently joined the staff.

On our trip with Mark's family, we enjoyed seeing Mark's grandparents again. They lived in ABQ for a couple of years and moved back to Arkansas the same summer we moved to Tucson. While we were there, we walked the mall with Grandpa in the mornings and went to see a couple movies. I really enjoyed the new Karate Kid with Jackie Chan (although Mark and Katie weren't impressed).

At Bunker Hill, we got to catch up with Mark's aunts and uncles on his mom's side and his grandmother. I met one of Mark's cousins that I hadn't met yet, too. We spent a lot of time playing cards in our air-conditioned cabin (the A/C was a first at Bunker Hill). I also joined in on a hike down to a cave on the property, and played in the river with our niece and nephew. It was really fun.

After all that, we started making our way back to ABQ, which meant two more days of driving. By that time, we were all ready to take a break from being in the car. So, Mark and I spent one more day in ABQ to break it up a little before heading home to Tucson. I also celebrated my birthday on the road, in Oklahoma City, and again in ABQ and Tucson. Mark and I ate at the Cheesecake Factory, which I'd never been to before. It was really good. I'll only turn 25 on the 25th once, so I tried to make the most of it. :- )

Now that we're home, we're really just getting ready for the move. We've picked up and packed some more boxes from the English department, and started making a plan to get the rest done. I hope to enjoy our last week and a half in Tucson, despite the crazy heat!

Hot, hot, hot!

Well, the AZ heat has arrived. We had such a lovely, cool spring this year compared to last, but the first major heat wave is upon us. We're looking forward to leaving town again for a bit to escape it! I don't have much exciting news to report, compared to the last two posts. We're mostly working on stuff around the house and relaxing. We did make a trip up to Phoenix last Wednesday afternoon to visit Aunt Linda and Uncle Chuck one last time. We had some yummy burgers and enjoyed spending time together. In terms of packing, we've got a good start on our books, and we've also gotten rid of some more stuff. The move is starting to feel real now! My next project is to replace the belt on our old vacuum to see if that gets it working well again...I probably should get to it!

Apartment Hunting

Yesterday we got home from our trip to Bowling Green. We went to look for an apartment, and I also had a job interview. We had enough time to do a little bit of exploring on campus and around town, too. This is the apartment complex we decided on. There are some pictures posted on their website, but here are some we took. This is the front of one of the buildings.

The rest of the pics are from their "model" apartment, which is still a work in progress (that's why there are some things that look out of place). When you walk in the door, the kitchen and dining room are to the right:

Here's a closer look at the kitchen (notice the newish gas stove):

Here's the dining area:

And a look out the living room windows to the screened porch (our apartment will also be on the bottom floor like this one).

And here's the bathroom. I think we'll really enjoy the double sinks.

It appears that I didn't take any pics of the living room or the bedrooms, but there are some on the apartment's website, along with a floorplan. We both really like the layout, which is pretty different from what we have now. The only downside to the new place is that it doesn't have a washer/dryer (or hookups) in the apartment. There is a coin W/D in the hallway upstairs, though, and we also found a couple of nice laundromats in town. Ultimately, I decided that I only do laundry once a week, but we'll be in the apartment every day, so the condition (and cost) of the apartment were more important than having a W/D.

Besides looking at apartments, we walked around a bit on campus. It seems really nice.

Here's the building where I had my interview (more on that in a moment):

Here's one side of their student union building:

Here's the music building:

Here's the lobby outside of the main recital hall:

Everything around the school and the town seemed so green! We really did like it, though. We weren't sure what to expect from such a small town (30,000-40,000 people live there, including all the students). But, we thought it was great. My interview went well, and I have a job substitute teaching for the moment. I hope to be hired for more (possibly even full-time teaching) depending on enrollment. We also got to spend some time with the professor Mark will be working with, so that was great, too.

I've already been feeling optimistic about moving to BG (if not about the actual process of moving), but it's even more exciting now that I know more about where we'll be, and now that we have a nice place to imagine ourselves living in. I'm sure the next month and a half will go by really fast, and despite not working at the moment, I expect to stay busy with all the preparations (plus more travel).