We Are Officially Living in Connecticut!

That's right, folks - we made it!  Last week was a whirlwind of packers, movers, driving up to CT, scrubbing the house top to bottom before our things arrived, and then unpacking.  To top it off, Sean and I both woke up Friday morning with colds, but we plowed ahead and unpacked the moment the movers arrived at 8AM on Friday until 10PM.

It was really hard saying 'goodbye' to our home - we absolutely loved it and had many fun times within those walls - and it was so weird (and sad) seeing it completely empty.  The packers came Monday morning and so we stayed at the Lansdowne Resort Monday and Tuesday night.  Wednesday morning we left Virginia and made the drive up to Connecticut.  The kids were great - Owen slept nearly 3 hours of the ride, and Ethan watched two movies and slept a tiny bit.  We drove straight to the house, since I had never seen it  (aside from a couple of pictures online and some descriptions from Sean to help me try and envision the layout).

Now that every possible surface has been scrubbed and 'Clorox-ed' and we have our furniture (and are just about completely unpacked - just one or two more boxes left and hang pictures), it is starting to feel more like 'home.'  I absolutely love the layout - it is very open.  It even has 4 bedrooms!  That leaves one room just for visitors (HINT HINT!!)  When Baby is born, he will sleep in the sitting room (that's right, the master bedroom has its very own sitting room!) and then hopefully sleep in Owen's room.  In the meantime, the guest room will be basically empty, except for a dresser and [someday] a small table for my sewing machine.

Just like every house, though - it definitely has its quirks...  Huge linen closet but hardly any cabinet space in the master bathroom; gigantic master bathroom but tiny shower; washer and dryer across from each other and not next to each other (ok, not a big deal, but it is faster just to bend over and throw them in instead of taking handfuls of wet clothes and walking the three steps to the dryer), hideous wall paper in the kitchen and 3 of the 4 bedrooms; NO garbage disposal - I took that thing for granted way too much before!!  Oh, and Owen's bedroom is painted pink (shh... don't tell!)  - Hopefully we will get a chance to paint it a different color soon - with the approval of our landlord... Who, by the way, is super nice - even bought us a new fridge, washer, and dryer before we moved in!

Instead of buying dining room furniture to use only a handful of times, we decided to make the dining room a 'kids room' - complete with a fooseball table!  Ok, so not exactly what I envisioned for one of the first rooms guests will see, but I love it!  And hey, pretty much everyone who comes over will have kids, so they will understand and their kids will definitely enjoy it:)  Sean built a bookcase from IKEA for me that is perfect for holding all of Owen's toys (and hiding his diapers and misc. toys) - it is one of my favorite pieces of furniture, I think.

The yard is HUGE!  The front yard even has a white picket fence:)  In the front, there are huge trees that keep it nice and shady, and the backyard is very open - perfect for playing in the sprinkler, baseball, kickball, Bean Bag Toss - you name it!  There is a bush that butterflies seem to really enjoy - and Ethan loves to watch them and occasionally catch them.

We are also really close to shopping - 2 minutes down the street is "The Big Y" (grocery store), about 8 minutes away is Target (yay!), and about 15 minutes away is the mall.

Connecticut is very different than Northern Virginia.  I can't quite pinpoint how, but it totally is.  The pace of life seems a lot slower here.  Most of the roads are two lanes.  Houses are off of these two lane roads - very few are in neighborhoods.  There aren't many 'big name' stores (except, of course - at the mall) - most of them are small Mom-and-Pop type places.  People here are so nice - my first time at Target I ended up talking to the Cashier Supervisor for nearly 10 minutes, the cashier at McDonalds and I talked about how convenient it is that they have a list of items and their calories (and then proceeded to laugh together on how we still order what we want, even though the calorie count is through the roof!), when I was checking out of a store I had bottled water under the cart and was holding Owen - a lady in another line heard me ask the cashier if she could use her 'gun' to scan them and came over and took them out for me and the cashier (smiling and saying that she remembered when her kids were Owen's age).  Wow - it is so different than Virginia!

Now, don't get me wrong, I desperately miss my family and friends in Virginia.  It is so weird to look at my calendar and see blank spots on each and every day (OK, not every day - the missionaries are coming over on the 19th so that is on there...).  Every month for the past year I have had at least one thing each and every day - playdates, etc.  I really hope that I will meet some great fellow stay-at-home moms and that my calendar will fill up again.  I skyped with my parents for the first time last night.  Oh, how I ached to hug my mom and pat Dave on the back as I told him "Hey Old Man!"  I'm grateful for the technology so that I can at least see them, but it isn't the same as being with them.  Thankfully they are coming to visit for a couple of days in September, we are going down in October and then in December.

I will post pictures very soon - my camera battery died and I just unpacked the charger last night and keep forgetting to actually put the battery in the charger.