We officially got the keys to our new place on July 1st. While we appreciated the free housing Mark’s company provided for us, he was more than ready to be done with his 10 mile commute to and from work that typically took almost an hour! He became acquainted with that lovely Southern California traffic right away, and couldn’t wait to move closer to work.
“Wait why are we trying to drive during rush hour again?!”
When we started looking for places, we quickly discovered that many rentals out here don’t include a refrigerator! So once I picked up the keys on the 1st, my first job was to measure and then go hunt down a fridge to buy. It worked out nicely that lots of stores had big Independence Day sales going on and we got a really nice fridge super on sale at Best Buy! I got to know Irvine a little better driving around to all the stores, too!
Our stuff was delivered on the 2nd, and I hope we can have movers for all our future moves, too! It was so nice to sit around while other people had to do all the lifting and carrying! Best way to move! It was an interesting experience figuring out where we wanted everything to go, since we were losing a whole bedroom, a big basement rec room, and all the lovely extra storage space we had in our shed and garage in Peoria! I felt bad for the movers every time they got a long “uhhhhh” when asking where certain boxes should go!
The aftermath:
As much as I loved having the movers carry everything, I hated all the unpacking without friends to help! Unpacking with friends is MUCH more fun. I highly recommend it. We had a few days to get everything unpacked before we had to move all our other stuff over from Huntington Beach, though, which was nice. We got to go home to a nice, clean apartment at the end of the day, at least! That also worked out nicely for all our food, since our fridge didn’t get delivered until the 4th!
Speaking of the 4th, we spent all day unpacking and then opted to head back to the apartment instead of hitting up the neighborhood fireworks show. Instead, we saw probably 20 different displays from the freeway on the way back to Huntington Beach, topped off by the guys setting off fireworks from the top of the parking garage when we got there!
Mark was over the unpacking:
We took an unpacking break and went out for pizza nearby. We were surprised at how cute and nice the little shopping center nearby is!
We really like our new place, even though it was a bit of a struggle to downsize. I’ll post pictures of it once I remember to take some! For now, here are some pictures from the original listing:
(kitchen, upstairs bath, green belt, master bedroom)
And here’s a view of the nearby lake and pool:
The neighborhood is super nice, and there are lots of different pools and rec facilities we can use. That pool is at the end of our street and is 21+ so no kids swimming in the hot tub! :)
Next update: Christin comes to visit!