We're home in Alexandria, VA!

After five days on the road with two cars, two kids and two cats; we finally pulled into our new VA home yesterday afternoon. After a walk through with the landlords and property manager, we received the keys and began the shopping lists. Now I should mention that Randy did most of the walk through while I chased Ava up and down the stairs. Quite a workout!

The moving truck doesn't arrive until sometime next week so until then, we are camping out. :) Dylan is in his room with a bunch of blankets piled up under his new Spiderman sleeping bag.

He didn't want his picture taken. :)

Ava is in the trusty playard in her room. Randy and I lucked out with a queen mattress that we brought up from the basement (two flights of stairs). We knew it was here so we brought sheets. :)

He also didn't want his pic taken. Hee hee!

We currently eat off paper plates with plastic silverware in the middle of the main room on the floor.

View from upstairs landing

Our landlords own a Chinese restaurant close by so they treated us to our first dinner at the house.

Here are a few more pictures of the house. I meant to get outside ones, but forgot. Ooops.

Front door with foyer. Our door is purple on the outside. :)

Basement!! This will be our tv watching area!

Guest room/office

There is one more room downstairs which will be the playroom. There is also a full bathroom so when guests come, they have their own little area. Wink wink!

Today, we waited until 12:30 pm for the Verizon guy to show up and install Fios, which is tv, Internet and phone. It all shows up on the same bill with our cells. So far we are very pleased with the new service.

Because we were waiting for this very important install, we only got to two stores today. Randy made it to Home Depot for phase one of our Ava safety plan. With two sets of stairs, a landing upstairs where Ava could squeeze through the rungs, and a sunken front room with wood floors/stairs...there was a lot to do! Randy bought a mesh net called a "deer blocker". We zipped tied this to three different areas upstairs for our little stinker. ;)

Look closely

Then, after nap we went to Babies R Us for gates. We have two already, but needed four more!! After spending almost $300 on gates and other safety items (plug covers, door knob covers, stove protectors, etc.) we are armed. You might ask, what did we do in the last house? Well, the knobs on the stove were higher, we had lever door handles, no stairs and not nearly as many outlets! Crazy!! We just kept saying, "We love you Ava!"

So by the end of the day, the plug covers are in, door knobs are secure, landing is secure and the gate at the top of the stairs is in. The knob covers for the stove didn't fit so I have to go back. No worries, we're hitting Target tomorrow so we'll see what I can find there. Not only is Target on the list tomorrow, but so is a favorite...IKEA!

You may be wondering how the kids are doing. They are handling all of this very well! Yesterday both had major meltdowns in the late afternoon, but that is to be expected. Today they ran around the empty room a lot playing soccer, Ava pushing her baby stroller then "helping" with projects. ;)

A challenge for me will be traffic! It is insane compared to the suburbs of Phoenix! Always something knew to learn when moving. :)

Stayed tuned for more adventures!





:)