Moving: The first weekend

Well, we made the move from our 1600 square foot house to a 700 ft apartment. We got a new couch, and only had two items that "didn't make it" to the destination. I broke a ceramic cross and I also broke...something else that I can't remember off the top of my head right now.  I will post pictures of the new place once we are able to get it put together and set up how we want it.

 Our cat, the most picky thing to inhabit the world, hasn't seemed to care at all that he is in a new environment, which is a relief to us.



First impressions/pros and cons:

First impressions: we love the location. The campus is less than a mile away so when micah starts classes in August he can ride his bike to school. We are also very close to about 20 restaurants, 4 grocery stores, and we look forward to exploring all of the little shops. In the two full days we have been here, I've been to two of the grocery stores. We attended Leclaire Christian Church this morning and ran into a boy I went to high school with, so that was neat.

Pros:
1. We have 4G at home! Finally...we don't have to put our phones in the window to receive text messages!

2. I live 2 miles from Target! (Ok, maybe this is a Con for my bank account..)

3. Since we now live in an apartment, we aren't responsible for lawn care. No more mowing for us!

4. I got a new kitchen! The tenants that lived in the unit before us had lived here for 5 years, so as part of our move-in, the landlord did a kitchen remodel with new countertops and all new cabinets. My kitchen smells like new wood...its delightful.

5. Cable and internet was included in our rent, so after a year and a half of not having it, we have cable TV again! ...its weird..


Cons:
1. I have already lost a battle with the thermostat. My eye is a little more black today, as this was taken a few hours after it hit me in the face yesterday afternoon. I'm sure I looked really good for us to visit a church for the first time today and the wife has a low grade black eye...but if anyone noticed , they didn't say anything.

2. Our air conditioning unit doesn't work and maintenance doesn't seem to care about the fact that it is nearly 90° this weekend and it is a very humid 84° in our apartment...

3. Our living space is much much smaller now, and our furniture doesn't fit like we would want it to.

4. Our internet isn't working so we have to deal with Charter tomorrow

5. We have to share a bathroom :( I've never had to share before. This has already been problematic. #onlychild 

6. I forgot my garden plants at the house when we moved and they're dead now. I'm going to have to start over..my poor tomato and green bean plants

7. I had to give up my LG washing machine and dryer. Our new apartment has a community laundry room and no individual hookups. And it costs $2.50 a load. 

I'm sure we will adjust soon and I start my new position at work on Tuesday. Hopefully we can get our a/c unit fixed tomorrow and we will both be in better spirits. I only have a few boxes left to unpack though, so I am definitely grateful for all of the hard work I put into going through all of our things and getting rid of many of them. 

A weekend in Memphis

This past weekend my husband, Luke, and I visited Memphis,TN in search of adventure, and of course, our friend Drew. In my past travels of Tennessee I've visited Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Gatlinburg, but Memphis was surprisingly missing, so I was excited to visit a new city. I left work early on Friday, and tried to finish up some things at home while I waited for the boys to make it to the house. We left around 5, and after a minor traffic incident while leaving salem--the rest of the drive was uneventful. We stopped for sonic somewhere in the very southernmost part of Missouri, and arrived in Memphis around 9:30pm. Drew had to show us his neighborhood, so we went to the Ole Cafe and sat in their courtyard listening to the live music. The ambiance of the lights strung across the buildings and the candles on the tables made this outdoor space one if my favorite things of the weekend. After sitting for awhile we headed to what Drew calls 'Kitty city'. In actuality it is a shop where you can adopt a cat called  'house of mews'.

   

   We wandered around for a little while longer and then headed in for the evening. Saturday morning we tried to have breakfast at Chihuahua's, but it wasn't open so we went to the Blue Plate cafe. The building was bright sunshine yellow with blue trim, and the inside was decorated like a 1950's style home, with paintings for sale all over the walls. We were seated next to a painting of a moose's behind. I got a delicious waffle, and instead of bringing bread or rolls to the table like most restaurants, you get served free biscuits and gravy
 

After breakfast we stopped by the drum store, I mean, you can't travel with two drummers and not visit a drum store right?  

We got to the Memphis zoo around 11, because let's be honest, 4 adults with no children need to visit the zoo. Admission is $15, and this zoo is massive! We were there for nearly 2 hours and only really saw around 1/3 of the place. We started at the cat exhibit, and saw a beautiful white tiger. So far I'm impressed with this zoo. We wandered into the bird house and went through that, looped around to the penguins and saw an area for children where they had musical instruments for playing. Naturally, we played them. 




We happened upon another bird house where you could feed the birds for $1. I didn't have any dollar bills so Luke so graciously let me feed the birds. I shared my feeding stick though!

  

We browsed the aquarium and looped around to see the pandas. We decided to skip the rest of the zoo to keep somewhat on our schedule. The plan was to go downtown and have lunch and do the Gibson guitar factory tour. We found a parking spot downtown and walked to the factory, only to find that all of the tours were sold out for Saturday. So, we put our names down to reserve Sunday's noon tour. We wandered down the famous Beale street, and ended up eating at Pig on Beale. I had smoked turkey BBQ and to make sure I got the full effect of the BBQ capital, I doused my sandwich in all of the sauces they had on the table. Then, we went to Schwab's, which is a 3 story drugstore. They had the second floor dedicated to a museum and floors 1 and 3 sold everything from knick-knacks to voodoo potions and spells. 

We heard several different live musicians and walked Beale street several times waiting until...the ducks at the Peabody hotel. The ducks march at 11am and 5pm daily, so we went to the 5pm march. At 5pm the ducks are lead through the lobby from the fountain that they swim in during the day. They walk out on a red carpet and have their own pent house suite inside the Peabody Hotel. It was so crowded I couldn't actually see the ducks, but Luke was tall enough to get a picture of them running down the red carpet towards their elevator. It was still a neat thing to say I've been to.

There was a baseball game going on Saturday evening that we debated going to, but we decided to head a few blocks back into downtown and go to the Cotton Museum and walk down to the river. We walked the half mile to the museum to find that it closed at 5pm, so we went down to the river and walked along the river for a few blocks and decided to go get ice cream and head to bass pro shop before it got too late. We treked back to a fun little place called Maggie Moos's ice cream. Drew made a new friend, and I had strawberry ice cream that was delicious. 

Bass pro was BUSY! This store just opened in Memphis as the result of a lost bet between the CEO of bass pro and the owner of the grizzlies? The pyramid had been a football stadium prior to it being bass pro. I'm not 100% on the story, but it was something about a fishing bet that if the pyramid owner caught a fish of over 30lbs the owner of bass pro has to build a store there, and he lost so now Memphis has a bass pro shop. I like the stores fine, but what I wanted to do was go to the observation deck at the top of the pyramid. We waited in line forever, and after paying our $10 we went up the glass elevator to the landing. The views were spectacular, and Luke did so good for being so afraid of heights. To be honest, the glass bottomed deck kind of freaked me out too.

 


We ended up walking around 7 miles on Saturday. By the time we got back to Drew's house we were all pretty tired and ordered Young Avenue Deli online and Drew picked it up for us. I had a smoked turkey sandwich that was delicious. I went to bed shortly after dinner and the boys played on their computers until...I don't know when.

Sunday was started at IHOP, I love breakfast food! At noon was the Gibson guitar factory, which was interesting to see on a Sunday when there were no workers. You couldn't take pictures inside the factory, but we had a good time at the back of the tour making smart elec comments and Luke was more interested in the compressed air system in the factory than the actual guitars being made...what a nerd!
 

We went back to Drew's house for awhile and left Memphis around 3pm to get back to Salem around 7:30. It was so nice to come home and see that the cat hadn't torn up anything...but I forgot to take the trash out before we left and the house smelled pretty bad..my bad...
This weekend was so much fun. Even though I felt like I had been hit by a truck and I'm super tired today, it was good to getaway and spend time with people I like. I enjoyed beating Luke with a pillow both mornings we were at Drew's, and Drew is the master of Memphis. I never once felt unsafe even though we zoomed through most of the streets. He knew where he was going and we never got lost. And of course, I always enjoy spending time with my husband. Memphis was great, but we didn't get to do everything. Guess we will have to come back and visit Drew again. And eat all the food Chihuahua's has to offer!