Alive in Maryland

 I'm back!!  Yes, we got all moved in.  Man, was it painful.  We arrived to a dirty house (floors, carpets decks...all filthy), no electricity, no hotel...I'm not kiddin'; it sucked.  I was ready to take the recommendation of my neighbor who suggested I give Maryland the middle finger and high-tail it back to Florida!  Then she told me everything would be fine, and she was right.  We had to clean the house as best we could without our stuff (took two tries to find a Target with power and buy cleaning supplies).  Our power was restored on Sunday (day before move in).  The top AC unit wasn't working, but AC guy came out and rigged it to "work" till part came in to fix it fully.  Then bottom AC unit broke.  Both are fixed now (along with the dryer which didn't work either).  Now, I think we have wasps in the attic.  Good Friggin' Grief!!!  Anyway here are some photos from our first week or so...

 We hung out in the garage marking off numbers for the movers as they climbed stairs after stairs and put our stuff in the house.  Bless their hearts.

 My house was a sea of boxes and black trash bags FULL of packing paper. 

 Took a while to figure out the furniture layout.  This isn't it.

 Takin' a break on the deck with my furry girl.

 Veronica made chocolate covered strawberries over the weekend...yum! Things slowly getting back to normal.

 There's a skate shop with a small skate park (ramps, half-pipe, etc) around the corner from the house.  Perfect for Joey!

Now we're talkin'...shoes and blankets all over the floor, knitting all over the table and kids zoning out infront of the TV.  Sounds like summer to me!

We've done some exploring, mostly shopping.  Even went to IKEA last week.  To get there you have to travel under the Chesapeake Bay in a tunnel...you know...under the water!  Very cool.  And expensive, too; $3 each way.  The girls and I found grocery stores, Trader Joe's, Michael's, Joanns, and the mall.  Not the DC Mall, but the Annapolis Mall.  They even have a Nordstrom (and Nordstrom Rack...yeah, bargains!).  Mike is working on getting the cars registered.  You have to have two inspections, one for emissions and one to make sure your car is in good working order (fix this light, tighten that screw and all that crap).  Not an easy (or cheap) task, but the man is on it! 

More pics of the house to come when it's cleaner and I'm not in the middle of doing laundry.

On a sad note:  Our outdoor kitty, Jake, is missing. He ventured out and hasn't returned yet.  We're hoping he will someday. I hope he's safe where he is and told our neighbor in Fleming Island to keep an eye out for him.  He's probably living it up on someone elses couch.  All other animals, including the kids, are doing fine. 

Anyone out there feel like wrestling a few wasps?