About a month ago, Conor’s sister, Liz, did an amazing photo shoot for us. I personally loved it because really, I love having my photo taken. I called this morning of fun, “getting our family portraits taken,” because I figure even though we don’t have children, Conor and I are still a family and therefore we should have family pictures! Plus, I’d really like to do family photos yearly and I figure 2008 is a good start. Liz took amazing pictures and I’m in love with all of them. Do you think it would look self-centered if I printed them all off and plastered our wall with them? Oh, and I’m so glad we wore orange! Orange is my new favourite colour.

How do you like? I think they are absolutely perfect!

PS: Conor got me some new boots! I feel a CK coming on…

The next time I throw together a crock pot, it is definitely cooking on the porch and not in my kitchen; let me tell you why. I’ve got one on the go-go today and no matter how good it smells I really don’t feel like eating it for dinner. But that’s the story of my life. Leftovers are the biggest turn off. Excuse me while I go clothespin my nose.

PS: I promise to post more photos of our place. The thing is, it has to look different (aka more tidy and more unpacked) before I feel like I can do that and unfortunately progress was stunted a few days ago. Whoops. I’ve definitely lost hope.

Okay, here are some shots of our apartment. The pictures may appear to show a very messy abode, but trust me, this is tidy in comparison to the past couple of days! Today, my friend Julie came over to help me and it sure was great to have an extra set of hands and someone to chit chat with. It’s been a really busy few days and I feel only a little run-down. I can’t wait to have everything in perfect order so I can bake some cookies and sew some clothing and curtains! I still need to stock up the fridge and pantry but all of that will come with time right? Whew! I sure am grateful to be here and it’s fun to have our own space. Last night Conor and I went to Chipotle to eat and then watched the rest of a movie and then played Scrabble and it was so nice to be just us!

Our view off of the balcony. You can see the mountains and downtown.

Conor in his loft office:

Our small and messy bedroom:

The Living Room:

Kitchen:

And last but not least, my most heartbreaking casualty of this move, my mauve bowel. At least it’s the biggest one that I use the least. I still have the 2 smaller ones, but still…

A jar of pasta sauce and a jar of crabapple juice also broke. Luckily those broke just on Tuesday and not eight months ago!

We finally received our Smartboxes on Tuesday, but not until 3:30pm far from the promised time of between 8am and 12pm. We were lucky enough to have 4 missionaries, Melanie and Ryan our good friends and neighbors, and another member of our ward whose name has slipped my mind (amongst other things) there to assist us. Fortunately with all the help, the chore of moving was made quick. We are so glad to be in our new apartment and have only had one or two melt-downs on my side of the equator.

We’re really enjoying the loft in our apartment. It’s so great and provides a wonderful office for Conor and I, well as soon as we get a desk for me. Our bedroom is a little on the small side and we are sadly unable to fit all of our furniture in there. Fortunately Conor and I were able to come up with a solution and will be moving our armoire to the living room. I’ve agreed to sand it and Conor is going to paint it and we’ll get some new knobs from Anthropologie. I’m excited about that especially since we have a deck to paint it on. I have had to be creative with clothing placement and I think we’ll need to get a side table for some leftover clothing. I’ve done my best to share my dresser! Because we don’t have a linen closet we’ll most likely take advantage of our armoire for our vast collection of towels. All wedding gifts.

We have a ton of cabinet space in the kitchen, which is awesome! I can’t even fill it. I get a big cupboard for a pantry and we’re going to get a short bookshelf and slip it under our staircase and use that as food storage too! I’m giddy about it. We have so many other ideas on the fly of how to make our apartment our home. We’re estimating we’ll be here for about a year and a half and if all goes through this will be our longest lived in home! Whoopee!

We’re dreaming of bookshelves with doors (to hide things), lamps and a bedside table. And maybe even a little table for two. It feels good to have my own space again.

P.S: even though Conor bought 50 more hangers (which we used up), we have an overflowing large box of clothing to giveaway. Ya. Intense. Needless to say our closet and drawers are full.

Pictures to come tomorrow as well as my most heartbreaking casualty of the move.

We’re half way and spending the night in Idaho. Crossing the border was a piece of cake! And I totally stunk at saving my emotions for Denver. SO MUCH has been going on in the past two and a half weeks that I just cannot bottle up any emotions, good or bad. And so I cried like a baby saying goodbye to my family on Thursday. I love waving to my Mom and whoever else stays at the window with her whenever we drive away from their house. As you can imagine it was extra tender as we drove away Thursday night and I waved like a maniac and cried my eyes dry. And then this morning, Vienna broke down when we were leaving and was the only one of the children who actually understood the magnitude of what was happening, and of course I could not withstand her tears and my own seeped through. I hate goodbyes. Really. I’m all about the clean break. Ugh. Once I have all my stuff again right? My worldly possessions will fill the void. Please fill the void.