The past couple of months have been pretty spectacular, what with the beach-combing in Florida and the partying in Portland and the camp-firing at Fort Flagler. PLUS, there’s been a smorgasbord of April and May goodness right here at home.
Home. HOME! We super-duper love our new one! We got our keys the evening before we left for Florida and hauled a carload of boxes right over, eager as we were to settle into our new place.
Moving was a bear, but family really came through in a clutch. Clearly, Jules was a stellar assistant with all the unpacking:
And my parents! They were heroes. As soon as we all returned from Florida, my dad and I got right to work giving all our rooms a nice fresh coat of white while my mom meticulously organized the kitchen.
And then Shane’s mom came to visit for a weekend in May – we hit Ikea together and she helped me get our closets in order.
We warmed our house with a (furniture-less) picnic dinner at the end of April, determined to have the Hickory clan over before they set off on their Colorado move.
We’ve shared so many big ups and big downs with this crew – breaking bread with these people in our new house is an up I’ll remember forever.
But saying good-bye to Brian, Nicole, Eden and Stella…total down. We miss these guys so much already!
Juliette gave one final farewell to our townhouse the first weekend in May and then we were officially out.
This place was good to us for the past eleven years. It will always be our first house, the place where we hosted the small group that turned out to be full of our life-long nearest and dearest friends (the very same ones that were there for our first meal in our new house!). Our townhouse was the place that we watched Juliette take her first steps, the place in which we decorated a decade’s worth of Christmas trees. I sniffled just a bit when I pulled out of the driveway for the very last time.
But then I drove across the bridge and we ate dinner in our new backyard and Juliette and Nico frolicked in the grass and I was overcome with the feeling that this next chapter in our lives is going to be a good one.
Getting to know our new neighborhood has been such a joy – meeting the super-friendly families on all sides of us, discovering the views around every corner, soaking up these western skies…
I look forward to my evening walks with a whole new kind of fervor. I never really pictured myself as a West Seattle-ite, committed as I was to the South End, but suddenly I’m all in.
And golly, this backyard of ours… We’ve loved dining al fresco, feeling like we finally have space to play the role of host. The Rusts popped by one Saturday night just to say hello and then did a little jig when we told them we had extra burgers and dogs on the grill for them.
Aunt Val came to visit while Shane’s mom was in town and she filled me in on what exactly is planted in our yard, pointing out the peonies that were about to bloom and the lilac bush that smells so, so good.
We moved in at the right time of year, I tell ya.
This corner lot comes at a cost, though – we’ve quickly discovered the amount of work that goes into keeping this yard in tip-top shape. Yowsers! (But more gadgets for Shane!)
In other good-things news, Mother’s Day was lovely this year – Shane and Juliette made french toast and grapefruit mimosas for me and Shane’s mom and then we all headed to Alki Beach for a sun-break.
And Jules and I have been loving lots of quality time with LaV and Nico, soaking in our last couple of months of Fridays together before this guy heads off to kindergarten in the Fall.
We had a grand time celebrating his space-themed fifth birthday, watching him blast off to a year of new adventures.
These two…making each other smile since 2013.
They were especially awesome together on our Memorial Day hike to Coal Creek Falls, trooping through the trek with very little complaining – La Verne didn’t have to bust out the gummy bribes until mile 2.5!
This is our fourth or fifth time on this trail, and it continues to be one of our faves – not too crowded, not too steep, and always a rock to sit on mid-way to take a rest and have a snack.
And now, June. We just got back from Minnesota, we’ve got a couple of camping trips on the books over the next two weekends, and my peonies are at their peak. Life’s good.