We're alive!

Whew. So apparently setting up house is pretty exhausting. You'd think since this is the 6th move that Tyler and I have done together so far (definitely not recommended) that we'd be experts and it would be no big deal. Not so. Plus we have the wild card of not knowing this city at all, so it took us a while just to figure out the grocery stores we should be going to, where the closest Costco and Trader Joe's are, how to get to said places, and then multiple back to back Target trips and Amazon prime orders! We did find the closest dog park on the first day and the dogs are very happy that it's only about half a mile away. We have become avid Craigslist fiends, and have already secured a new-to-us dining room table set and desk for Tyler. However, we are still missing a couch, which is apparently more difficult to coordinate than we had hoped. We did buy ourselves a brand new queen mattress set which we will pick up tomorrow, and are very excited about graduating to a grown up bed (from our full sized) and deflating the air mattress! Additionally, so far the only damages from the move have been cat related (lost a glass tupperware and a shirt due to Sitka, and another shirt due to Koda - of course both my shirts, the cats decided I needed more ventilation in this hot weather) and even our crystal was unpacked unscathed.

Initial impressions of Richmond:
- either the people here are very friendly or the Seattle freeze is real, or possibly both, they also really like pregnant ladies
- my blood is an extreme delicacy for all biting bugs here, and I have had to develop a strategy of covering all exposed skin for after-dinner dog outings and recently acquired a non-DEET hippy bug spray which will hopefully become my new favorite perfume, and not just a new flavor for my frequent flying customers, but currently I look like I have a lower extremity urticarial disease
- one should never, ever see the temperature read in the 3 digits, and yet I think that will be something we see on a weekly, if not sometimes daily basis here
- more road than cars, the only traffic we have encountered was when we saw an accident blocking the interstate on the opposite direction, otherwise Tyler has rejoiced at the efficiency of moving from point A to point B in the car, which is good since we have criss crossed the city doing errands almost a dozen times now
- inexplicable miles of shopping centers and strip malls, driving out to a furniture store we knew had a mattress sale we passed almost half a dozen small dodgy looking mattress discount places, and then had 4 more mattress stores within a few blocks of the first one we checked out for comparison shopping
- no taco trucks, the baby and I are very disappointed so far that we haven't found a replacement for our taco bus, but are making up for it in ice cream so far
- I'm not sure I'll ever stop being amused by fireflies

Hopefully next weekend we'll feel like we're settled in enough that we can explore the city in a non-shopping capacity. We did walk to the nearby park to watch the big city fireworks display on the 5th which was a lot of fun. I will leave you with a few photos of our container being dropped off and the opening reveal, and the current disarray that our house is in - which hopefully will be much better by next week. I am excited for some real nesting and starting to get the baby's room together!

Office/back-up guest room/cat domain

Kitchen

Under the stairs dog nook

Living room (sans couch) + dining area

Our bedroom

Not pictured:
- guest room, as it's mostly a giant room with an unassembled bed
- baby room, currently acting as Tyler's ironing room, since we still have a giant list of baby things to get and arrange before it will even vaguely resemble a nursery, one box of baby things does not make a nursery!
- giant mound of unpacked boxes! I think we're about 80% through our boxes now