Happy New Year!

What, it’s March? Oh, so I’m only a few months behind on the update. It sure has been a busy start to 2012, though, but I it sure is time that I checked in with an update and a post.

Where to start? Well, Christmas came and went, and good times and good food were had by all. And when we weren’t busy buying and wrapping gifts, we were looking for a new house. And we found one! Well, that’s an understatement. We found a lot that we liked. What I should have said, is we bought one, which was no easy feat. We were out of town when offers were being presented, so we had to stop at a payphone next to the highway in the pouring rain to hear how the home inspection went (good thing we have a home inspector we trust!), and then give our agent the go ahead.  It was a quiet ride the rest of the way as we waited to hear how it went. The anticipated phone call could have gone two ways – we lost it, or we got it. Luckily it was the latter.  

Next, we had to sell the condo, which meant putting a lot of our stuff in storage and staging the small 600 square foot place to appear as big as possible. Thank goodness for Lunch Buddies (thanks Jess, Andrew, Owen, and Darcy)!  Frankly, it worked. Even I was fooled. The place looked amazing, and we were able to let out a huge sigh of relief once we signed the paperwork – our condo was SOLD.

As we started the New Year, things were pretty quiet as we waited for our closing date to approach. We slowly packed up the rest of our stuff from the condo and enjoyed our time living downtown. The new place is in the east end of Toronto, a really neat area of town, and we were getting excited about all the great restaurants and places to eat.

Soon January was over and February was breezing by. The 15^th was only a few days around the corner, and that’s when we’d get the keys to our very own home - a small but very nice 3 bedroom house. We weren’t closing our condo until the 29^th, so that left us some time to get in there and do any updates without having to work around furniture. We wanted to do some painting to in the bedrooms, but the rest was pretty much move-in ready.

In anticipation, we picked colours, bought paint and supplies, and recruited some valuable hands to help – my dad and brother.  Once the 15^th arrived, we got the keys and headed over to take a look around. It sure looked a lot different empty, but that meant it was full of potential. We went back most nights that week with small boxes of stuff from the condo, and I’m sure we are now considered regulars at the Canadian Tire, but things were coming together. That weekend, we cleaned and painted and got everything ready for the rest of our stuff. We weren’t going to be staying in the new place until we moved our bed over, and that was going to happen on the 29^th.

The big move finally came, and with some additional helping hands (thanks Jen, Paul, Chris, and Binu!), we gathered the remaining furniture from the condo and picked up the rest at the storage locker. Having only been there only a week, there are still boxes to be unpacked, but we have a bed to sleep in, a TV to watch and sofa to sit on, and a kitchen to cook and eat in, so it's pretty liveable. Day by day it comes together more and more, and I’m excited to see each box emptied and the items finding their new place.  We’re going to be very happy there, I can already tell, and I’m sure the adventures I’ll have to share will be plenty.