Back to reality

We made it back from Hawaii without any problems, arriving back to our “home” in Tacoma for one final night. We crashed on the lovingly-named “Jesus couch” (if you’ve been to our place, you know what I’m talking about) for the night and woke the next morning to a LONG day of organizing, packing and cleaning the old place (yes, we had to take another TWO trips to Seattle with more stuff). When we made it up to Seattle to be welcomed back to the apartment just as I left it -- a disaster:

 

We had a LOT of unpacking to do and we were just plain exhausted from cleaning up the old place. So, it’s taken us a week or so to get really unpacked and of course we were unpacking in the hottest temperatures Seattle has had in several years! We treated ourselves along the way a bit – for example, we had an inaugural trip to Dick’s Hamburgers which made Tom VERY happy:

 

Our unpacking was interrupted by yet another trip to Tacoma to finalize details -- cancelling our YMCA membership, doctors and dentist appointments, submitting paperwork to those offices....etc. so, we obviously had to stop by Bertlino's for a goodbye chai tea-- yum!

 Back in Seattle, we kept unpacking and making more trips to Goodwill. We took a break Friday night and headed over to Magnuson Park to catch the Friday Family concert series in the amphitheater. It was too hot to cook after a day of unpacking so we grabbed a pizza and walked across the street. 

The whole experience reminded me a lot of “Out to Lunch in the Park” in Missoula. Lots of families, sunshine and good tunes.

 

 The amphitheater is surrounded by a huge community garden. in the sunset lighting and the temperatures I wanted to stay there forever! I know I always post photos of flowers , but I can't help myself so brace yourself for a few more.

By this point we had the living room almost completely set up with one big exception--no furniture to sit on!

 So we decided to get off the floor and escape the 84 degree heat INSIDE the apartment and instead we took a walk in the 90+ heat outside. We hit the Burke Gilman trail for the first time since we moved to Seattle and started walking toward Lake Washington to try to catch some of the events of SeaFair going on this weekend.

We didn't get to see any speed boat action, but along the way we got several glimpses of the blue angels hard at work.

 Then, we headed off to IKEA so we didn't have to watch the Olympics on the floor anymore :) A few hours later we wound up with a couch (no more Jesus couch!), a dining room table and chairs, a front entry shelving unit, a rug and an over-the-toilet medicine cabinet. Whew!

 It's like an add for the awesome packing of IKEA products isn't it?

I didn't want to take pictures of the living room yet because we still have to get rid of all the cardboard, but the kitchen looks great and the living room is almost there. I'm so happy that we were able to take our time with this process and that school is still a few weeks away! Our home is now starting to feel like home :)