Where the Magic Happens...the kitchen.

I know a lot of you have been asking to see some pictures of the inside of our new house. I have to admit that the perfectionist in me doesn't want to show you until it's some what set up. I know...I need to get over it. However...our kitchen is pretty much done (although I do want to paint a wall...and my robot painting is still packed somewhere...)

These are the curtains I made from a bedspread I bought from Urban Outfitters. I also must tell you that I hung them myself! Ohhh...and also important to note...that our kitchen is on the 2nd floor, and that door goes to nowhere. It's the door to certain death. There's supposed to be a little patio out there...but our landlord apparently didn't want one.

This is our cute little coffee and tea station. This is also the wall I want to paint...like a gray/blue color.

And this is the view from the other side of our sink area and island. By the way...that bouquet on the island is my wedding bouquet. It survived the moved thanks to my genius packing skills.

So, I hope you enjoyed the tour of the kitchen. I promise, more rooms to come shortly!

The Moines Witness Sporting History

The Moines are adventurous. Not sure if you know this about us...but we like to be spontaneous sometimes. On the very first day we were in Virginia (last Tuesday)...we showed our adventurous side.

Keep in mind we had taken a red eye...and neither of us can sleep all that well on airplanes. However, the cable guy had come, the electricity had been turned on and our cars had been delivered...so the only options in how to spend the remainder of our day were...nap on the borrowed air mattress we had...OR...witness sporting history.

We chose the latter.

So, we hopped on the metro into DC and decided to venture to National's Park to see if we could find tickets to the sold out game that was happening that evening. I'm not sure if you've heard of Stephen Strasburg...but he's kind of a big deal around here. The Nationals (who have sucked) picked him up in the draft last summer...and people are REALLY excited about him. Tuesday (the game we went to) was his first major league start. Apparently, this is a big deal.

On big games where they sell out (which this day may have been the only game in their brief history) the Nats release $5 day of nosebleed tickets. So we picked up some of those and headed in. We were a couple hours early because we didn't know what the ticket situation would be like...but you would have never known it was that early because there was already a lot of people there and the Baseball Tonight guys were there filming. When we had left the house we were watching Orel Hershiser on the TV talking about the game...and now we were there watching him in person. Pretty cool.

So the whole experience was pretty surreal. People were REALLY excited about this kid. People had signs that said "Strasburg is our Savior" and you should have seen all the flash bulbs that went off when he threw his first major league pitch!  I mean the guy got a standing ovation just walking from the dugout to the bullpen before the game even started. Talk about pressure! Just seeing his face as he walked across the field made me want to cry. But he did great!  He threw 14 strikeouts...and with every pitch the whole stadium went nuts. It was definitely a cool experience.

We must admit that BOTH of us fell asleep during the game...but we are definitely glad we entertained our adventurous side and went to the game. We'll definitely be saving our ticket stubs and we feel a little bit connected to the Nats now that we've witnessed their history.

Here are some pics from the adventure.

P.S. Go Angels!

Our New Home

First of all, I'm sorry it's taken me a week to blog for the first time in Virginia. I FINALLY got my computer hooked up with an internet connection. It was a little more difficult than expected...but we are here in the blogosphere now. Anyway, we are obviously still getting settled in our new home. But here are some pictures of our cute not-so-little place.

Our street:

And our cute little Narnia lamp post. How appropriate!

So, here is an update on all things since we left California. It's definitely been humid...which is an adjustment. In fact this past week has been a heat wave apparently...and our air conditioning wasn't working. So we decided to believe that it could only improve from there. And it has...the AC is working now and our house is a cool 75 degrees!
All of our stuff finally arrived on Friday. For the first few days all we had were the clothes we packed in suitcases, our SWEET new TV (which by the way has been monopolized by the World Cup thus far), and a borrowed air mattress. So basically our time has been spent unpacking, taking trips to Target (which is SUPER here...literally), and Ikea, and watching soccer.
So, our adventure has begun...and we definitely have had some adventures already. So check back soon to read about some of the following topics:

Jared and Alanna Witnessing History
Humidity
Getting Lost
Summer Camp
House Decorating Progress
Civil War Reenactments
The World Cup
DC Exploration
Meeting the Obamas
Generally Awesome Things

If you are reading this from California: We love and miss you!
If you are reading this from Virginia: Thanks for welcoming us!
If you are reading this from somewhere else: I probably don't know you...but welcome to our blog anyway.