Come on in and have a look around

Greetings, dear readers. It's time for the grand tour of our luxury apartment. Lest you think any old Joe Schmoe could walk on it to one of these beauts, you have to have a key fob both for the parking lot and the building itself. (It has nothing to do with the slightly sketchy area in which we live, of course.)

Once you enter, you are engulfed in amazement. Concrete floors AND metallic sconces? Can it be?

The view coming in.

The view towards the front door.

As you enter, a bathroom is on your right. As you may notice, we really cleaned up for this tour.

Past the bathroom, also on the right, is the master bedroom - complete with a queen size air mattress. On Dan's side of the bed is a wardrobe box which doubles as his nightstand. On my side is a suitcase with a laundry basket on top. Dan's clothes are in the closet and most of mine are upstairs in the kids' closet. There is one metallic sconce in that room for light. And notice the large window which gives us light from...

The kitchen/office/living room/den/everything else space. Thanks to my parents for loaning us their folding table and chairs. Those are boxes of food on the floor (which don't all fit in the cabinets) and a map of Richmond on the wall.

Another angle. That door on the left is our washer/dryer. Thank goodness for those, at least.

Upstairs is a loft where the kids sleep and play.

And they've got their own bathroom, which is great.

We are bursting at the seams in this place and can't wait to move! Dan is studying 24/7 for the Virginia bar exam (which is next week. Prayers are appreciated.) and after that's over, we'll continue the house hunt and hopefully either find something by the time school starts or move into a different apartment.

Thanks for coming along on this magical tour of our luxury apartment! Any loyal reader (who is related or a really good friend) is welcome to come and stay anytime! But it's BYOAM. (Bring your own air mattress.)

Stuff we've been doing

So despite what I said in the last post, we have been doing some things. The children's museum is $1 the third Friday of each month from 5-7pm. That also means it's totally chaotic, but we went anyway.

I thought it was pretty nice. I'd go again, but not until another $1 night.

Dan got me pretty flowers for our 9th anniversary.

Richmond had a big fireworks show on July 3rd. It was boasted as the largest display in the state. They shoot the fireworks from an island in the James. To avoid traffic we drove to Dan's work and parked on the top floor of the parking garage. It was a great show and we got home lickety split.

 I love the pic below.

 Taking pictures of Sam taking pictures.

G and G Cheney drove over to Richmond for the fourth. We met at the Lewis Ginter botanical garden, which happened to be free that day. And subsequently very crowded. It was really pretty. They had a great butterfly house.

 They also had a splash pad. Afton was staring down a tube when it apparently shot water in her face so she was done in about 2 minutes, but Sam lasted a bit longer.

 We hit a local BBQ joint for lunch.

 And then headed to Despicable Me 2. Despite looking asleep in the picture below, Mom and Dad both liked it and stayed awake for the whole thing.

 Afton's first theater experience.

After that we said goodbye to G and G Cheney and crashed for the day.

Lately Sam has been into a little thing we like to call "honey buns." We had leftover hot dog buns so Dan smeared honey on one and gave it to Sam - a honey bun. Now Sam eats them all the time. It's strange to buy hot dog buns and no hot dogs, but at least they're cheap.  Afton's caught on to the craze, too.

In case you hadn't heard, the offer we put on the house last week was rejected. We had heard that someone put an offer on the house so we made an offer that we guessed was better than theirs (we didn't know what their offer was) and then they came back and offered full price. I think the seller should split that extra money he got with us, thank you very much. 

I joined a gym yesterday and have gone twice so far. I thought there was no way I'd be sore after the class I took yesterday. I mean, the first pump-you-up song the instructor played was "Dancing in the Streets" (which I totally thought was sung by Cher until I just looked it up). But I was sore by the afternoon. So that's a good (although slightly pathetic) sign.

Not much going on around here...

So, I think we've looked at almost 40 homes by now. About three weeks ago we saw a home that we really liked. The next day someone else bought it. Last week we went and saw a home and the next day someone bought it. We weren't in love with it, but we think we should start charging realtors to have us come and look at their homes. They'll sell the next day. Guaranteed. Case in point: We saw a different home last weekend that we really loved. It's been on the market for about two months. We took our realtor and my parents to look at it yesterday and found out that someone else put an offer on it yesterday. This time we weren't to be outdone. We put an offer on it today. We'll see how it turns out. It could go either way and I think we're alright with that. (Happy if we get it, but not crushed if we don't.)

Houses are expensive. Once we get a home we're just going to stay there all the time because we won't have money to do anything else. So it'd better be something we like!

Apartment living is not good for my waistline. I have gained like ten pounds since we moved here! I need to join a gym.

We like Richmond. There are lots of great parks and things to do. I try to get out with the kids but it's been raining a lot and there aren't as many INDOOR things to do, so that's a bit of a challenge.

Dan is now taking three weeks off to study full-time for the BAR exam. It's at the end of the month. He'll finish listening to all his lectures this week and then focus on practice tests for the rest of the time. One of the professors gave advice at the end of the lecture and told the students not to do anything but study for the next three weeks and not to make any major decisions during that time. Dan is buying a house and a car. Wonder what the professor would say about that. When it's over we are going to celebrate with either a trip to the beach or Busch Gardens or something. We're also taking a trip to Washington in August to see Dan's family.

Afton is almost potty trained. She is afraid to go #2 on the toilet so she holds it too long and then it hurts. She went #2 on the toilet today. Yay! I'd been wanting to wait until we bought a home to potty train her and then do it all in one day, but this approach seems to be working, too. She loves to wear skirts and dresses, she mentions what kind of birthday cake she wants at least once a day. She loves condiments (salsa, ketchup, butter, etc).

Sam is getting to be a great reader. One of the wards we went to gave each of the kids their own copy of the Book of Mormon and told them that if they read it fives times that week, they'd get a prize the following Sunday. So Sam dutifully read five verses each night (with Dan's help) and then we decided to go to a different ward that Sunday so I took him to Target on Monday to pick out a hot wheels. He picked one that looked like a hammerhead shark.

The kids are getting to be pros at house shopping. They can guess which doors lead to attics and they figure out which bedroom and bathroom would be theirs. They're also sure to try out each play set anytime there is one.

Not many pictures taken lately so here are a few from Father's Day.

A Visit to the Cemetery

A few weeks ago I took the kids to the cemetery. I like cemeteries. This wasn't just any cemetery, however. This was Hollywood Cemetery - resting place of Jefferson Davis, James Monroe, and John Tyler, among many other Virginians. It was really beautiful and we could have spent a lot more time there. The grounds were huge. The day was perfect and after a snack, we took a look around. I'm sure there was much more to see, but this is what we stumbled across.

First, this is a monument to Confederate soldiers. I guess when they built it, there was no way to get the capstone on (it's pretty tall) so a prisoner offered to put it on and if he did it and survived, he'd get his freedom. So he did it and was released.

 George Pickett.

 Here is President John Tyler. He and Monroe weren't initially buried here. It was some guy's dream to have all the presidents buried in the same place, but he only succeeded with Tyler and Monroe.

 Is it weird to have my kids pose with tombstones? Not sure what the protocol is on that...

 Tyler will have a pretty amazing view of the James River when he wakes up.

 And here's Monroe.

 Jefferson Davis.

 Afton was so funny. She loves princesses, angels, etc so anytime she saw an angel, she wanted to have her picture taken with it. Kind of creepy, but I obliged.

 Even with this rather scary one.

 And I know it sounds weird to have a favorite tombstone, but this would be mine. Isn't that neat looking?

 Here's another cemetery right next door. I thought it was pretty with all the yellow wildflowers (weeds).

 Not sure if a dog is buried here or just a dog lover, but either way, Afton wanted her picture taken with it.

I thought it was a great outing. If any of my readers come to visit, just let me know if you want to go to the cemetery while you're here.