Our Move From the North to the South

A farewell happy hour with some of my co-workers - I'll miss them!

And the movers boxed everything up Wednesday

They were packing and moving everything from 8:00am - 3:30pm. We couldn't help them at all and it was very boring for us :) Oh, the rough life. We're SO grateful for all of the assistance free to us for this move.

And it's all gone! Our stuff is all packed up and in storage until we move into our new place in just under 2 weeks. It was sad to see our first place as a married couple empty, but we're excited to move forward too.

We got to see many beautiful views on our road trip! This photo is in Minnesota.

And of course, the beauty and comfort of the Iowa landscape...

Here's Kansas, day #2 of our drive, south of Topeka

The clouds were amazing south of Oklahoma City

It's a little hard to see, but there's a rainbow in these clouds!

It was hard to capture the red clay in Oklahoma, but this is a red clay river

Welcome to Texas!

More pretty clouds- what a photogenic day for these clouds! Can you tell what kept me entertained on this car ride? :)

The sky got dark as we drove into the DFW area

Then came the rain.

Not even 5 minutes later, the clouds and hard rain passed and blue sunny skies were back

The hotel we're at for 2 weeks until we move into our apartment

Our kitchen

Our hotel is very homey and even has an upstairs with a second bedroom and bathroom. We're definitely spoiled getting our bed made daily, dishes done, and trash taken out for us. Not to mention the complimentary breakfast, happy hour with snacks every day, outdoor pool and fitness room. Even with all of our temporary living benefits, we'll be excited to get into our apartment and get settled into our life here.

In the meantime, I'm on the job hunt here, wish me luck!

Our Last Weekend in MN and Bare Walls...

This weekend was great! We wanted to live it up as our last weekend living in Minnesota and we did just that. Friday night we met up with a few of Nick's co-workers at Eagan's Relay for Life. It's an emotional experience to see the cancer survivors make their first lap around the track with a standing ovation and applause coupled with all of the luminaries with loved ones either honored or memorialized. It caused us to step back and think of our loved ones who have been touched by cancer.


Saturday, we went to the Mall of America to meet up with a friend. It was fun to walk around the mall and see it one last time. Then, we went to the Twins vs. White Sox game! We were fortunate enough to get tickets just a few days earlier to see a game in the new stadium before we leave the area.

A Fox News North sportscast going on; it was cool to see!

Fans awaiting the game

The downtown view from the stadium is great!

Minnie (Minneapolis) and Paul (St. Paul)

Joe Mauer, the hometown fave, a local from St. Paul

The clouds started moving in a bit... but the temperature was great

Enjoying the game

The Twins win 3 - 2! Just minutes after the game is over, the sky opens and it starts POURING rain

View of the rain from the skywalk; we were VERY thankful for the skywalk at this point! We heard rumors of tornado touchdowns, and there was a lot of wind and crazy loud thunder.

Here's a story about our way home: As we made our way back through the skywalk to our train (keep in mind I'm wearing flip flops and a skirt here!), we see a train arrive. We decide we need to run to make it. We run to be told we have to go to the other side where they're letting people on. So we keep running. As we came around the train, I can see Nick ahead yelling at me to run faster so I'm trying with all my might with the rain pounding against me and my umbrella; which at this point is being used to try to keep my bag with my camera and cell phone dry.

So I get close as the doors close. We express our frustration at missing the train but quickly wonder why it's still sitting there. So Nick, thinking quickly as the rain pours, gets to the door and presses the button to open the door and it opens! We rush on, thankful to make it and finally be out of the rain. At this point, my skirt and shoes are completely soaked; I could even wring out the rain water from my skirt. We were immediately greeted by a Star Tribune photographer saying he got a great photo of Nick yelling at me to run faster to make the train right as the doors were closing. So he took our names and city in case the photo would be used in the paper. We looked online and bought a paper today and didn't make it, but it still was quite the experience!
Here's our crowded train we rode in for over an hour - standing room only - after that crazy rain experience. We also were delayed for about 10 minutes as a stalled train was ahead. It was quite the ending for a great MN day :)

In other news, our walls are just about completely bare and it looks like someone's moving around here! We've just got 2 days of work left until the movers come pack everything up and we're on our way down south. It's crazy how fast this time has been flying! When we get to Texas, we'll be living in temporary housing (a hotel) for 2 weeks until all of our stuff arrives. We'll be anxiously awaiting moving into our new apartment there. That's all for now; still a lot to get organized and coordinated, but we're taking one day at a time :)

4th of July & A Home-Hunting Trip to Texas

I've posted some photos from the 4th of July and our recent trip to Texas to find our place to live! Enjoy...

Ready and waiting for the Independence Day parade to begin on this HOT 90+ degree day

These unicyclists were great!

Our first steak ever cooked as a married couple :) This was our 4th of July celebration dinner with quinoa on the side. Have you tried quinoa? If not, you should try this recipe (same one I used for this side). Amazing. Plus, quinoa has some seriously great health benefits! Read about it at that link.

Ready for fireworks!

The pretty sunset we watched as we waited

And the finale

Here's our trip to Texas...
It was fairly exhausting and had its stressful moments but successful in the end as we found a great place to live (with just few hours left to spare!). We can't move into our new place soon!

A great seafood place Nick wanted to take me to; he came here last year and loved it

SO much food (it IS the south!). Crawfish, catfish and shrimp - all breaded (not my typical meal, but we were living on the edge ;)) with fries. It was amazing however I could only finish about half :)

And of course... southern sweet tea! It's more like sugar with a little bit of tea, but it tastes amazing and it had been about a year since we had any. It was great on a hot HUMID day!

It rained every day we were there; at this point, we pulled over to wait it out as we were on our apartment tour day #1. It came down so hard, the streets around us had flash flooding.

We took a photo to entertain ourselves/capture the moment while we waited for it to pass

Our office (hotel) while we researched apartments. We loved this hotel after arriving at a sketchy-uncomfortable-feeling hotel initially. Luckily we (Nick) made a few changes for us to stay here. Thanks to Nick for that and thanks to his company for paying for our entire trip.

Hello, Dallas!

Another view of Dallas (part is covered by the fence) from Uptown, where we went Saturday night for a celebratory dinner after finding a place to live! Now we could relax and rest easier knowing our "work" for the trip was done.

The decor in the window of the place we ate dinner that night, Grimaldi's, a New York style thin crust pizza place. For those of you in Des Moines, it reminded me of Centro's pizza... yum! It was great food and a fun atmosphere. It's in a few other bigger cities, and their menu said Frank Sinatra and Rudy Guiliani are fans of their pizzeria too :)

Overall it was a great trip and we were so relieved to come home after finding our new place.