Evidence

Here's some evidence of Phil and I's trip to San Diego for Dan's wedding (see...palm trees!). We forgot our cameras and so we relied on others to snap photos for us. I rarely like pictures taken of me, but I think Brittney did a fantastic job on these.

The Singer Brothers (staring into the sun)
Matt, Phil, Dan, and Nate

We had a great time in San Diego. It's funny because every time Phil and I have ever talked about where we want to live California has always been out of the running due to crowded cities and over-priced cost of living (and this is coming from a couple who lives in Boston!? I know our logic makes no sense). But having experienced the pleasures of San Diego we are amending this statement to: "we want to live nowhere else but San Diego!" The weather was wonderful while we were there (mid - high 70's!). In fact, while we were there we dodged the below zero weather in Boston. It was such a relief to slip on flip flops and t-shirts and walk along the beach! And traffic in San Diego is no worse than here in Boston (if not better), and I'm more than positive it's ten times better than L.A.'s traffic. Even if Phil and I never move to San Diego, I think we have decided that we are definitely going back...many many times.

Thanks to Dan and Wendy for having the wedding in San Dieogo and thanks to Rita Clem for making the stay so wonderful!

Our new place

Now that we are back from Oregon and the busy holidays are over I have finally found a few moments to take some pictures and blog about our new space in the basement of Erin and Brian's. We love being down here. This is by far the largest place we have lived in since being married. So here is the grand tour...

Our lovely front porch and door

Our front room

(thanks to Erin and Brian for the extra couch, rug, ottoman, and book shelves below!!!)

Dining area with our favorite bar height table

The desk, which has stayed down here since Jon and Deb lived here. I guess they nor Andrew and Rebekah wanted to keep it and we thank them for that!

This is our kitchen. Andrew and Rebekah painted the wall red and we liked it so much we kept it.

As you can see we don't have a stove top or an oven but we survive. Andrew and Rebekah left us their two burner hot plate and the microwave is also a convection oven (which currently doesn't work, so we borrow on the good graces of Erin and Brian if we need to bake something).

Our very own laundry room! This is thrilling for me to have this much space to fold laundry and it has lots of cupboard space.

The bathroom was the largest project I under took when we moved in. I took down old fixtures, patched holes, painted the walls blue (they used to be red), put up the wainscoting and chair rail, and repainted all of the moldings and cabinetry. Then Phil helped me put in the new fixtures we got with our awesome Black and Decker perk (thanks Dad!).

This is what you see when you walk into our bedroom.

This is the smaller closet that we use for Phil's shoes and our coats.

The bedroom used to be all yellow. Brian was kind enough to paint our bedroom for us. We chose a chocolate brown for the accent wall behind our bed and a cream color for the rest of the walls.

And our very own walk-in closet!

So that's our place. But here are a couple pictures from our travels to the Northwest.

This is a double rainbow we saw on our way back up to Portland. The picture below is the right side of the rainbow! It was a really large beautiful sight.

Phil and I are excited about this new year. We both have new jobs and we're in a new place. We hope it brings many new things for us! Happy New Year to all of you!