Ya, you betcha we're Minnesotans now
Joe and Tina are officially Minnesotans as of around midnight on November 30th. We packed our 16 foot rented moving truck with the help of some good friends and our two dads. Joe’s dad, Terry, used to be a professional mover, and Tina’s dad, Terry, is a former engineer whose mind works in how to best make things work. Between the two of them, we fit all but a few items into the moving van with a little space leftover. It was amazing to watch the two of them in action. After about four hours of packing the truck we were finished, leaving the rest of the day to visit with friends and family members and run a few last-minute errands before heading to bed early. Our night of sleep was fitful, but mostly because our air mattress wasn’t on our side and lost air, leaving us mostly sleeping on the floor. We arose at 6 a.m., got ready and loaded the final personal items onto the truck, hitting the road by 8:30 a.m. Snow had begun to fall in Missouri and continued through Iowa. The drive was fine until Iowa, where the snow combined with curious and/or cautious drivers left us with no option but to drive 30 mph through most of the state. Luckily, Minnesota was snow-free and traffic was moving like normal. What should have been an eight or nine hour drive turned into close to 14 hours. We finally made it to our new house at midnight, where our friend met us to help unload the bare necessities. Unfortunately, we also had no shower curtain or bath towels, so we then had to head to a grocery store to purchase those items so Joe could shower for work the next morning. Our pillow finally found our heads at around 1:30 a.m.
Joe’s first day of work went great and Tina spent the day unpacking what she could. After work, Joe came home with friends from work to unload the rest of the truck. I’m still amazed at how much stuff we have! Most of you know that our house is located across the street from Joe’s new job at Youthworks. The neighborhood is cute and is mostly residential. Across the street in one direction is Youthworks and the other direction is a large park. Down the street is a school. A few streets to our south is Lake street, which is a bustling business district. Within a few blocks of our house we have access to our bank, the public library, an auto parts store and hardware store, coffee shop, McDonald’s and other restaurants, two grocery stores, Walgreens and Target.
Our house is small and appears to have been built in the 50’s. When you walk in the front door you’re greeted by the living room. To your right is the door to the smaller of the two bedrooms, which will be a guest room and Tina’s office. Also to the right is the start of an L-shaped hallway with the bathroom on the right. That hallway opens up to a larger room that is probably supposed to be the formal dining room, but will be Joe’s office and our reading room. The other part of the L-shaped hallway has a linen closet and another long closet on it and then leads to the basement doorway and an exit to the backyard. The entrance to our bedroom is off to the north side of the office. If you keep walking through the office it opens up to the eat-in kitchen. The kitchen is small, but has quite a bit of cabinet space. Along with the traditional appliances we have a dishwasher, which is FABULOUS! The kitchen has a set of French doors leading to a deck in the backyard. There’s a stone path leading from the deck to the two-car garage. Our yard has privacy fence on all but one side, and the other side is just a chain-length fence. There’s not a ton of room, but plenty for Truman to run around. The owner of the house left a little patio table and two chairs with the house, along with a BBQ grill, both of which sit on the back patio. The house isn’t going to appear in architectural digest anytime soon, but it is cute and has some fun details, like long, high windows that let in lots of light. The unfinished basement is large enough to allow plenty of room for laundry and storage. All in all, it’s a very livable house and will feel really cozy and wonderful once all the boxes are unpacked and pictures are hung. We’ll post pictures as soon as we get unpacked and the house looks photo-worthy.
To everyone who helped us pack or unpack, we’d like to give you a HUGE thanks! For those of you who’ve been praying for us, offering us words of encouragement or who so generously gave us gifts or cash, THANKS a million to you, too!
Joe’s first day of work went great and Tina spent the day unpacking what she could. After work, Joe came home with friends from work to unload the rest of the truck. I’m still amazed at how much stuff we have! Most of you know that our house is located across the street from Joe’s new job at Youthworks. The neighborhood is cute and is mostly residential. Across the street in one direction is Youthworks and the other direction is a large park. Down the street is a school. A few streets to our south is Lake street, which is a bustling business district. Within a few blocks of our house we have access to our bank, the public library, an auto parts store and hardware store, coffee shop, McDonald’s and other restaurants, two grocery stores, Walgreens and Target.
Our house is small and appears to have been built in the 50’s. When you walk in the front door you’re greeted by the living room. To your right is the door to the smaller of the two bedrooms, which will be a guest room and Tina’s office. Also to the right is the start of an L-shaped hallway with the bathroom on the right. That hallway opens up to a larger room that is probably supposed to be the formal dining room, but will be Joe’s office and our reading room. The other part of the L-shaped hallway has a linen closet and another long closet on it and then leads to the basement doorway and an exit to the backyard. The entrance to our bedroom is off to the north side of the office. If you keep walking through the office it opens up to the eat-in kitchen. The kitchen is small, but has quite a bit of cabinet space. Along with the traditional appliances we have a dishwasher, which is FABULOUS! The kitchen has a set of French doors leading to a deck in the backyard. There’s a stone path leading from the deck to the two-car garage. Our yard has privacy fence on all but one side, and the other side is just a chain-length fence. There’s not a ton of room, but plenty for Truman to run around. The owner of the house left a little patio table and two chairs with the house, along with a BBQ grill, both of which sit on the back patio. The house isn’t going to appear in architectural digest anytime soon, but it is cute and has some fun details, like long, high windows that let in lots of light. The unfinished basement is large enough to allow plenty of room for laundry and storage. All in all, it’s a very livable house and will feel really cozy and wonderful once all the boxes are unpacked and pictures are hung. We’ll post pictures as soon as we get unpacked and the house looks photo-worthy.
To everyone who helped us pack or unpack, we’d like to give you a HUGE thanks! For those of you who’ve been praying for us, offering us words of encouragement or who so generously gave us gifts or cash, THANKS a million to you, too!
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