catching up

It's been really busy around here lately, getting ready to move this coming Saturday. We have a lot packed already - I've been working on it for a couple of weeks already. In fact, that's about all I've been doing lately. I'll email out our new contact info this week. We have our new address and phone number confirmed, and we're keeping our cell numbers.

The new apartment is a 2-bedroom (we're still in a 1-bedroom place right now, with Summer's crib at the foot of our bed), but it's actually smaller than what we have now. We're more than doubling our counter and cupboard space in the kitchen, but everything else is substantially smaller. Go figure. But the plus side is that we will have a dishwasher (hooray!!) and a washer and dryer inside the apartment (double hooray and the Dance of Joy!!), and no upstairs neighbors stomping around at midnight (also a cause for much happiness). Parking the car also should no longer be an issue, and the parking space is right at the front door of the building. Right now, we have to just randomly park on the street wherever you can find a spot, and the closest to the building we can get is still 10 or 15 yards from the door. The area is right on the edge of a business area - the Metro is about 4 blocks away (very long blocks, but still). There's a major grocery store right behind our building, and the bank is right across the street from that. There's a small park around the corner with baby swings (Summer's favorite thing), and the library is about 3 blocks away. I've already looked up the summer reading group schedule for toddlers. There are also a ton of restaurants in the vicinity, so we'll need to be careful there. If we actually had money, it would be fun to try a lot of them out. That's all I can think of right now - we've only driven around the area. I'm sure we'll find more when we take walks in the neighborhood. I'm actually getting excited to move finally - we've only been working on paperwork for this apartment since March.

The only other thing of note lately is that Jori Wilson was here with her sister for 10 days, for the 4th of July. (Jori and I were at Western together.) We all went downtown to watch the fireworks on the Mall. We had a nice view of the Washington Monument. Summer didn't really react to the noise or anything, but she wanted to be on my lap or Adam's the entire time.

Summer is doing well. She's actually talking on the phone to people now instead of just listening. Still no intelligible words, but she has said something that sounds like "yes" and "boo." She's up to 7 teeth now - just cut another one on the bottom this week. She knows to point the remote at the TV and push buttons, and sometimes it actually works and does something. I can't think of anything else at the moment. Oh - Mom, yes, I'm planning to continue putting her month pictures on the webpage. Adam downloaded a new photo program, and I haven't figured out how to connect it into the email yet.

We didn't end up going to Cape Cod and Boston. We had to cancel that trip in favor of going to St. Augustine, Florida for Labor Day weekend - one of Adam's good friends from high school, Jill, is getting married and Summer is going to be one of the flower girls. That's going to be a riot. We'll also stop in Georgia on the way down and back to visit one of Adam's sisters. She's in the Army and will be going to Iraq at the end of September. (And for the record, Adam's brother is still over there and won't be back until January.)

Don't be surprised if you don't hear from us for a couple of weeks. Our phone and internet are supposed to be switched over to the new place on Friday, but that doesn't mean we'll have time to use either one for a while.