Our New Home

On August 11th we arrived into the Cedar Rapids airport greeted by Seth and Grace Brady! Not only did we have an awesome arrival but they had already moved a suburban full of boxes up to our 3rd floor condo in North Liberty, Iowa. We were very excited to move in :).

To preface our apartment story you should know that about 6 months ago I sent Jeremy on a hunt all over the area for our place. For some reason there is an overabundance of kitchens in Iowa City with white laminate cabinets with the wooden colored edges (I don't know exactly to describe them but I know they must have been in surplus during the 80s when places around here were built). Please forgive me if you own these types of cabinets yourself- I applaud you for being able to decorate around them! Needless to say, I just couldn't picture turning a house into a home around these cabinets, so my incredible husband used several afternoons between class and studying to view potential places. After a few I would ask the landlord right away what the cabinets were like before sending him. Jeremy's only requests were that it have covered parking and an office for him to work. Never once did he complain about the conquests that I sent him on and he did find a nice place without the cabinets.

We've now been in our place for 21 days and it has really come together! We had a pod delivered from Texas with stored furniture and boxes in it, a moving truck full of things from Maryland, and a few truckloads from des moines and Jeremy's last apartment. It's incredible all the beautiful gifts we have been given for our house. In every room we can look around and be reminded of all our friends and family. I am loving cooking and baking more than ever in our kitchen. We have new pans, pots, knives, and utensils- everything we need to make any recipe we can find. It almost doesn't seem right to me to have all these new, nice things. In college you use hand me downs or the cheapest imitation you can find. You chop everything with the few steak knives that you have and eat with utensils that bend. Each cup that you drink out of has its own unique history. I intend to enjoy these new luxuries to the fullest. This is probably the only time in our life when almost everything is new.

There are a few more major pieces of furniture for us to get- we have a table on its way and our tv is sitting on the floor, but we are fine waiting on some things till a job comes through. We are blessed to have a hand me down leather couch and chair that look very Texas for our living room and to have parents that would drive across the country to bring a bedroom set, tv, and several other things they have saved up.

Our home is just pulled together enough that we can have a few friends over at a time. Luckily, we found barstools at target for just $30 each that look great at the bar so we do have a few seats to eat on. This past week we had two of Jeremy's friends from med school over on Thursday and two others on Saturday to talk football with him and grill. It's fun to get to cook meals for the boys- you always know they'll appreciate home cooked food.

I will post some pictures of our place in the next few days. Yesterday we were talking about how good it feels to come home here. It's still not a place that we personally own and we know that we'll only be here for the next three years but to us it still feels like our first real home- our first place together without roommates that we are making ours.

Yours from the Land of Corn,
Leanne