Hooray for mail and birthdays!

These came for me in a package this week: I am so excited! I was unable to find the chocolate tastykakes when I was home in June, even after trying several different stores. But my wonderful parents were able to find them for me.

I also got a package last week from my amazing friend and sister (in heart), Angie. She sent me two of the children's books that I had seen at Barnes and Noble but had to stop myself from buying due to lack of funds. I love children's books! And I love birthdays!

Jacob and I took a somewhat spontaneous trip to Roosevelt on Tuesday morning. We got a call from his mom on Monday night saying that they were closing on their house this week and needed help moving. So Jacob spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday loading and unloading heavy boxes and furniture. His body isn't used to manual labor, and he is exhausted now, but I'm proud of how hard he worked. I mostly sat around the house feeling awkward and useless (I basically have no muscles, as I'm sure you all know). I helped pack a very little bit, but it's hard when it's someone else's house and someone else's stuff. I spent quite a few hours looking through a tub full of Jacob's belongings. His journal made for some very interesting reading, as did his mission letters. It was fun learning about his life before I knew him.

We got back at about 2 this morning. We needed to get back so that I could get my new driver's license (mine expires tomorrow), and guess what?! The DMV is closed on Fridays. Bummer. So now Jacob has to drop me off and pick me up from my teacher training on Monday. I get my own little chauffeur for the day. He's looking forward to it. ;)

I finally cleaned our apartment on Monday night, so I took a few pictures today.

Our lovely embroidered towels from Jacob's aunt...

And our tiny little bathroom... I took some pictures of our second bedroom ("the storage room"), but I've decided they make me look bad, so I'm not posting them. Maybe I'll retake some after Jacob and I sort through everything and get rid of the junk.

Pictures of the rest of our apartment will be coming soon.

The Apartment!

My roommate Jess and I worked like crazy yesterday on the living room in the new apartment. Last weekend I was starting to get really depressed about the place--it just looked so awful. It didn't feel homey, and the thought of having to spend any more time there made me want to cry. I was not looking forward to the day I would have to move in. So Jess helped me transform the place. We hung pictures and put up my bookshelf and made covers for the mis-matched couches out of red sheets and a bunch of safety pins. Then we cleaned and unloaded two gigantic piles of trash into the dumpster. It looks like a new apartment, in the living room at least. All I can say about the couch covers is that Jessica is AMAZING. She found a way to make the sheets completely cover both couches and the chair, and the chair even still reclines. I'll upload pictures later today... I wish I had thought to take a "before" picture so you could see the difference, but I didn't think of it until our make-shift couch covers were on, and there is no way we were taking them off after all the trouble we went to to get them on. You will have to picture it for yourself. Just picture an ugly room with bare walls and mis-matched furniture. The large couch was white leather, and the chair and loveseat were a blue colored fabric. Now, the walls are no longer bare, the bookshelf helps the room feel homier and less empty, and the couches actually match. All we have left to do is finish cleaning the other rooms in the apartment and make them look decent as well!

Our first housewarming gift...

We have discovered a small gift that the previous tenants left us in the cupboard under the sink... imported beer! Blech.

Our New Home

I have been cleaning like mad this week. Jacob and I got the keys to our first apartment together on Friday, and we were SO excited! Until we opened the door and saw our apartment for the first time. It was GROSS. The first thing we noticed was the smell... it just smelled old and dirty. There was hair all along the edges and corners of the carpets, the kitchen floor was covered in dirt and grime, there was hair on the bathroom counter, and I don't even want to talk about the tub. But in only a few days, we already have the place looking a thousand times better. The carpets have been shampooed, which helped with the smell immensely. We've vacuumed, mopped, washed walls and doors, wiped inside cupboards, you name it... and I am exhausted. But the apartment is starting to look good, and it finally feels like a place that I could call "Home".
The most exciting part of today was that our bed was delivered! Seeing the bed sitting there in what will soon be our bedroom made the whole thing seem so much more real to me. In only a month, I will be married and living there with Jacob. And I can't wait!
I had to try out our new bed! So I flopped on it...
And bounced on it...
And then rested from all of the exhausting cleaning. I've decided it's a good bed. :)