New Apartment

As Promised, I am picking up where we left off at the old place. All of our junk was in the moving truck and we were to our new apartment. The drive was about 1800 miles shorter than the last time we moved. 

Me in the back seat with boxes and dogs. 

The first shot of our new place before we filled it with junk

We have an island in the kitchen. This was a big selling point for us. The old place had the whole kitchen on one wall and it was starting to drive us crazy. 

The movers said our couch was the heaviest couch they have ever moved. They took a turn too sharp and almost dropped it on our property manager. She would have been a goner for sure. 

Here come the boxes. Se had so damn many boxes. They filled the whole house. It's been more than two weeks and we still haven't even opened all of them 

Hard to see, but this was kind of a funny story. Some girl was driving her boyfriend's car and side swiped our mover's truck. It didn't do any damage to the moving truck but it demolished the rear panel of the Xterra she was driving. It happened right outside our window. Nothing can be uneventful with us. I should have warned the movers in advance that something bad would happen to them when they worked with us. 

We finally got everything in the front door, so we decided to celebrate. 

We walked right across the street to Bridgeport brewery and grabbed some beers and food. 

Side note: This brewery is directly across the street from us. When they are making beer and we have the windows open, it makes our house smell like beer. Welcome to Portland. 

This is mac and cheese with potato chips crumbled on top. Pretty awesome

We headed out from the brewery and decided to get some ice cream. We passed these two little dogs standing outside a Chinese food place. 

Turns out they belong to this guy. I think he was European. Weird guy. 

Then we found ice cream. This is my gingersnap cookie ice cream. Probably the best ice cream I have ever had. We just went back to get more a few days ago and they didn't have it! So I tried their horchata cookie ice cream. I'll be damned if it wasn't better. This place makes good ice cream. 

Yorkie says he does not like to be wet

I forget what we were doing. We got on the street car for some reason and went into downtown. 

Between the little rainstorms that were sweeping through, it was a pretty nice day. So we hung our by the river for a bit. I have to ride by bike down this path to get to work and I curse at it for being so long and wet. 

On the way home, we passed Addy's food cart so we got a picture of my sister in front of it. They serve meat and stuff there though, so it's a bit of irony. 

We met a sinister upside-down squirrel. I can't be sure of it, but I assume he was up to no good.  

Hey there, more drinks? Don't mind if I do. We went to a place called Bartini. They have a great happy hour, all day Sunday. They forgot to bring us our food for a while, so it was all free. This drink closest to me is called an oatmeal cookie. It was the best mixed drink I have ever had. I was convinced there was no alcohol in it, until I had a second one and realized I was wrong. 

Two sneaky martinis and a lot of free food later, we made our way over to a dessert place called Papa Hayden. We agreed on a lemon cake and some sort of peanut butter chocolate mouse thing. 

They were quickly destroyed. Cake, if you thought we would spare you, you have never met my mom. She taught me how to eat cake. And come on, fruit? I appreciate you trying to put a strawberry on the place, but really? Why would I eat fruit when there is cake?

That was pretty much how we would down the weekend. The next morning, my sister took off and we started unpacking. 

This is pretty much what it looks like now. Still some work to go. We'll get there

Last week was Rosh Hashanah and Mirav made made the classic dishes to celebrate. Happy new year everyone!

That was a long post and a long move. The puppies are tired. Hopefully I can post some more when we actually do fun stuff, not just move crap around. 

Moving Day!!

Things have been Crazy around here!! We packed up all of our junk and moved about 4 miles across the river into the heart of downtown. I have a bunch of pictures and a lot to cover. But for tonight I will just cover moving day. 

Through many hours of painstaking research and statistical modeling, I have derived the following equation:

Moving = not fun. 

This equation is very accurate.  

And so the pile grows. Our pile of junk outgrew our living space just in time. For the week before moving we would say to each other "Hey where is the (fill in blank)?" The other would say, "It's in a box." Then we would figure out how to live without it. No toast this week, the toaster is in a box. No shower curtain, try not to spill water all over the floor. No bathmat, soap, towels or shampoo either? Use dish sponge and laundry soap to wash yourself off in the kitchen sink. Okay, that didn't actually happen. But you get it. 

My sister was coincidentally in town the weekend of the move. It was unfortunate timing for her. We made the most out of it. On Friday morning, Mirav had to work so Amanda and I went to a giant yarn store. 

Yarn anyone?

This was the morning after the parking fiasco. Our car was being held captive by the evil parking machine and his sidekick Open Door Girl. Since Mirav had no car, she had to take a cab to work. How far away does Mirav work you ask? 18 miles. How much does an 18 mile cab ride cost you ask? $50. Yes, 50 american dollars to get Mirav to work. Getting her home was a whole other story.

We picked her up in this. This is a rental car. This is how my day went. The apartment rented us a car for the day so I could go get Mirav. So I used it to go get some beer too. 

Cheers to boxes and trapped cars!

Not much went down Friday night since we had to get up early Saturday to get ready for the movers. 

Tami and Pickles were playing. Tami is making crazy face. 

I'm Free!!! We finally got the Tucson out of captivity on Friday night. Mirav parked it in the middle of two spots to save room for our moving truck. 

The rest of the day was a little hazy. I took some pictures to give a time lapse effect of how it went. 

Empty apartment. Time to start a new chapter. I will update soon with the rest of the move and pictures of our new place and some other fun stuff.

Almost Moving Day

We are moving into our new apartment downtown tomorrow. Our stuff is all piled up against the wall in preparation for the movers tomorrow. Coincidentally my sister Amanda is in town this weekend to hang out. We were supposed to pick her up at the airport last night...But

As some of you have seen, we park in this parking matrix that puts our car on the top level after we get out of it. Well, last night someone decided that this was a good idea. 

The person in the explorer pictured decided to leave their door open and run screaming from the parking spot without closing her door when someone else tried to get in. This top platform lowered onto her door, tilted and broke. We have been here for 11 months and 19 days out of our 12 month lease. 2 days short of moving out, this rocket scientist destroys the parking structure. 

Fast forward 15 hours. And this is what it looks like. Destroyed parking spot, idiot girl's car then our car stranded 8 feet in the air. Mirav had to take a cab to work this morning. An 18 mile cab ride. 

Just a quick update, more to follow once we finish moving tomorrow. 

Trip Back To Phoenix Day Part 2

The last post covered Thursday and Friday of our trip. I'm going to try to cover the rest of the trip before I start to block out how hot it was. 

Saturday morning was Mirav's bridal shower. I was not invited to the shower, so Mirav gave my camera to Felicia. I would like to present a few gems for you. 

 Mirav, opening a bag or box, maybe just holding a towel

Another person, possibly female, helping Mirav open a box

A close up of Mirav quickly building an igloo

The deck of the titanic, viewed through the lens of a deep sea diving drone. Majestic. 

A dog

Thank you all for sharing those special bridal shower memories with me. A special thanks to Felicia for capturing these wonderful photos. All those photography classes really paid off. 

That was fun, let's go taste some cake

I always thought cake tasting was going to be very exciting. I imagined myself in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory under a waterfall of chocolate eating all the cake I wanted in every imaginable flavor. In reality, they gave us four little pieces of cake, then we ate them and left. I wish I could say it was better than that. 

After cake tasting, we headed over to Scottsdale for Gil's surprise 65th birthday party. This is a bowl full of M&M's with Gil's face on them. I found them to be hilarious. 

The Birthday boy being surprised. 

The place had the best mojitos

I love this picture of Mirav and Amanda Kaye. I don't know what was said or who said it, but it must have been scandalous. 

Brian and Marty Kaye thought something was funny.

We both forgave Felicia for taking those bridal shower pictures. If was a fun party. Happy Birthday Gil!

The next morning we had brunch at Mirav's Grandpa's house. Mirav's mom brought in this giant metal magnetic picture frame and said we should make 100 of them as wedding favors. It's tough to appreciate the mood in the room unless you were there. Jill didn't understand what was funny about it. 

Uncle Andy couldn't stop laughing

Neither could Mirav

Alex put a flower in his hair

Mirav and Avi making the same face

This is our rental car. It was a horrible, tiny car and it didn't even get good gas mileage.

After brunch we headed out for some beer tasting. We went to SanTan brewery across the street from our wedding venue. I thought having a local place do the beer would be fun. 

I think Avi was yawning or possible singing. Lots of  pictures of people making funny faces from this trip

I took a bunch of pictures of Emily eating and she was giving me a dirty look

I have become a beer snob since we moved up to Portland. You can't go anywhere without finding a micro brewery. So I decided to have some fun beers at the wedding. We got a flight of beers to try all their styles. Overall the beer was just okay. I was hoping to be more impressed. They had 7 beers and everyone else absolutely hated 4 of them. One was boring and the other two were mediocre in my opinion. The quest for good wedding beers continues. 

After beer tasting, we headed over to my parents house to celebrate my Dad's retirement. This is my dad reading his retirement cards. It was a very low key celebration. We just went to Olive Garden for some never ending pasta bowl. My pasta bowl ended very quickly. 

Editors Note: Sometime between beer and pasta I got food poisoning. It lasted from Sunday night until I got up for work on Tuesday. The rest of the trip was not so good for me. You will notice a lack of photos. 

First thing Monday morning we went down to the courthouse to get our marriage license. Very glamorous, I know. I can see why people choose to get married here. 

Contained in this envelope is the document we will sign to become legally married. Mirav asked why we only have pictures of her being weird. 

So I got one too

After the marriage license, we grabbed a quick lunch with my parents and headed to the airport. 

The guy who sat next to me was not slim. He was asleep most of the flight and clearly encroaching on my side of the armrest. 

The guy in front of Mirav was doing a little encroaching of his own. We're being invaded on all fronts!

The guy next to me woke up with enough time to eat his cheez-its. This bag of cheez-its was his only carry-on. At least he has his priorities straight. Giant elbows, check. Cheezy snacks, check. Awesome beard, double check!

We hopped the light rail back home and I crashed. It was an exhausting trip. It's very good to be home