A View from the Top

I know that I still owe you more about the move and the house. I also recognize that I haven't posted any sort of recipe in ages. And I will get to all of that, I will.

But first I wanted to share one thing I really and truly adore about our new place....having some outdoor space. The old apartment had a tiny little balcony that was just big enough to house Jason's bike and some plants. The new house, on the other hand, has a whole roof top terrace. Big enough for real outdoor furniture and a brand new grill!

 The view from our terrace

Finally-- a grill!

Tonight was one of the first times that we've been able to really enjoy it given all the rain of late. So we decided to try out our pizza stone on the grill and eat al fresco...with the first Punkin' Ale of the season to boot (thanks Mom)!

I can definitely get used to this :)

Croissants anyone?

Guess what I did this morning?!

I made croissants!

Here they are---straight out of the oven!

Ok, so they weren't exactly homemade... I actually got some help from my new friend Joe. That's right folks-- we are now within a five minute walk of a Trader Joe's! And I couldn't be more excited. In addition to these awesome mini-croissants (more on those in a second), we've also tried several frozen entrees (which made the week we moved in a lot less stressful)-- all of which were very good.

So, about those croissants. So easy. So delicious. Step 1: take out of freezer. Step 2: place on lightly greased baking sheet. Step 3: go to bed. Step 4: wake up the next morning, be amazed at how much the croissants grew overnight and preheat oven. Step 5: bake for 15-20 minutes. Step 6: enjoy.

Big fan of Trader Joe's....big fan.

My Kitchen--Take 1

I took today off so I could get a solid day of unpacking done before it gets relegated to nights and weekends. So of course I focused on the kitchen. Aside from the fact that I am generally excited to have a shiny new kitchen full of shiny new stainless steel appliances, it made sense to start there for practical reasons as well. There were so many there I thought if I could get that out of the way, I could get rid of a bunch of boxes. Plus it was pretty difficult to pour a bowl of cereal with the way things stood let alone anything else.

Here is what I was working with at about 8am (my apologies for the bad cell phone pics):

At about 11:30 I had made a lot of progress but still had a ways to go:

By about 3:30, I was pretty much done:

Not too bad for a day's work. Once it's all together, I'll give you a tour. In the meantime, I'm researching pantry organization and split box springs (more on that later).

Moving on Up

After a LONG weekend of painting and packing, we are finally officially moved into our new house. Well, almost. We still have a couple of things to get back at the apartment that we didn't want the movers to move (e.g., Jason's kayak, a large unpacked mirror, etc.), but for the most part we're in. Now for the unpacking....and all the updates via blog. Although we made it through, the painting and moving were not without some shenanigans along the way. Lots more to come!