Leaving Chicago and moving into our "rental house"

We thought it would be nooo problem to drive 30+ hours with a nine-month-old teething baby and two cats in our tiny car. We're smart.

We quickly learned the value of a constant flow of food for Charlie, along with the powerful impact stopping for an hour or more a day could have on our collective psyche.

Here's the backseat of the car, which is deceivingly tidy from this picture. Notice how Charlie watches us through a mirror installed so we could watch her.
We stayed at Motel 8's each night, I think. They're pet-friendly.
And we only let Charlie drive every once in a while...and only while drinking.

When we were driving through Montana, we caught up to this SUV, and we both thought it looked like a cop, but it was hard to tell. Apparently, both of us need glasses. ;)

Finally, I decided to take a picture, figuring I could then zoom in and see for sure. It worked!! Yeah, we moved over to the right lane pretty quickly...

Finally, we made it to Washington and, after stopping for a quick walk followed by rice and beans for dinner with Peter and the kids (Paisley, ironically enough, was in Chicago on business), went straight to San Juan Island (where we were married in 2003). It was almost my birthday and we decided to spend a week out there with Suzy and Hawk to decompress and celebrate liam's PhD, my resignation from Edelman, moving to a new place and of course, my birthday. Our dear friends Matt and Mo came out from Chicago for a visit that weekend (so cool!), as did Paisley, Peter, Morgan and Cora. Suzy posted some pics.
The cats made frequent attempts to get into the foot well on the driver's side, which can be extremely dangerous should you need to slam on the breaks. It was an ongoing battle, and at one point, the surprisingly clever cats two teamed us. Rars was making a very obvious move of trying to climb between the driver's seat and the window, and while both of our attention was focused on that, Yelsi made a break for it from between the two front seats. I just caught her as she tried to duck between the steering wheel and liam's knee.

Liam then reprimanded me for taking picture with a flash in a moving car, which he said is illegal. I didn't know! I swear! Is it even true? I think he was practicing his scary papa face for when it will work on Charlie...

And, apparently, he didn't really care if it was illegal because not five minutes later he asked me to take a picture of these cows...silly liam.

And then it was time to move into our teeny, tiny but adorable little "rental house" as Morgan called it, jumping up and down and asking us if we had seen the "water feature" in back. What a cutie! Where does he get this stuff?

We were so overwhelmed. Thank god we took the whole week off to unpack and settle in. Literally, the living room and dining room were packed floor-to-ceiling with boxes and furniture. It was completely nuts. I still can't believe we have so much stuff. But, then again, we moved from a three bedroom to a two-bedroom, so it kind of makes sense. Kind of.

This shot, along with the rest in this ridiculous series, is on day three of unpacking. Notice the scene: Still TONS of boxes and miscellaneous junk everywhere.

He really is a kid still.

Notice that hideous fan? Yeah, we finally got rid of it!

So here are some crappy pics I took of the house. I think our camera is breaking. Sorry. Here's the living room, taken from the dining room. To the left of the couch on the left you'll find the front door.

This shot is of the length of the house, and was taken from the doorway of the kitchen.
I turned around in that doorway and took this shot of the kitchen.

Then I stood at the opposite corner and took this shot. Behind that curtain is the washer and dryer.

I am so in love with not having to go to the basement to do laundry!!

Not that I am ever the one doing the laundry, but still! It's great!

This is my least favorite room. The tiling is that off-white with brownish speckles, and the grout is black. No joke. Black. Eeeeeew.

So our landlord embraced the theme and painted the bead board brown, and then laid in brown faux-marble sticky tiles. Awesome.

But, as Liam keeps reminding me, it's a rental. Right. RIGHT. Sigh.

Charlie's room.

And our room, which I really don't love. It's the room we spend the least amount of time in, so it's the room we crammed all the left over furniture into.

And, just like in college, it's doubling as our study now. Awesome. Loving that, can't you tell?