WE MOVED TO MINNESOTA!

I made it HOME TO MINNESOTA!  For good!

Fall in Minnesota could not be more gorgeous and I am filled with happiness.

The cats were not especially excited about the loooong drive.

I wasn't excited about the drive, but I WAS excited to get the next step in our moving plan underway!  Here's what I wore for the drive.  Google said it would be 25 hours . . . it ended up being 30!

top: Charter Club (Macy's)

pants: INC International Concepts (Macy's)

shoes & socks: Target

I got the medication into the cats, I got the cats into their carriers, and I got the carriers into the rental van!  

Goodbye, wonderful Arizona house!

Thank you again for the many, many years of joy and comfort!

(I miss you already.  More about what I miss in upcoming posts, I'm sure.)

I picked up my dear friend Jen at her house, and we were off!

Here I am in Holbrook, Arizona.  I'd never been there before!

At this point I will add that the medication did NOT in fact help the cats.  In fact, I think it made things worse.  Once it wore off, Stephen and Claude were mostly quiet.  Allistair was pretty loud in spurts most of the trip.  He is very personable and he loves his Momma, so he did a lot of yelling.  I'm glad it was me in the van with them all instead of Greg; Greg gets more tense with the noise than I do.

After MANY hours, we finally made it to gorgeous Minnesota!  This was my favorite rest stop.

And then I was HOME!

And look at the beautiful trees!!!

The big tree in our yard was dropping lots and lots of golden yellow leaves and it made me very happy. In fact, I'm sitting in front of that big window as I type this and I keep having breaks to stare out the window.

After we got unloaded and settled the cats into rooms where they could get used to the new house, we walked to Davanni's, which was only a 10-minute walk away!

Jen has bad feet, but she made it!

I pretty much crashed, but I didn't do too badly, considering how little sleep I got.  

The next day, my parents came over.  We went to Target and then got dinner!

We appreciated nature together:

My parents brought me these sweet fall decorations!

There we are!

What are these strange things, again?

What's that you say?  There's precipitation that comes from the sky?  There's some that's FROZEN?  It builds up on the ground in piles?!  We get to move it off paths and driveways with a tool called a shovel?

And it's slippery so we can slide over it with a sleek piece of plastic?!

My parents brought us this thing . . . I'm looking forward to using it!

We picked up Chipotle for dinner.

The next day I enjoyed waking up to colorful leaves outside the window!

And then Greg's Dad (Rick) and his wife Karen came over to take us out for dinner as an early birthday celebration for ME!  

My birthday is on Tuesday.  We had a great time.  What fun that our family members can just call to arrange a time to get together!

We were happy (though Greg, as usual, chooses to make insane faces in photos):

We were impressed how many men in shorts we have seen this time of year . . . it's 45 for a high!

I made my first meal in our rental house - fajitas!

It is nice to cook in this kitchen because the view is very nice!  Look at those beautiful trees!  Sometimes there are squirrels, too, and I LOVE them.

The ice maker doesn't work (yet?), so I'm using some silicone ice cube trays.  This one makes ice in the shape of hearts!

Look at what happens in the morning!  FROST!!!

While I was at Target with my parents, I bought a lamp for the living room.  It doesn't have an overhead light, and we didn't have any lamps packed (oops!), so I decided we needed some lamps!

I also put out some pumpkins I had ordered prior to moving.

It feels homier and autumnal.

On Sunday, we headed to church!  I loved this outfit.

jacket: Levi's (Amazon)
sweater: Ross
pants: INC International Concepts (Macy's)
bag: Scarleton (Amazon)
boots: Madden Girl (Macy's)

It was good to see in person a church that we've been watching online for ages!
Sorry about the blurriness.

Then I needed to take Greg to the airport to go back to Arizona.  He's going to supervise professional movers and then work with our Realtor to sell our Arizona house.

We made it to the airport!

And then I puttered around exploring!  I started at a thrift shop, then went to Target.  Goodness, do I want to just buy everything!

I stopped by Goodwill to look for a small table for by the front door and possibly a brownie pan, but I didn't have any luck there.  What FUN it was to go outside and NOT BE HOT!!!

Coming home was fun, too.

I lit some candles and enjoyed feeling cozy.

I also enjoyed doing some dishes.  We don't have a dishwasher in our rental, but we do have these amazing dish brushes!  No plastic!

I hung up some Command hooks for our bath towels and hand towel.

I also washed and installed our new bath mat.

Then I had pupusas for dinner!

I assembled another of those cool lamps from Target and I love them!

There was mess in the process:

Allistair tried to eat the crunchy plastic, but after that, he settled down to enjoy his favorite blanket.

The weather is looking PERFECT!!!

Allistair brought me his whale, Wanda, for the first time in this house this morning.

I was forced into making hot water bottles due to chilly kitties!

I'm happy there's a window for the cats to look out of.  They are no doubt going to enjoy the squirrels and falling leaves!

Isn't that a beautiful view?!

I hope there is a big ol' pile of joy in your life and that you jump right into it today!