The move from Boone….

Well, our time here in Boone has flown by… and it’s nearing time for us to leave. So, Thursday, we hopped in the car at 10AM and drove to Staunton so that Virginia could sign some papers at the HR office at Mary Baldwin. We then spent the night with the Newhalls… which is always fun.. we got to play with Jade… and Virginia went to do some yoga with Lisa… Virginia really enjoyed this, because apparently, this Yoga class is led by some kind of Adonis of a man…in Virginia’s words… he’s a beautiful man… I can’t provide my input… so we’ll have to take Virginia's word for it… but… for those folks in the Staunton area… looking for a yoga class taught by a male model… talk with Virginia. She’ll let you know where to go.

Meanwhile, Jonathan and I were hanging out with Jade…. so… I think we had the better half of the deal.

Friday morning, we started off our day with realtors… So… we were looking for something to rent… I still haven’t nailed down a job yet… so.. we’re planning on renting a place for a little while… then buying a place when we’re all good and settled in. So… I was ready to just get either: A) The cheapest place we could find or B) The first place we looked at. … … So… the first place we looked at was a house on Baltimore Street …

So… it was about a block off of Route 11… behind the Fisher Auto Parts… and next to Staunton Steam Laundry….

This place was absolutely dripping with character… Built in probably the early 1900’s…

Plaster walls… dark wood floors…

A “Sleeping Porch”….

Big rooms…. central heating…

Recently redone tile floors in the kitchen and entry…. decent appliances… somewhat dated kitchen….

And… it had a nice little back porch and a back yard….

But… the central heat was gas heat…. and the porch was kind of falling apart… and the back yard meant that I’d have to mow… and the charm of a old house is negated when you think about some of what that means… for example… the back door really doesn’t close… so.. it had one of these numbers on the back door to actually keep it somewhat closed… or… to at least keep it from swinging all of the way open….

All of the windows in the house are single pane… there are doors all over the basement are that you can see light around… air leaks are present all over the house in the form of covered chimney access holes… covered fireplaces… windows that are no longer square, so no longer close all of the way.. So… all of that money spent on natural gas heat would be rather rapidly lost through these many holes and crevices. So… even though we loved the house… I would have been more interested in buying it than renting it..

The Condo

I suppose at this point… I should say that we looked at many places… but the only places I ended up taking pictures at are places that I saw as a possibility… so.. the house with the back porch falling off that was $850 a month… no pictures… the house with access only by a dirt pull-off on the street, and then a 150ft walk uphill to the house… no pictures… the house that the door frame was pieced together after damage from what appeared to be a dozen break-ins…. no pictures…

But… another possibility was a condo off of Statler BLVD….

This place was 2BR, 1 BA… but the location was pretty cool….

The kitchen was a nice size… new appliances… fans in every room… A/C… gas heat and gas water heater…

The master bedroom had an awesome view of a retaining wall…I liked the feel of this place… but I don’t think it even rated on Virginia’s radar…. but.. it was a condo… it has gas.. and it was one of the smallest places we looked at….

The coolest thing about the apartments we saw through Remax was the real estate agent… She was from the midwest… but moved to Staunton when she attended school at Mary Baldwin…. she stayed in Staunton after she graduated in 1958… Since then, it seems like she has sold every building in Staunton at least 3 or 4 times…. Mainly, she worked with large, expensive, historic properties…. ranging from old women’s colleges to houses that belonged to cartographers from the Civil War…

She also showed us another place that was located on the first floor of a “multi-family” home… that place was…. interesting… It was early 1900’s… but fairly updated… but… it was 1 bedroom…and had a gas range/stove… the interesting thing was that utilities were included… that seems dangerous… if someone else is paying the utilities… I’d be tempted to have a 60 degree house all summer, and a 80 degree house all winter… but… neither the condo, nor the lower floor of a house really screamed out to us…

So… what did we end up with?

After reading the above posts… you may be wondering… “Did you find a place? Are you going to live in a box? Will you have to dig a hole and create a series of tunnels to be able to park your car?” … Or you might not be wondering these things… but… in any case… here in the last installment… you’ll find out where we ended up… so.. grab your popcorn and a soda.. and stay tuned.

Ok.. so.. this actually came earlier in the day… but in order for the flow of the posts to make sense… we’ll say that this happened latest…

So… upon starting the search for a place to live… I thought I knew what I wanted… I wanted a house #1… townhouse #2… or apartment / condo #3…. however.. the houses we looked at… well.. weren’t the most exciting… but… on the other hand… we looked at a rather nice townhouse… it’s located here….

hmmm…. so.. that patch of trees to the left of Seth Drive…… towards the top… there are 6 buildings there now.. with 10 townhouses in each one… Google Maps is a little bit behind with their satellite images… but… the townhouses are just outside of Staunton on 252…. just under 2 miles from Virginia’s office at Mary Baldwin….

All brand new appliances in a nice big kitchen….

A small back porch with a view of the mountains and room enough for my grill…..

2 Large bedrooms…

A full bath upstairs… and a half bath downstairs…

and a nice, large living room off of the kitchen, as soon as you walk into the place….

Here’s the kicker… the place has NEVER been lived in…. it’s got a heat pump for heating and cooling… and since it’s modern construction, heating and cooling costs should be relatively low… also, there is a “garden apartment” below us.. so in the winter, our floors should be heated by the people below us… so… we’re pretty excited about the new place… looking forward to making the move… once we make the move and get all settled in.. we’ll be sure to distribute the address accordingly… but… if you’re in the Staunton area, and want to drive by and take a look at where we’ll be living… the name of the complex is Windgate… and it’s just off of 252 on Seth Drive….

Long Awaited Leah and Brian Wedding Part II

Okay, when we left off we had just gotten to the beautiful Claxton Farm. The girls got ready in this tiny cottage-like shed. I wish I had pictures of it, but sadly no. To look at this thing, you’d never believe that we fit Leah, Leah’s Mom, four bridesmaids and two guest book ladies in it, but we did!

Meanwhile, Brian and the gentlemen got ready:

Doesn’t he look dapper? Here’s what the ladies looked like:

Leah did a beautiful job picking out the dresses, no? Of course the bride herself looked amazing.

The ceremony was so beautiful, with a special recognition for the parents, a song from the brother of the bride, and Leah and Brian wrote their own vows which was really special.

After the ceremony I got to sign the marriage license. I don’t think we had witnesses at our wedding, maybe this is because we were married in Virginia, or maybe it’s because we aren’t really married, who knows?

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. McGrath!

One of the super nice things about the wedding was that there was all this space to play games and frolic…

Another nice thing was that there was pie!

Doesn’t Leah look just like Suzie Homemaker??! I will say that while Leah didn’t make these pies, she does make a delicious pie.

Guests got to choose from blueberry, strawberry/rhubarb, and mixed berry. Brian enjoyed his.

And then there was dancing!

Leah and her dad…

I’ll say it again, her dress was amazing!

And Brian and his Mom…

So that was the wedding. We had a great time. Hopefully I’ll get more adventures up on the blog soon. Happy spring!

The Amazing True Story of Leah and Brian’s Wedding

We had the privilege of going to a wedding this past weekend in Asheville. Now sometimes, I hate to say this, but at this stage in life sometimes you get a bit wedding’ed out, but we were super excited for this joyous event. For one thing, it was in Asheville, which is an awesome city, but most importantly, it was Leah and Brian’s wedding.
Now I have been a fan of Leah’s since we were in the same sorority at UVA. We lived together in a house with 15 other girls… and somehow we survived that and stayed friends! Leah and Nicole and I were The Hellionz in college and we had many a wild night.
Aaron and I have been fans of Brian since we got to meet him for the first time. Leah and Brian visited us in Boone. Brian walked a mile in the snow to go get us groceries and make us breakfast. We were totally won over.

So clearly Brian and Leah are awesome and they are an awesome couple.

That’s the happy couple at the rehearsal. They asked Aaron to take some pictures and he definitely did! He had a blast capturing some awesome moments, like this one of Leah looking demure and pensive…

You can see she’s really excited to be getting married.
I was also honored to be part of the wedding. So I kept busy rehearsing…

And eating…

The rehearsal was at this amazing restaurant called Posana in downtown Asheville. We all had a blast.

Here are Nicole and Ramey making a toast. And Leah and Brian enjoying themselves…

The nicest part was getting to hang out with friends. But, I particularly enjoyed the slide show Brian had made for the wedding with multiple awkward photos. After that we went back to the hotel and partied with some of the out of town guests.
Then, oh so quickly, it was the big day. We started with a bridal breakfast, then hair, then to the venue, which was Claxton Farm, was so beautiful.

Now I’m going to leave you in suspense for a while about the wedding. More photos to come!

Back at it….

Yeah.. it’s been a while once again… but.. let’s catch up…

The weather has turned around… and instead of crappy cold weather all of the time, we now get…

… crappy, rainy, wet nasty weather all of the time…

… and fog….

and tornados.

But… on some decent days, we’ve managed to get to the farmer’s market….

 

It was a good showing for the first farmer’s market.. not a lot of veggies quite yet… but we were glad to have our farmer’s market bread and meats again…

I really love this time of year in Boone… if the weather I decent. It’s that magical time of year where the student population has significantly decreased, but the Florida people haven’t gotten here yet…

Also… graduation was at the beginning of May!

 

So… our parents came down from Lexington.. and my sis came from Richmond… we had some good times… ate some good food…

There’s another update coming soon… the updates should be more regular in the coming months…

A Blog mostly about Josh fighting ninjas

So this weekend we did something pretty cool. Our friend, Josh asked us to come take pictures of his Aikido Workshop (and by “us” I mean Aaron).

Josh has been doing this Aikido stuff for a while now, and I knew that it vaguely had something to do with martial arts. However, I must say, I was unprepared for the awesomeness of this sport.

I discovered this weekend, that all this time Josh was actually learning how to save us from Ninja Attack.

Evidence Number 1: We all know ninjas are sneaky, and thus more likely to attack at night. Josh wears training uniforms that are very pajama-like, so as to be prepared for a night-time attack.

Evidence Number 2: Ninjas are known to attack using hand-to-hand combat, swords, knives and poles, but never guns. Aikido involves fighting hand-to-hand, and with swords, knives, and poles… but isn’t so good defending against guns.

Evidence Number 3: Ninjas are badass. You would need an army of ninja fighters to conquer them. Well, Josh has an army of Aikido people. They actually came from all over the east coast to train.

Evidence Number 4: Ninjas have sweet moves. If you were fighting ninjas you would need sweet moves as well.

Need, I say more?!? I even got to learn some beginning ninja fighting tricks.

So, I want to send a big thank-you to Josh, for keeping us safe from the ninjas. I can tell that it takes a lot of work and practice.

In other news, I have been working on my comprehensive exam for my Education Specialist degree for the past couple weeks and I am finally finished! So keep your fingers crossed for me. I should get the results back in a few weeks.