Where you from? Minneapolis.

We're here! We got here almost not quite two weeks ago. We are fairly settled into our rental house, which thankfully is not as bad as we thought it would be. However, there is no dishwasher, which I will learn to deal with, but it is definitely keeping us from cooking much.

It feels like a lot has happened the past couple weeks, the two biggest things being 1)we found and bought a house; and 2) Grandma Sandholm and Great-Grandparents Kragt came to visit this weekend. On the house front, it is really cute, but we don't move in until December 3 as we are in a 4-month lease here. And the family trip was really nice this past weekend. We did some driving around and Gabe and I managed to even have a date! :)

Gabe is preparing to leave tomorrow for a week back in Seattle, and my mom is coming up on Wednesday to stay with Sully on Thursday and Friday as his daycare has conferences and will be closed.

That is the very much abridged and Cliff Notes version of what is going on. :) Here is our new address and phone number for the next three months or so:

5917 Vincent Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55410
TEL: (612) 920-0210

Overall, Minneapolis seems good. It was hotter than hell our first weekend here, resulting in our using the air conditioning, and now it is getting cooler and rainy with highs in the 50s (i.e. a typical Seattle winter). Thank god there is no snow yet. The neighborhood we live in seems really nice -- people actually are out walking around and kids ride their bikes. Hopefully this will be the year we get to have trick or treaters! I'll need to go get some candy to be prepared.

We still need to figure out what Sully will be for Halloween. Gabe had the good idea of James Dean, what with all his hair we could slick back, but we are having a hard time finding a mini-leather jacket and black shoes. Granted, we haven't looked that hard yet, but we might just put him in one of his Halloween-themed t-shirts and call it good.

We also should get some pumpkins or something. Hmm. This all sounds like a lot of work right now. I'm still trying to work in a trip to the local Costco and Trader Joe's for supplies, and trying to do menu planning that doesn't require me having to dig out any more baking dishes or pans than the very limited amount we did dig out of boxes. Maybe the additional fall decorating extravaganza will have to wait until next year.