Our Apartment

Well, we finally found an apartment! It took us 8hrs. one day to drive all around the city and outskirts, but we finally found one in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains. It's about 20min. from base, but it's gorgeous up here and worth the trip...of course I'm used to a drive, but Jonathan isn't. Close to base isn't a very good area, so you just about have to live at least 20min. away to get somewhere nice and safe.

So anywho....they are called Pinnacle Heights Apartments and are right in a mountain hillside with million dollar homes up on top of the hill! Our apartment is an upstairs unit, but that's ok because I could use the exercise, haha :P It is on the upside of the hill, so you don't see the mountains unless you look off to the side or out the front. The hill has brush and huge cacti on it, so it's still a pretty view. And of course it's dark up here, so you can see the stars really well which is cool.

The complex is nice, it's got trees and flower bushes, two pools, a work-out room, you can check out movies for free, and it's quiet. Bella really likes it. She just prances around when we go for walks, and even kinda growls at people when they come close to me or Jonathan which is funny because she's never done that before, haha.

Anywho..the apartment is 2bedroom/2bath, about 1158 sq.ft., and we got a great deal on it for a 6mo. lease. We only did 6mo. because we want to buy a house early next year since the market is so good for buyers out here, unfortunately with the forclosures.

We got our stuff delivered Monday, and that was not a good experience. The military hires a particular company (who shall remain nameless) and in Shreveport, all they did was complain about how much stuff we had...first, who cares and what is it to them since they're getting paid. Then here, they complained because it was so heavy, they had to shuttle it up the hill in a smaller truck, and walk up lots of stairs; again, they are getting paid (very well I'm sure) so don't complain to the customers about their stuff! And while unwrapping stuff, I noticed that most of my stuff I loosely wrapped to get to Shreveport because we were told not to pack anything, they would do it...was just put in one of their boxes and not re-wrapped! A couple of things were broken (which we will file a complaint about that and the attitudes...oh, and the fact that 2 boxes are missing!!), and they're lucky more wasn't broken. On a good note, after they subtracted the weight of the packing materials (a lot of wasted paper in wrapping stupid stuff like remote controls and shampoo and even a peppermint...yes 1 peppermint!), we ended up not going over our weight limit so we don't have to pay extra!! Yay :)

But anywho...on to other stuff....it's been fun unwrapping and putting the apartment together. It's kinda wierd to not really fix it up real nice because we'll only be here for 6mo. and so don't want to have to take it all back down and re-pack, then unpack it again...but we'll see. We're saving most of our gift cards for when we get a house, but we have used some money and gift cards for a new mattress and pillows since we left our old one in Shreveport due to weight concern. Boy are they coommffyyy!!

Also, I've been cooking some! Who'd a thunk it, haha...me, Susy Homemaker, haha. And they've actually turned out really good, if I do say so myself :) Jonathan likes it and hasn't gotten sick yet, so we know it's good, haha. I discovered that I really like to cook too, it's fun and relaxing! I've made chicken parmesean, lasagna, pumpkin pie, and a chili/tamale dip (which was easy & for a Thanksgiving lunch for Jonathan's squadron, people liked it).

It's a real nice place, and I think we'll like living here for the next 6mo. Here's the link to pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/greeneblog/TheApartment?authkey=C4pJhsZj4h0#