Happy Fourth of July! Today is our first holiday in the new house, and we put the flag out front to celebrate. After a June filled with moving in to the new house--our lease ended and we turned in keys to the old house on Sunday--in addition to move-in for M-Bio at work, I'm looking forward to a relaxing day at home.

Even with the dry state of affairs, our yard continues to surprise and amaze me. Our roses and hollyhocks are still in their full glory, and finally our lilies are starting to peek out. 

One of our favorite things about Ann Arbor is the farmer's market, which is wildly popular here. Loren and I try to make it to the farmer's market every Saturday morning--and walk when it's not too hot--to buy fresh flowers for the dining room table. 

We've been eating outside on our screened in porch. My mom has made a couple beautiful things for us, including the window seat cushion in our living room and the table runner below, which was our first year anniversary present last week. Lindsey, a good friend and neighbor from our previous house, gave us the jars as a housewarming gift.

Below are a few more shots from the house.

Our garden is coming along, although our tomatoes took a turn for the worse during the hot spell we've been having. I've been watering every evening, and I'm hoping that the fertilizer capsules I put down will help out. Eating tomatoes is an important part of my summer!

Today I discovered that my front porch fern swill soon be home to baby birds. Since I  go out every morning and pour a large glass of water into the fern (which until today was just above eye level), I'm glad I finally thought about the bird that flaps out of it every time I come near. I'm hoping the momma bird chooses to move her babies soon after they're born so no one gets over protective during my early morning watering routine!

Some More Fun Before and After Photos...

Before

After

Before

After

This weekend marked two weeks since move-in day, and the painting continues. I had to go into work on Saturday, and was very pleasantly surprised when I got home afterward to find a beautiful harvest brown wall in the stairwell going up to our second floor! We hadn't been sure how we were going to reach that high over the stairs, but our friend Brian, from Atlanta, Julie, and Loren found a creative way to make it work.

While the painting crew finished work on the stairs, I spent time outside, clearing out our sad-looking flowerbeds along the driveway.

Before- Flowerbeds

After- Flowerbeds

In the bed I cleaned out behind the deck, I planted some fun zinnias that we picked out at the farmer's market Saturday morning.

 The garden is growing--even though nothing is producing yet, nothing has actually died!

In addition, Loren and I are continuing to organize and get things put in their place.

This afternoon we put up our new modular bar and finished touching up trim on the stairway. We also made a trip out to Sherwin-Williams to buy paint for the garage, which we decided we could paint ourselves.

Moving day has arrived and gone, and we transferred nearly everything into our new home last weekend! Loren happens to be an all-star at driving 24-foot trucks. I just stand and watch in awe has he deftly maneuvers such bulk, backing into driveways, over curbs, and between bushes. 

Luckily, several years ago when carrying mattresses down a narrow fire escape from Loren's Wicker Park apartment, we saw the wisdom (and sanity-saving logic) of hiring moving men, vowing to do so from that point forward. After pricing people out, we used Tetris Movers both this move and last summer, at least to help carry our solid mahogany furniture up and down stairs, and we've been very happy with their work. 

 

The weather couldn't have been more perfect for a summer-time move, complete with sunshine and a light breeze. Since Memorial Day was hot and humid, and we're still without air conditioning, we had a few concerns about how things would go.

We were VERY lucky to have a great crew helping...both my mom and Loren's mom, and Julie, Loren's sister. My mom drove up from Effingham and scrubbed out the entire house while I was at work all day Thursday, then helped me transfer and unpack our whole kitchen Friday afternoon (Loren did a great job with the glassware). Loren's mom packed and brought lunch for us all to eat on Saturday--they both carried boxes and boxes and boxes with unending energy. What would we ever do without our moms?

We also had several friends stop by to see the house and help out--both big and smaller helpers!

We still have lots of unpacking and organizing, rearranging, searching--and hopefully finding--of things before we know where everything is around the Madden home in Ann Arbor. Even with a slight degree of disheveled chaos, I am absolutely amazed at how our house has been transformed. The painting continues with many more projects yet to be done, but things are going well : )

Today is moving day! We pick the truck up in an hour and the moving men will be here shortly after that for our very heavy furniture. I've been able to do a couple of car loads each day, and a big thank you goes out to Julie and my mom who helped for many hours yesterday afternoon!

A few photos of the outside of our house are below...

The final paint job--Matt Lathrop and his crew did a great job. The gables are a color called "golden gate."

I was so excited the first day I saw the external paint up that I walked right by our beautiful rose bushes--suddenly in bloom for the first time--to the left of our front door. We'd taken them down from the lattice work so that could be painted.

Bright pink!

We borrowed Loren's parents' mantis and tilled the garden last weekend. 

This is before the planting happened, but so far we have tomato and jalapeno plants, in addition to seeds out for corn, lettuce, green beans, and cucumbers.