Moved In

The camera disappeared at some point during our move, so I don't have any pictures with this update. Hopefully I will unearth it soon. For now, a text-only update on the house project.

Moving and Construction Wrap-Up
Steve's oldest brother Ed and Ed's wife Tiffany drove down from Sacramento last Saturday night to help us move. All day Sunday, they worked tirelessly to move all of our furniture and many heavy boxes to our new house. We really couldn't have done it without them. Some finish work was still going on around the house, so we basically stacked everything up in the center of our rooms. Electrical wrapped up on Friday, so we were able to start making things feel a little more like home Friday night. We have the computer and entertainment center set up, the kitchen is in working order and the bathroom (complete with absolutely awesome heated tile floor) is done.

This Weekend
Steve and I picked up parts for our closet organizer today (to be installed tomorrow). We finished sanding the kitchen cabinet we're salvaging and put the first coat of beautiful black paint on it. It looks so much better already. We'll do another coat tomorrow, put the hardware on and attach the countertop. We would have gotten farther in our to-do list today, but I was completely exhausted. I fell asleep on the couch for a couple hours this afternoon. But as far as I'm concerned, there's no hurry on these things. It's our house now... there is no deadline.

Living Downtown
Santa Cruz goes a little crazy on Halloween. Something like 15,000 people gather downtown. It's basically a street party... informal parades, elaborate costumes, public drunkenness. Steve and I decided to go out to an early dinner and then do a lap around the major downtown street to see the costumes. It was so nice to not have to worry about where to park and then feel like we had to stay out later than we'd like to make the trek downtown "worth it." We could just wander a little, then walk the few blocks home. Quite an enjoyable little outing.

Last night, we wandered over to our local ISP, who was hosting a few gourmet food trucks during Santa Cruz's First Friday art celebration. Traffic was a mess and parking nonexistent, but Steve and I just walked through the chaos and had a delicious meal.

Preliminary verdict: living downtown is pretty great. I expect we'll have our issues with the local transients and drunks in the future, but as one of our neighbors put it, living downtown is "99% awesome and 1% scary." Probably a worthwhile tradeoff. And hopefully with us fixing up our house, we'll be able to improve the vibe on our little street. Another neighbor says we've already helped tremendously in that regard.