New Apartment

For our first few months in Charlotte, we are living in a furnished, one bedroom, one bath, corporate apartment on the north side of city. Here are a few pictures of our cozy little (temporary) abode:

In case it isn't obvious, Bear is feeling quite at home in our new apartment. :)

Moving Day

The big moving day has now come and gone, and for the first time in weeks, Chris and I are finally enjoying an opportunity to catch up on much needed sleep. I finally had a moment to upload some pictures from the past few days, and wanted to share a little recap of our final day in Norfolk.

Praise God, we had the help of professional movers this time around -- a luxury I have never had the opportunity to enjoy in the past. However, as I alluded to in a previous post, I did take (a lot) of time prior to the movers arriving to do a detailed sort through our home, and even pulled out and semi-organized our goods to make the job of packing a little bit simpler for our movers.

Below are photos taken prior to the arrival of our movers. Looking through them I find it hard to believe that I still had this much left to pack after removing bags of trash, bags of sales items, and bags of donated items.

The moving truck.

This team of movers did an amazing job. We couldn't have been more pleased with the detail they put into properly caring for each of our items.

Bear overseeing the movers from the safety of his "lookout" crate. He pretty much stole the heart of everyone in our home that day. We had several adoption offers -- which we promptly refused. ;-)

Once the movers had left, it was time to clean. Many thanks to my hubby for tackling my least favorite rooms to clean: the bathrooms.

Twelve hours, ten raw fingers, and two sore backs later, and cleaning was finally finished. What we were left with was an empty, yet sparkling clean, apartment.

Standing in our very empty apartment, the emotions ran high. Regardless of how excited one may be to move on to life's next adventure, it is always bittersweet to leave behind a former home. So many wonderful memories were made in our lovely little city home. I shall always cherish the time we spent in this apartment in Ghent, our first home as husband and wife.

Seventeen months ago, we first arrived at this apartment -- newlyweds, ready to take on life as "The McLean's" in Norfolk.

Three days ago, as a little family of three, we said good-bye.

 Farewell, Ghent city home. We'll never forget you.

With the last bag loaded, and little bear packed in as snug as a bug in the back seat, we waved good-bye to Norfolk, and were off to our new home in Charlotte, NC.