Moving

Not a new picture...but we just realized that this will be the Tiny American's fifth move in his short life!  

We are moving.....not far, just down the road.  When we decided to make the move to Taiwan John and I came over for a quick visit and to scout out apartments.  I knew myself well enough to know that  having a place already rented when we arrived with our stuff and the Tiny American was crucial to me being able to make the transition.  We spent about 4 days looking at places and areas and finally settling on a list of 3 possibilities.  I had them in oder of preference and left it in the hands of someone else to take care of securing us a home.

We hadn't been back in the States very long when that someone emailed John and Said that the first apartment was no longer available and the third was also off the market but they were in negotiations for our second choice.  It was a nice apartment so I wasn't too worried.  About a week later another email came saying that we didn't get that apartment either.  So now we were going to have to rent an apartment sight unseen!  This was slightly nerve wracking for a control freak like myself.  They sent us some choices and some pictures and we chose one.

I have to say, our apartment is SUPER nice.  There are some really good things about it.  We have tons of storage, we have a room that works perfect for the Tiny American's playroom, we have a large kitchen with a small but decent sized oven.  What we don't have is natural light, a space for Z to be outside at all or a community pool that is actually kid friendly.  Our courtyard is beautiful, but again, not built with a daring toddler in mind. He has already had to be fished out of the fountain!

So we have always kind of had our eye out for a different place.  Mostly I look at other apartments when we go to playdates and we look at the outside of buildings trying to imagine if we would like to live there.  A few weeks ago I happened to see a Facebook post of a friend's apartment and noticed she had what looked like a large outdoor patio.  The next time I saw her I asked about it.  And told her that I would LOVE to have that space for Z.  She casually informed me that the apartment next door to her had just been vacated.  What????!!!

Obviously I did a terrible job of hiding what I was thinking....on the drive home John asked exactly how disappointed I was going to be if we didn't get it, or what if I didn't even like it? As soon as we got home I asked Venus to call and see if they were wanting to rent it. She texted me later and said they did in fact want to rent it and we could see it the next day!  I was excited and nervous and so hopeful that it was what we were looking for.

I walked in and immediately fell in love and then I realized it had no closets and no real oven.  But it had SO much light.  Every room had windows and the views were awesome from every direction.  There were no tall buildings near it and the apartment was on the 24th floor.  There were balconies and 2 big outside spaces, there was even grass!  Yea it was almost perfect.

John looked and me and asked about the oven. The oven had been a deal breaker on several apartments we had seen on our first trip.  He just laughed when I said, no big deal. I don't need a big oven.  And the closets...well I think we have that figured out too. He knew it was the right place for us.

The company agreed to let us move, the landlord let us out of our lease and the paperwork is signed.  We have a small window of time after my brother visits at the beginning of November and the day we go home to the States for the holidays to move.  By a small window of time I mean like 6 days!  Basically we will drop our stuff at the new place and put it away when we return in January but I couldn't be happier!