62. July 4th, 2011 Picture.

Since we were moving over the 4th of July weekend, we had pretty much written off the holiday.  We figured we'd still be getting settled into our new place, and really didn't want to over schedule ourselves during an already insane weekend.  But, when all was said and done, we still wanted to do something nice for the 4th, and since the weather was absolutely spectacular, we decided that drinks by the water were completely necessary.  We hopped in the car and drove down to Marina Bay [which is perfectly acceptable during the day, at night it's a totally different story!]  We got a seat at the outdoor bar on the dock at Captain Fishbones and had a few frozen drinks to keep ourselves cool.  

After enjoying some frozen mudslides [but seriously I am RUINED by the ones at The Gazebo on Nantucket] we walked around the pier to The Water Club, not to be confused with the other restaurant/bar called The Ocean Club, and grabbed some lobstahhh rolls.

It was a really nice afternoon, filled with sun, drinks and yummy food - just what summer should be!  

We headed back to the South End and decided to walk one block over to Peter's Park to see if we'd be able to see the fireworks out over the Charles.  We thought we might be able to see them over the Boston skyline from our neighborhood - and we were right!  They were pretty spectacular, even with the Hancock building in our way!

I'll leave out the part about how I was worried about getting shot.  I told Ratty that the best time to shoot someone would be on the 4th, during the fireworks specifically, because no one would hear you, or would mistake the gunshot for a firework.  Seriously, this is the way my brain works.  It wasn't because our neighborhood is unsafe in anyway, it's because I'm insane.

62. July 3rd, 2011 Picture.

Our first Sunday in our apartment means our first SoWa Open Market!  I know I've shared a few shopping trips on the blog before, and I am super excited to now live, LITERALLY, right above the market.  I know the first picture isn't the finest quality, but I wanted to show just how CLOSE we are to the market - this is the view from our living room window!

I was actually pretty surprised at how quiet the set up was - some vendors arrive as early as 6am to start putting their tent together, so I was ready for lots of clanging around and maybe even some yelling.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quiet they were, Ratty even uttered the phrase 'quiet as a church mouse' at some point.  Fast forward a few weeks and we won't feel the same way, they started bringing speakers and playing music - that gets old REAL QUICK.

Anywho, it was really awesome to just pop downstairs, grab some lunch off a food truck, walk around to the other side of the building and grab fresh veggies from the farmers market and do some window shopping.  I love our new place!

62. July 2nd, 2011 Picture.

After our world wind couple of days, we decided to take it pretty easy on our first official day as South End residents, I mean, we deserved a little break, RIGHT?  We walked through the neighborhood, grabbed lunch on the patio at Pops, complete with raspberry mimosas, and spent some quality time at the dog park [with our invisible french bulldog, Cisco] soaking up all the adorable little puppy faces.

 

Then, after spending some quality time immersing ourselves in our new neighborhood.  We went home and continued to unpack.  So.many.boxes.  Pretty sure the unpacking will never end.

62. July 1st, 2011 Picture.

MOVING!  Day 2.  Here we go.

Our awesomely fabulous movers met us bright and early at our new apartment to help us unload all our stuff/junk into our new, spacious, gleaming South End .  I make this sound so much easier than it was, we ended up moving in around noontime, as we had to wait for the painters and cleaners to finish sprucing up our place.  Honestly, after all the nasty apartments I've moved into and bedrooms I've had to paint on my own, I was more than happy to wait for our new place to sparkle.  I picked up our 'keys', I say this because they are actually fobs, which are keyless tokens that we keep on our keychain.  We just swipe to get in our front door - we don't own real keys!  Welcome to the swanky South End!

Moving in was SO MUCH easier than moving out.  I felt like the process was a breeze and our stellar movers got us completely in our apartment in less than an hour.  AN HOUR!  They had a dolly which was amazing, plus the fact that we had an elevator made everyone super happy.  YAY!  I'd say we loved moving, but we all know that is a straight up lie.  I'm just all caught up in this recap.

So!  Take these photos with a grain of salt, I snapped them right after we finished bringing in the last load of boxes, I couldn't wait to document our new place!

Our bedroom:

Ugh, don't you just LOVE the brick wall?!

View from our bedroom door into the living room:

[Warning: we have A LOT of stuff!]

Our awesome new kitchen that is totally going to ruin us when we start shopping around for houses:

I've since learned that our awesome cabinets are IKEA, so I might not be totally ruined.

My mom painted this fab armoire for extra storage [our new digs only have ONE closet, le sigh].  My only request was that it be painted the same color as the Sparkling Lemon candle from Yankee Candle.  Those of you who know me know that I am not joking in the slightest.

SO!  What's the first thing you do when you've finally completed your 2 day move?  

GO TO IKEA!

Our completely logical rationale for this was the fact that we needed to buy a couch.  We had a nice blue Ektorp sofa all picked out and the only way it was making it from the IKEA warehouse to our apartment was in the UHaul.  I drive a 2 door Civic, which means that I can never transport something larger than a medium sized overnight bag, so we figured that while we still had our massive moving truck, we should use it to pick up all the big ticket items at IKEA.  See!  There is rhyme to our reason.

We loaded up on all the apartment necessities, like a pillow top, mattress pad and bedskirt for our bed.  Can you imagine that Ratty never had any of these things?!  Men.

But the biggest, BESTEST purchase from our IKEA outing was our couch!

Wait!  I know what you're thinking, you're thinking 'Amy said they were getting a BLUE couch?!'  And you're right, I did say that.  We had gone in with the intention of getting a nice navy couch to compliment our nautical themed life [seriously, who doesn't love a good nautical theme], but when we saw the cover in person I was underwhelmed.  It was more of a denim blue that I compared to a sun faded couch on a frat guys porch.  Yes, I went there.

Ratty still liked the blue couch, but I wasn't feeling it.  I dragged my feet through the rest of IKEA, internally feeling all blah about our lack luster couch.  Earlier in the week I had floated the idea of a red couch to Ratty [I seriously love red anything], but he didn't like it.  With our yellow armoire, gray kitchen and dark floors, he was having a hard time picturing a bright red couch, but in my head, I could see that it would look awesome.

I tried unsuccessfully to convince Ratty to forgo the blue, but he just really couldn't wrap his head around the red.  I own a white slip cover for this couch, so I just assumed that we could swap out the blue when we got sick of it AKA immediately.

Fast forward to us in the warehouse picking up the couch & slipcover and boom, the blue bin is empty.  NO BLUE SLIPCOVERS.  I told Ratty that I would run to the information desk, telling him I'd find a blue one but secretly hoping I couldn't.  I chatted with the rep and he told me that the blue slipcovers were completely out of stock - SOLD OUT!  I asked him which colors they did have and wouldn't ya know, THEY HAD ONE RED.  If this isn't a sign from God that I was meant to own a red couch then I don't know what is.  I merrily skipped back to Ratty, failing to hide my excitement, when I gave him a run down of what was going on.  He thought I was lying.  He thought I was just saying they didn't have any blues just so I could get my red couch.  It was obviously not a ploy to get my way rather the most spectacular turn of random events that just happened to work in my favor.

THANK YOU UNIVERSE!

FYI, now he loves the couch.

Now that the UHaul had been returned, IKEA items unloaded & set up and a space cleared for our candles, wine and cheese, we spent the rest of the night enjoying our new place!  Without TV though, Comcasts' first available appointment was July 5th.....yay.