What A Difference A Year Makes...

So it's time for updating with some photos...
It's census time and in Mass it's a big deal. They're worried we're going to lose a seat in the House so they want every bum, baby and billionaire to fill out a census. And the city of Boston was kind enough to send their own out. I'm just not thrilled about who they sent it to..

Really Menino? The "Hardesty Family"?!?!? Last time I checked, they lived in Ohio and the WEIGEL at this address is the one who's been paying the rent for almost 2 years. :-p Friends of ours who live in an apartment with 4 people had it addressed to the Tuttle Family. Guess Mumbles just picks a random resident. (FYI - Menino is the mayor of Boston and is something of a landmark. Been mayor longer than anyone in history and he can't speak properly - hence the nickname Mumbles Menino.)

We're still totally obsessed with A. Russo and Sons grocery store. We rent a car to go out there every other week and stock up. Anyone know what this is?

A few weekends ago we had the great flood of 2010. Seriously... my boss was at home for 3 days literally bailing out her basement after the windows burst and water started flowing in everywhere. The Charles River was higher than a lot of Boston natives had ever seen it. They had to evacuate several STORIES of apartment buildings in a neighboring town. It was really bad.
We were ok until we noticed the front windows were leaking. Lovely yellowish water was seeping in all over the place.

It might not look like that much, but it completely and utterly soaked through two very large, very thick towels in just a matter of hours. Smelled nasty too. So gross.Only took our management company 2 weeks to come "fix" it. Personally I don't think painting over it is really fixing it, but we're slotted for more rain this week, so I guess we'll find out.

And there was a race this weekend. It's the same race I did last year when it was my first race in Boston - and back then a 5 mile race was the longest I'd ever run. I managed to finish in just under 54 minutes.

Today was a lot colder than last year. But I warmed up...

Had my new Garmin all ready to go...
and I was off!! I ran the entire way (a BIG improvement from last year) and the hill at the end didn't seem so huge. I'd remembered it being akin to Everest but this year it was closer to a large mole hill.
That's me in the pink on the left below. I finished in...49:25!!! That's about 4 minutes faster than last year which is almost a minute per mile. I've got another 5 mile race coming up over Memorial Day weekend so let's see if I can beat that.

And in BIG news we've signed a new lease! We haven't been thrilled with our apartment (loud street, lots of other people in the building, bad management company, really high rent, etc) so we decided to leave our first apartment together and look for a 2 bedroom in the same general area of Boston.

We didn't have great luck with realtors so we started looking for private owners renting out places and found a fantastic place. The owner lives on the first floor and we'll have the second floor. It's nice to know that if anything goes wrong he's right there and he'll want to get it fixed ASAP so it doesn't affect his unit.

It's an actual house with our own private entrance, two bedrooms (YAY Jared can keep all of his books and school stuff in his own room and I never even have to go in it!!), a HUGE living room with lots of windows, a private dining room 2 fireplaces, a sunroom with big closet, a decent sized porch (here comes the grill) a big kitchen with full-sized appliances (including a dishwasher *insert angels singing*), an enormous pantry and lots of storage all over the place. There's even a washer and dryer in the basement with our own entrance to it.

It's pretty much perfect. Photos of the living room and dining room below from the owner's Craigslist ad. Sorry we don't have more photos yet. I'll be sure to post LOTS in September when we move in.

We'll need to purchase some additional furniture to fill the space out, but I think it's worth it. It's our dream place at this point in our lives and I can't wait to move in. Speaking of move-in, it should be pretty easy. This new apartment is about 2 blocks from where we live now. :)

Hope all is well with you out there! Leave some comments below.