Our first post since moving to Virginia! The past week has been pretty busy, with moving out of El Cerrito on Tuesday, spending a couple days with Dan’s family in San Jose, and then flying out and arriving late Thursday night to Dulles Airport. We’ve been spending the last few days recuperating and getting settled into my parents’ house, where we’ll be staying for a while as we get adjusted back to the area. Here are some snapshots from the whirlwind of the moving process over the past week!
Moving Day. The movers were scheduled to come at 8am, but didn’t come until around 2pm. 6 hours late! We started moving out some of the boxes we’d packed ourselves because we were tired of just sitting around waiting.
The ginormous moving truck.
The moving truck was huge and we still managed to fill a lot of it, despite getting rid of a lot of furniture. Kind of disgusted by how much junk we have… (What looks like the front wall of the truck in the photo is actually a mattress stacked on its side, with tons of boxes behind it.)
Goodbye El Cerrito! It was a small house, but is bursting with so many beautiful memories that were made there… It was Mio’s first home. It’s where I spent my entire pregnancy, where we brought Mio home from the hospital after she was born, where she took her first steps… so many milestones.
My sister got these sandals for Mio when she was born, so that she could wear gold shoes to match mine. They finally fit! Thank you Auntie Miwa â¤
Last morning in California. In San Jose, before we went to the airport.
The chinchillas were getting more attention than Mio at the airport! Everyone wanted to take a peek at them.
Right before boarding at San Jose Airport. We’ll miss you, California! ♥
First day in Virginia, soaking up the last of the summer sun…
A Walmart run to go get some diapers for Mio. She was KTFO during our whole shopping excursion…
With my loves.
We’re definitely already missing everyone back in California, but are excited about this new chapter. Dan went to his first day of work and really likes his new company, and I’m picking up more freelance work again now that the hardest part of the move is over. Just waiting for our car and moving truck to arrive in the next week or so, and we’ll feel more at home!
Breaking news! We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you an exciting but bittersweet announcement: our little family will be making the move across the country to the DC metropolitan area next month.
Dan just accepted an offer for an awesome job out there, so we’ll be making the big move back East in September. As biased as I am towards the East Coast and how much I’ve always said that I’d like to move back someday, I have to admit that over the past five years, I’ve definitely fallen in love with the beautiful places, delicious food, and especially our wonderful friends here in the Bay Area. There’s a part of me that is genuinely sad about leaving the area and I know that I will miss the life that we’ve created out here. But we trust that this new chapter in our lives will be just as grand, and while the cross-country move and all the changes are daunting, we think that it’s a step in the right direction in our continuing journey as a family. We look forward to being closer to my family in Northern Virginia (in fact, we’ll be living with them for a while as we get settled into the area and save up for a more permanent home), catching up with friends, and enjoying (and perhaps at times, resenting) all four seasons that are so palpably felt in the region.
To our Bay Area friends and family, you have been nothing but kind, generous, and amazing to us, and leaving you behind will be without question the toughest part of this move. We will of course be back to visit from time to time, but we hope that we can see as many of you as possible in the coming weeks so that we can properly say our goodbyes and heartfelt thank you’s to you before we leave. We’ll miss each and every one of you so much!
This update is long overdue, but two weeks ago, we moved from our small one bedroom apartment in Berkeley to a two bedroom duplex in El Cerrito. We’re still renting and it will likely be a while before we’re able to buy (let alone afford) our own house, but for now, we’re just grateful to have a little more space.
The move went pretty smoothly — before the big moving day, we slowly took a bunch of boxes over to the new place everyday, and then on moving day we moved the rest of our belongings as well as all heavy furniture in a moving truck within half a day. We went back to the Berkeley apartment last weekend to scrub and sweep to make sure everything was in good shape to turn back over to our previous landlord.
Our old apartment building in Berkeley. The building itself was almost 100 years old, but the inside has recently been remodeled. Goodbye Berkeley! Thank you for the fun times.
Berkeley had been fun to live in for a while — there’s definitely a lot to do and so many good places to eat, and it was fun to be in a college town again. I’m going to miss having three movie theaters within walking distance and all the delicious ethnic restaurants that were in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, since we were on a main road and very close to Berkeley High School, it was always pretty loud and over the course of the year, we outgrew the place and decided that we needed a more spacious living space.
El Cerrito is only the next town over from Berkeley, so we didn’t move very far. It’s definitely a more residential area compared to the rowdy semi-urban college town of Berkeley, and so it’s a lot quieter. We live right by a huge shopping center that has a Bed, Bath and Beyond, Lucky’s, Barnes & Noble, JoAnn Fabrics, CVS Pharmacy, a handful of restaurants, and… ::drumroll please:: Trader Joe’s! I love grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s, so it’s exciting that we have one only two blocks away now. Dan, being Mr. Fix-It, loves that there is a big Ace Hardware and TAP Plastics nearby. haha* We are also lucky enough to have the El Cerrito Plaza BART station within less than two blocks — so much closer than we were to Downtown Berkeley BART when we lived at our previous apartment. The post office, UPS, and bank are also within walking distance — I walk everywhere because I gave up my car last year, so it makes life so much easier to have those so close by. 99 Ranch and the small Japanese grocery store we shop at (Yaoya-san) is also very close, so we can always be fully stocked with our Asian food.
Although there are still a few boxes lying around, we’ve pretty much settled in to our new place and we are really enjoying it so far. Here are some photos!
View from outside. House number has been blurred for privacy purposes.
The living room (front entrance area)
Futon sofa and coffee table in our living room. (Please excuse the mess of boxes and Dan's bike - they will be going in the garage once they finish working on it.)
Opposite view of living room, with our bookcases, TV, and chinchilla cage.
the kitchen
The dining table in the kitchen. (As you can see, I have no shortage of aprons! There are six of them hanging there... gotta put them to good use!)
The lovely bathroom. The photo doesn't do it justice. The huge mirror cabinets are my favorite part.
Another photo of the the bathroom.
Last shot of the bathroom.
The bedroom.
We are in the process of fixing up this antique vintage dresser. (Notice some of the knobs are missing.) I've got all my jewelry and hair/skincare products sprawling across the top.
My vanity stand, where I get ready in the morning. If you haven't noticed, I love the Shabby Chic style.
We are using the second bedroom as an office.
I finally have room to have my own desk! Yes, that's right -- in the two and a half years since moving out to California, I didn't have my own desk. Can you believe it? I was always marginalized at the corner of Dan's ginormous desk, occasionally roaming with my laptop over to the coffee table or dining table. But now that we have the space, I bought myself my own desk and chair. Exciting!
So nice to have my very own workspace! My at-home workflow is so much better now.
Storage area above and beside my desk for all my craft and art supplies. The storage shelves and drawers are all new, too. Can't wait to put everything to good use!
There’s still a lot of things I’d like to do to help prettify the place, but right now I’m just happy to be moved in. It’s difficult to invest a lot of time and effort when you know that the place you’re living is temporary and I keep dreaming of the day I’ll be able to decorate and furnish my very own forever home. I am happy with the way we are set up for now, though, and now that we have more space, we will also be able to comfortably host visiting friends and family. For our local friends, please feel free to visit us, and for those who are farther way, it may just be time to start planning those vacations out to the Bay Area… 😉
