We spent thursday nite with our friends Rob and Jean who gave us a bed and a lovely meal out on their deck. It was soothing and peaceful and I was so tired I could barely form complete sentences. Up early the next morning and home to clean out the fridge, take one last look, hook John's car up to the 26" U-Haul and leave town. Arrived in Madison 3 hours later and met up with Matt and Ryan (John's sons) and Mike and Dan (John's high school buddy's from Iowa). We did get to choose apartment and picked the bigger of the 2-- 1,072 sq ft. The guys unloaded as I stayed in the apartment trying to put a bathroom together for showers later.

All of the sudden the steady stream of boxes ended and I see no one for quite a while until John comes flying in wanting to know if I know where his tools are. Not a good thing. The purple couch (Ethan Allen nubuk leather with a queen hide-a-bed with springs in the mattress) was stuck in the stairwell. After some negotiating we give the couch to Ryan and it goes back down the stairwell. (Neither couch would fit in the elevator.)

Each trip up I am told that we have WAY too much stuff and it will never fit in the apartment. That is partially true. We have VERY small bedrooms, but nice bathrooms and a nice size deck. The living area will be used just for a livingroom, we are skipping a table for now. We can make it work.

Lots of doors in a small space so John started by taking our bedroom door off and putting it in our storage unit. We will go somewhere and buy different wire shelving for the closets so we can get 2 rows of clothes in. We are operating under the premise that it will be better to apologize later than to ask now.

We could only get one parking space so we don't know where we will put the second car. But everything will just fall in place.

Saturday AM we got up and crawled thru the boxes and went to the farmer's market. We really are less than 2 blocks from the Capitol. As I stepped onto the square I had the same feeling I had on my first day in Paris... that I FINALLY got here.

Last night we went out to try and find a internet hook up (ours is not working yet) but instead checked out this little Costa Rican place we can see from our bedroom window. It's a restaurant/bar/hostal. The photo does not show the Christmas tree lights. John told the owner that we had just moved to Madison the day before... and he said Welcome home.