Our New Home

These past few days I must say, Preston and I have been really busy!! First off, we finally moved into our house! We were so excited to also finally leave TLF. Im going to recap all the excitement in this post!

June 3

We had met our landlord today to look at the house one more time before we moved in and also to get all the electric and gas readings to take to Home Fuels. Let me just say it is so complicated and a little confusing here with how the electricity and gas work. There are 3 different readings all for different times of the day and also the days of the week. Basically mornings until 7am and evenings are the cheapest and during the day is the most expensive. So try and charge things at night if you want to save some money.

After getting all the readings we got our keys!! And to make it even more confusing, you get a key for almost every door in the house! Lots of trial and error with our keys. We were glad he gave them to us a few days before we moved in because we always seem to end up with more stuff than we started and would of never made it in one trip :)

June 4

Not much happened during the morning but the fun for us started after Preston got off work and we could bring some of our belongings over to our new house. We were so excited the day was almost here to move into our house. Dropping off a few things was almost a tease to us, since we still had to spend one more night in TLF. (It was nice and convenient living on Area F but after a while you just want to move off and live in your own place)

While dropping stuff off we had the people on either side of us ring our door bell and introduce themselves to us. I thought that was nice of them to introduce themselves already even before we even moved in and also telling us if we needed anything just to ask them. I like that our row of 6 houses is all Americans. It makes it even nicer for Preston and I because we can ask them about almost anything and they will have the answer since we are so new and still learning everything. (Or should I say I'm trying to learn everything)

It was a little hard trying to go to sleep that night since we knew the next morning we could officially go live in our house! Thank goodness for sleepy time tea :)

June 5

MOVE IN DAY!!

We had to get up early to pack the rest of our stuff and to be over at the house around 8 because FMO was coming with our temporary furniture. They give you a time frame of 8am-4:30pm and you never know when they will actually show up. So it usually is an all day waiting game. But for us lucky people it wasn't! We actually took a little longer than we thought leaving and checking out of TLF that FMO called to see where we were. It was only a couple minutes after 8 and they were already there! I was expecting to have to wait all day for our furniture. But at least we were really close to the house they didn't have to wait long.

Also, when we got there our landlord was already there too installing a brand new dish washer I had asked for :) (I did not want to wash everything by hand for 3 maybe 4 years, so definitely ask for things when looking at a house, most likely they will get it for you)

FMO started bringing all our temporary furniture inside and a little bit later our internet guy came to hook up the dish on our roof. So our house was full of people trying to move and set up things in every room of our house. But I must say, we must have been the luckiest people moving into a place. Everybody I talked to would only tell me stories about how long it takes to get things done when moving in. Like they waited all day till late afternoon for their furniture. And also that their beds were like rocks or springs popping out, but ours is perfectly fine to us except the fact that we both have to share the full sized bed. Another thing that a lot of people said sucked was that they didn't have internet for almost 2 weeks while the internet was hooked up. Ours took less than an hour! And I had called that Tuesday, it's Thursday now, to set up an appointment for internet cause I thought it was going to take forever like everybody said but nope, not for us. He asked if he could come the next day and set it up. I had to tell him we actually aren't even in our house yet and won't be until Thursday. And also he speaks really good English and is very nice. So if anybody moving in needs internet I would go with Eolo, works great so far! And is installed and working fast! Plus anything that goes wrong with it they will come out for free and fix it.

A little after our landlord, FMO and internet guy left the people who hook up your stove, washer and dryer came. I thought for sure we wouldn't be as lucky with these people since so far everybody else came so early but I was wrong.

Finally everything was here and hooked up, we can now start cleaning everything! Even though almost everything looked really clean you will be surprised with how dirty some things are, like the wardrobes FMO gives you. Definitely clorox wipe those! We wanted to make sure everything was sanitized before we would put any of our belonging or dishes/kitchenware on stuff. Cleaning seems like a quick and easy job but not if you want to get everything and also have a 3 story house. At least we got the most important things done today, like our wardrobes and kitchen area so we could put our clothes and kitchenware away. We got a few more things done too but by the late afternoon we just needed to rest and relax a little after a long day of continuous things going on.

(Gate to get in to our house)

(Preston and our lovely new home)

(We finally have keys)

(Kitchen, without appliances)

(Double doors leading out to patio when you walk in)

(First floor bathroom)

(This will be our office room eventually)

(Backyard, which our landlord still needs to mow)

(Will be second bedroom but right now its a junk room)

(Stairs that lead up to master bedroom, looking down them though)

(Master bedroom without wardrobes)

(Master bedroom with wardrobes)

(Master bedroom balcony)

(The amazing view with hayfield)

(Amazing view with hay cut down)

(And another amazing view from our balcony)

(Stairs leading down to basement)

(Basement bathroom with washer)

(Basement room with dryer, going to be TV room eventually)

(Other side of basement room with American sized fridge)

Before we went to bed I got to go see one of our neighbors houses and see the difference and also how they set theirs up. (The row of 6 houses are the same but each have a few different things in them) It was really cool to see how they set theirs up and also how they put their master bedroom in the basement. One thing I wish we had that they do is and extra bathroom on the top floor but apparently only a few of the houses in the row have them.

After looking at her house our other neighbor let Preston and I see her house. Her house had a little different kitchen setup than the other one but they don't have a bathroom on the top floor like us. So strange the little things our landlord added to some and not others. I liked seeing how they set theirs up because it was how Preston and I had thought in our minds we wanted to do ours. I'm so glad we have such nice neighbors who already seem really helpful with anything.

This was our first night sleeping in our new place and we were interested and seeing how it would be...

June 6

I'm happy to say our house was really quiet, no creepy noises and no screaming people outside! That made me feel even better about choosing this house :)

I can't wait till Preston's car finally comes! I still have to drive him to work every morning so I can have the car during the day to go to Crossfit, the gym or wherever and not be cooped up all day. Only one week left until we should get it!

After dropping him off I came home and my neighbor came to pick me up to go to Spouse it Up! Bingo. Which was an event for spouses to interact and mingle and play bingo for fun and for prizes. I had seen flyers for this event around base but was a little nervous and scared to go since I wouldn't know anybody. Going with someone does make it a lot easier! Plus going with someone who knows so many people.

Since this event was in the morning they had all different types of pastries, fruit and snacks you could eat. I can never deny a good pastry! Jonace, my neighbor, introduced me to so many new people I don't think I remember all their names. But they were all really nice too.

There were all different ways we played Bingo, like four corners, diamond, heart, etc. The first game we played Jonace won. She gave the win up to me to go choose a prize. At first I couldn't take it from her but she kept insisting and I got to choose one of the prizes they had up front. There were tons of good things to win, like beach stuff, cooking stuff, nail kit, picnic stuff and more. I of course went with one of the cooking sets. It came with a lot of good stuff! I got a pyrex 13x9 pan, 3 dish towels, measuring spoons, 2 wooden spoons, can opener, peeler, confectioner sugar, lemon bar mix and a bottle of Moscato. Since my neighbor gave this up for me I'm definitely going to be baking things for her :) (I knew I was already going to though, since I love baking so much!)

(Bingo cards and center pieces)

(Bingo winnings)

I'm glad I went to this event and that she took me too it. I got to meet some more really nice people.

Now time to go back and start cleaning more of the house...

And time to pick Preston up from work. Now he can help me with cleaning!

One of the people Preston works with invited us and another guy over for steaks and to hang out. Which made it nice for us since we didn't really have much "real" food. But the one thing I could do to bring over was bake brownies!! I hadn't had brownies in forever!

It was nice to go over and chill after a couple of days of cleaning and getting somewhat organized. Plus, I also hadn't had steak in forever and it tasted so yummy! I can't wait till we get our grill and have people over. Our stuff needs to get here faster!! Only a few more weeks!!

June 7

Every Saturday Preston and I go do spin class from 9:15-10. The fitness centers just started this class and I'm so happy they did.  Great morning burst and also a great workout to start your day! And in this case great way to start our day of cleaning/cloroxing our house! But first, since we don't really have much food at our new place we thought we would go to Muligan's Grill. Prestons been before but I hadn't yet. It's at the golf course on base. Their food was actually pretty good! I got a steak and cheese with mushrooms while Preston got his usual chicken wrap. (I had to take pictures of the view/golf course for my mom's side of the family, in case they come over they can see we still have a pretty nice golf course on base they can play on :) )

So glad its summer here and that the pools are open on the weekends. Because the pool is a great way to relax and chill after lots of cleaning. We also got to meet our new friends, Mary and Corey, at the pool.

After being at the pool for a while we all decided to go out to dinner at the Spaghetti House. (Real name is Ristorante Pizzeria San Giorgio but everybody around we know calls is Spaghetti House) I got the Spaghetti mari e monti, which is pasta, shrimp, mushrooms, cream, parsley and tomato sauce. It was delicious! I also got a side of their spinach with parmesan, which was also really good. And you can't forget about the wine, I got a 1/4 liter of Moscato. Not the best Moscato I've had but still good. One thing I liked that none of knew came with our meals was sgroppino. I have to say their sgroppino was my favorite so far! (Even though this was only my second time, tastes like candy!) If you don't know what sgroppino is, it basically has just Vodka, Prosecco and Italian Ice blended together. Some might have something else added in but that's the basic ingredients. Definitely worth trying!!

(Moscato)

(Spaghetti mari e mani, Sgroppino, Chocolate Chip Reese's Gelato)

You can't have an Italian dinner without gelato! The restaurant was within walking distance to the center of Aviano where a really good gelato place is, Il Gelato. This time Preston and I went all out with what we got. We got a chocolate chip Reese's gelato sundae! Amazing!! And great way to end the night.


June 8

Weekends are definitely time to relax, catch up on sleep and of course clean! I can't imagine how long its going to take to unpack and clean once we actually get our stuff.

Another day of cleaning and another day of going to the pool to relax. Can't beat chilling by the pool. Except for when you have to wait outside the pool because there were too many people already there. This is the 2nd weekend its open and its already this crowded! I can't wait to see how it's going to be during the whole summer and especially in August when basically all of Italy closes/shuts down for the month. At least it wasn't that long of a wait and we got a corner where not many people were sitting, which was really nice.