Housewarming

About a month after we moved in to our new house, we threw our housewarming party. We combined it with our annual crab feast and ended up inviting a ton of people. It was by far the biggest crab feast we've ever had, the first time we actually finished all of the crabs at the party.

We invited our usualy friend group, who always comes to these events. Kevin also extended the invitation to his new colleagues, who all came with their spouses. And we invited a few of our new neighbors which accidentally spiraled into inviting the whole neighborhood. Thankfully most of them were still out of town or otherwise busy due to summer vacation. But a few stopped by and it was nice to get to know them.

A bunch of people brought beer and wine, and we provided a keg and a cooler full of beer and soda. And even though people stayed up late playing beer pong, we almost ended the party with more alcohol than we started it with. We even gota fancy new cooler (full of Coronas).

The party was something of a whirlwind, and I wasn't really much help as a host in terms of cooking or cleaning. I tried to at least talk to everyone who stopped by, though, and it was nice to get to know some of the new neighbors.

The Monday after the party, we hauled the remainder of the keg up to the end of our driveway and invited our neighbors over to help us finish it. It was a nice, more low-key way to get to know some of them. Though the short notice did mean that even fewer people stopped by. But it was ultimately a very fun and successful housewarming party. It's been almost a month now, and Kevin is still working his way through the excess beer.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Once we got settled in our new house, we decided it was time to meet the neighbors. So one night after dinner we went out, armed with invitations to our house-warming party, to meet the other families on the cul-de-sac with us. We figured five households was a good start, and a decent number of people to invite to the party.

Everyone was very nice and welcoming, though four of the five houses belong to older couples. All of their kids were in their twenties and out of the house, except for the one high school senior (youngest of five). And then there's one oddball family with middle-school aged kids. Of the five families we met, two were planing to be out of town, but three said they'd drop by the party. That had been about what we'd been expecting, and it was nice to start meeting people and learning names.

We also learned about various social events. There's a semi-regular Wine Wednesday, a regular guys night every Thursday, a monthly ladies night out, and a bunch of parties throughout the year. Everyone kept telling us about the epic Halloween party; I'm eager to see how it stacks up against our Halloween party. One of the neighbors said she'd make sure we got on the various neighborhood email lists, and we thanked her.

By the time we got home, we had a couple of emails detailing the upcoming regularly scheduled events and introducing us to the neighborhood. Our friendly neighbor had also taken it upon herself to extend the invitation to our house warming party to the entire neighborhood, some 40-odd houses. So far only one of those households has RSVPed, so we don't really have any idea what to expect come Saturday.

On the bright side, we did get to attend a few events and start meeting more neighbors. The Wine Wednesday is hosted by one of the other pregnant couples. There were a lot of people there, too many for me to remember names. But I met both of the other pregnant ladies in the neighborhood, and they seem nice which is heartening. Both families already have toddlers, and there seem to be a lot of younger children around in general.

I'm actually glad we moved into such a welcoming, social neighborhood. Our housewarming party could get a bit insane, and we may actually run out of food for the first time in our hosting history. But it will be good to start socializing with people. According to everyone we've talked to, this is a neighborhood that likes to party hard. The people our age have told us they have a hard time keeping up with the empty-nesters, which makes sense. Hopefully it also means that Kevin and I will fit right in.

And now to hope that a reasonable number of people choose to attend the housewarming party this Saturday. It'll be good to meet more people; I just hate not knowing how many, exactly, are coming.

Kicking Off the Busy Season

The Saturday before Memorial Day was the busiest Saturday I've had in a long time. Which is appropriate as this is shaping up to be the busiest summer I've had in a long time.

We got up at 6 in the morning. Kevin re-stained the stairs to the backyard while I swept and mopped and generally got ready for the barbecue we were throwing that afternoon. Then it was off to the home inspection for our new home at 8:30.

The inspection went well. There were a few issues, but some of them were maintenance things (trimming back trees that were overhanging the roof) and some we had been expecting (the seller had already told us she wasn't replacing the stove top fan, thus implying that it was broken). For the most part everything is in working order. The furnace is old, but it's still working, so that's an upcoming expense that we just need to keep in mind.

We ended up leaving the inspection a tad early. We'd gone over most of the major things and our inspector said that from there on it was just a matter of checking outlets and light switches. We went to the grocery store by the new house to see what was in the shopping center and pick up some last minute food items for the barbecue. Then I dropped Kevin off at home and went to my sister-in-law's bridal shower.

I arrived at the bridal shower almost an hour late because we hadn't really known how long a home inspection takes. But I was still one of the first people there. We ate some food and chatted and played some games and watched the bride-to-be open presents. Then I had to duck out a little early to get back to my house before guests started arriving.

Two of our friends were coming from NYC by bus. As I was leaving the bridal showed, I actually ended up behind their bus at a stop light. But then I got stuck in the wrong lane because I didn't actually know where I was going. I ended up missing my turn to get back on the highway and had to loop around a little bit. It ended up working out, though, as I still got to the bus stop right as they were getting off the bus.

From then the day is a blur of food and friends. Everyone from the bridal shower came to the barbecue, as well as a bunch of local friends. All told we had over 30 people through our house that afternoon, making it one of the biggest parties we've thrown and justification for the bigger house we're buying.

Sunday was devoted to my sister-in-law's bachelorette party. Though I'm not drinking, I had a lot of fun touring various local cideries and distilleries with the group. I'm looking forward to going back to Catoctin Creek once I'm no longer pregnant. They've expanded since I was last there and have a pretty exciting tasting menu now. Afterwards we all went to an escape room in Alexandria, which was a ton of fun. We made it out with 5 minutes to spare, which I think means that the puzzle was the perfect amount of challenging. Then we got dinner and I left the group at a karaoke bar while I went to pick up Kevin. He had been planning to metro home from our friend's house, but with all the track work going on lately, the metro has gotten really unreliable. It might have taken him two hours to get home that way.

Monday was devoted to packing up our house in preparation for selling it. We need to clear out a lot of stuff before the open house so that it doesn't look too crammed. We packed up almost all of the books and games, along with the clothes we aren't expecting to wear until the weather turns colder. Then Kevin got a storage unit and started moving boxes over while I filled up trash bags with junks we don't need anymore and things we want to donate. It's amazing how much stuff we got rid of and how much stuff we still have. But it's also nice to get a jump start on the packing, even though we won't be moving for another month and a half. Hopefully we'll be able to keep chipping away at this a little bit at a time and avoid getting too overwhelmed.

Houses, and Parties, and Moms, Oh My

About three hours after Kevin got home from 6+ weeks in Hawaii, my mom arrived to visit for a week. My brother had time off between Spring and Summer term, so the two of them did a bunch of tourist stuff, including the Air and Space Museum/Hangar and a visit to Monticello. Meanwhile Kevin and I worked and tried to catch up with life and met them for dinner.

We spent most of the weekend looking at open houses. Kevin and I are getting ready to start looking in earnest, and my mom wanted to see the sorts of houses we're looking out. Plus it's always fun to go tour homes that aren't your own.

We saw a big variety of homes. There were one or two we could see working out (ideally we would move one of the houses onto the lot of a different house, but that's not really an option). There were a few that had stark deal breakers (lack of yard, unworkable kitchen, stuck in the 70s). Most fell somewhere in the middle, and by the end of the weekend many of them had begun to bleed together. The upshot is that Kevin and I have a pretty solid idea of what we want, but we haven't found it yet.

We also went to a party thrown by Kevin's party on Saturday night. It was a Moulin Rouge themed casino night, and I had an absolute blast even though I couldn't drink and didn't really know anyone. There was fantastic food, including a mac-and-cheese bar. There were lots of gambling options, and I sort of learned how to play craps.  I had more fun playing Texas Hold'em, though. And since everyone was playing with fake money, the dealers were pretty forgiving. Especially the blackjack dealer who routinely gave herself a worse hand if she was initially dealt 20.

It ended up being a jam-packed but thoroughly enjoyable weekend. And someday soon I'll have a weekend to myself again. Maybe. Actually, it doesn't look like that's going to happen for the foreseeable future, which makes me even happier that I refused to make any plans the weekend before Kevin came home.