We have a home.......

After Cherie's promotion (and associated transfer back to DC), the major milestones became:

1. Find a job (for me)

2. Find a home

3. Find daycare

As posted previously, I was able to find a job within my company very quickly. Tonight, we achieved milestone #2 -- we have a house!

We are the newest renters of a beautiful, 3-level townhome in Alexandria, VA. It's in a hidden gem of a development called Loftridge about a mile south of the Beltway, about evenly split east-west between 395 on the west and Route 1 on the east. It's 2 miles from Old Town, it's on a piece of property surrounded by forest and parkland, within easy walk/drive of a brand new baseball field complex, and it has great history -- including the property being the former residence of a Virginia governor and Lee family member, Fitzhugh Lee.

It has 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, 2 half-baths, finished basement with fireplace (aka the future guest bedroom/den), living room with french doors out onto a beautiful deck, hardwood floors throughout, nearly new appliances in the kitchen, and a small, fenced yard that leads out to a huge common area -- a groomed field where the kids and dog can run around.

It is just about perfect -- out of the 16 or so houses we visited in a whirlwind 2.5-day househunting trip we took last week, it was #1 on our list. And, we got it. We'll probably make the physical move around the last week of October. Lewises, stand by for your first weekend cookout invite!

Hot damn. Now it's on to daycare -- and we're making progress there, too.