From West to East

For those of you who don't know, Mitch and I just moved to McLean, Virginia. Mitch is starting work on August 27th and I am starting my student teaching on August 30th. We are renting part of a house from a couple who just left on their mission for two years. I say part of the house because we have the downstairs, and someone else will the living upstairs come October. The only thing we share is the washer and dryer though. It's an older house, but it has a huge kitchen and living area. We are so blessed to be able to rent it for two years.

Here are our boxes after they were delivered.

We are really close to the church and so far we love the ward. We've only been to church once, but everyone seems really nice. We got invited to dinner by two different families and someone has already tried to get me a job (not knowing I didn't need one). It's a big ward and we are anticipating getting more involved.

 Our house! You can see the front door in the picture, but we actually use the side door that you can see below.

Everyone has been asking to see pictures of the house, so here they are. Not super exciting, but it works great for us. Our first Saturday here we did yard work and I feel that will become a common occurrence. Mitch is excited for it, though after last week he may not be. He had some trouble with the lawn mower. But after some research he figured out how to fix it and got it mowing again! The whole time he was figuring that out, I was trying to figure out what was a plant and what was a weed. Just in case you can't tell in the pictures, the entire house has plants around it. I'm a little scared. I hope I don't kill them all. But I feel like we live in a climate now where it may not be too difficult. It felt like I weeded forever, and only did the smallest side of the house. In my defense, it hadn't been weeded for awhile.

 The open door is our bedroom. No pictures because, well, it's really small and not exciting. I'll tell you, it has a bed, and a dresser, and that's about it.

 The kitchen and dining area. Again, I do love having such a big kitchen!

 Our living room (I'm still getting used to the wallpaper)

Our Guest Room/Den/Extra Room Mitch Studies In/Way Too Much Wallpaper Room

 Mitch wanted to show how the rooms connect. We haven't moved the giant TV we got for free into the living room yet. It's ridiculously heavy.

 The back yard. It connects to two other yards and we don't know the exact boundary.

The sheds in the back.

Back to more of what Mitch and I are doing in Virginia. Mitch is finishing up his CPA exams. He has passed 3 of 4 and is taking the last one Friday morning. He starts Audit with with Deloitte on Monday and will do that for however long he likes. I had BYU set up my student teaching here so that I could finish up school. I will be teaching 8th grade PE at Cooper Middle School. I'm more nervous than excited. But I'm also ready to be done. As far as I can tell, the units I'll probably teach alone are Ultimate Frisbee and Speedball (whatever that is) so wish me luck!! We plan on staying here a few years and seeing how we like it. Then we'll reevaluate and look at our options. For now, we're in Virginia to stay!