Wow, what a weekend

Friday morning I left Albuquerque just before nine. With at least six hours driving ahead of me, I wanted to give myself enough time to also stop at our storage shed before meeting Ashlee right after she finished her day at institute. I stopped once in Munds Park for gas, food, and bodily functions, putting me in Phoenix just at the right time to hit our 10x10 cache of essentially everything we own before meeting Ashlee just as she got off the bus. It was wonderful to be able to see Ashlee on her special day. Happy birthday again!

Friday night we went to a bar with Ashlee's fellow corp members, and then drove out to Apache Junction where her great uncle and aunt (Pat and Wanda) live. They own three units in a retirement community, and were generous enough to allow us to stay in one of the empty ones for the weekend. Thank you so much!

Saturday morning we were off to the foreclosures and short sales, with one or two standards listings thrown in also. We met our real estate agent, and she drove us around to five houses. Ashlee might write about our housing search in her next post, so I won't go into here. In the afternoon we dropped by a Lowe's to get ideas for remodeling and landscaping. There's no shortage of ways to customize your kitchen, that's for sure. That afternoon we ran a couple errands and grabbed a movie, before driving back out to our temporary home (in a park that's all but deserted at this time of year.) We had stromboli for dinner, which is exciting because Wanda taught Ashlee how to make it, thereby adding a whole new dinner idea to our slowly growing list. It was quite tasty, I have to say. Thanks Wanda and Ashlee!

After dinner we visited till after dark and the emergence of the local bat population. It was a pleasure to get to know Pat and Wanda a bit better, as I'd only briefly met them almost four years ago at our wedding. Afterwards Ashlee and I returned (across the street) to our unit where we had wine and a movie.

Sunday morning we were treated to Pat's homemade oatmeal and Wanda's golf cart (with a bit of walking) tour of the park and community complex. We departed late in the morning and buzzed around Tempe and Mesa a bit. We scoped out a couple of the houses again, along with their neighborhoods. By chance we ran into a Home Depot, so we stopped in to see what their kitchen department had to offer. Our realtor showed us another short sale before we ran a couple last minute errands. I took Ashlee back to the dorm and left Phoenix at about four (five ABQ time). Again, one stop sufficed during my 460 mile return drive, and I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow just after midnight in the comfort of an IKEA futon.