Home Sweet Jacksonville!

Well it's officially green around here.  And yellow... aaaah... ahhh... aaahhh-CHOO!!!!  whew.  excuse me.  And while we've got the lovely (and not so lovely if you include the pollen...) parts of spring blooming all around us, it seems that winter invited the wrong successor to come take it's place.  And believe it or not, the I am welcoming warm summer temperatures.  I like to think of it as practice for what's to come.

Speaking of which, Aaron and I made our way to Jacksonville this week to "house hunt" (aka find a suitable home to rent).  And wouldn't ya know we found the PERFECT house!  We were getting a little nervous when our favorite homes on our anal-retentive excel spreadsheet were dropping like flies the week before our weekend trip.  Fortunately, one of our favorite houses remained and its all ours come May 19th.  Which - may I say - is 23 days away.  One score and three days.  Holy macaroni.

Here are a few pics of our new place.  Disclaimer: I didn't take them.  I yanked them from the website of the listing because I felt bad taking pictures of the interior of someone's home while they were still living there.  Also, be warned...it's quite colorful...and we LOVE it.  We literally said, "Where do we sign?" after being in the house for a grand total of 90 seconds.  Don't worry, mom, we looked around some more before actually signing.

It's a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom single family house with a 2 car garage and a deck and a fenced in backyard and an extra sunroom-type space for...we don't exactly know yet.  Check it out!  Can you tell we're excited?  (warning: please forgive the awkward spacing and the order of the pics...)

Outside, from the side.  Only picture I took myself.

Living room. (Currently used as a "sitting" room.)

I. Love. This. Kitchen.

Dining room.  Orange like my old Tallahassee townhouse dining room!

Guest bedroom. 

Master bath.

The room that will likely serve as Aaron's office.

The master bedroom.  I think they just liked these colors.    That or someone in their family  came down with a severe case of liking the Gators.  Needless to say, we won't be borrowing their bedroom decor.

The extra room that they currently use as the living room.

I cannot wait to cook in here!

Finding a great place like this certainly helps in making the move something to look forward to.  I'm starting to get a little sad to leave DC/NoVa, but this weekend confirmed that we are making the right choice, and got us really excited about heading back to the homeland ;)  where sunshine, Publix, Sonny's and Pollo Tropical are right around the corner.

Oh, and, did I mention that this was our 2nd appointment on the first day we had reserved for house-hunting?  We didn't have any problems filling our extra time...

Jax Beach! 10 minutes from our new digs.

And of course we were reminded of the other bonuses: FAMILY!  Because we got to see AJ, Lianne +1, and Julie in Orlando before flying back to DC.

The girls on the Wilson side...all 3 of them :) :) :)

That's all folks.  Thanks for getting excited with us about the move, even if you're on the Virginia side of the equation...we're so thankful for our wonderful friends and family!

Much love XOXOXO

Our Anniversary Trip!

Aaron and I celebrated 2 years of marriage on Monday, so this past weekend we went on a celebratory trip to Philadelphia and New York City.  We first took the train up to Philly and did a crash-tour around the city.  The next day we went up to NYC, to hang there for about 24 hours before making our way back to DC.  It was a whirlwind of a trip, but we had a great time exploring some of the cities we'll be quite far from come May :(  Here are some pics...we were able to squeeze a lot into one weekend!

Us in Philly...on the double-decker bus on a sunny, but windy day.  It was a great way to see a lot in a little amount of time.

The Betsy Ross house.  Would be cooler if they hadn't told us Betsy Ross probably didn't design the American flag.

Eastern State Penitentiary.  

That place was super creepy inside.

Thought this little logo was cool.

Did I mention it was windy?  And that I forgot my hair tie?

The Liberty Bell!  (Independence Hall is not pictured because - as luck would have it - it was under construction.)

In LOVE park.

Did you know that the game Monopoly came from Philly? (This is me with the hat game piece, with pieces from the games Sorry! and Bingo in the background.)

City Hall is a gorgeous building.

And then, of course, we had a Philly cheesesteak.  Ohmygosh YUM.

They even helped us non-locals figure out how to order.

On Saturday AM, we went on a tour of West Philly (on the metro) to view some of the 3000+ large murals found in Philly.  These murals were painted by notorious graffiti/mural-artist Stephen Powers.  They are designed as a love letter from a guy to a girl...and also to the community around them.  Pretty desolate area of town, but some really cool murals.  It's called the Love Letter Mural Tour if you're ever interested in going, it was really cool!

After the LOVE tour, we grabbed some lunch (Jimmy Johns!) before heading up to NYC.  While it was crazy-rainy weather once we got to the city, we still enjoyed our time in NYC.  We went on a cruise of the Hudson/East Rivers to view the night-time city skyline (clouded a bit by rain), grabbed some delish pizza at Don Giovanni's, then stayed in the Marriott Renaissance Hotel 57 (love it there!).  The next morning, we got up the next morning to spend a little quality time with my good friend Macy before taking the train back home.  Some more pics:

Life preservers on the boat.  Were these supposed to make me feel better?

The rainy Manhattan skyline.  Still beautiful.

A million floors of bliss.

We came home on Sunday, but our anniversary was actually yesterday, so we continued the celebration by grabbing dinner at Old Ebbitt in DC last night.  We took a walk afterwards around the Ellipse near the White House to walk off all the good-eats from the last 3 days.  Here we are: HAPPY 2 YEARS!!

Caleb came to visit!

So, this past weekend, we had the chance to hang with Aaron's cousin Caleb (who I've adopted as my cousin as well since I don't have any immediate cousins on my side of the family).  He made a mini-tour to visit his cousins over his spring break from school (He first went to AJ & Lianne in Orlando and then came to us in DC)!  We had a great time visiting with him :)

Our days were comprised of doing DC-style things, eating, playing video games (I watched!).  Here are just a few of the pictures from our time together...

The guys went to the top of the old post office building and got some cool shots of the city. 

Caleb @ the WW II Memorial.  Pictured with the Atlantic theater that the boys' granddad fought in.

Cherry blossoms and TJ.

Gorgeous pic of the blossoms and the Washington Monument.

We went to the Air and Space museum in Dulles.  So fun!

Cousins getting ready to go watch some soccer.

DC United vs. LA Galaxy.

An incriminating photo of Noa on the couch with her favorite new buddy.

That's all folks!  Lots of great stuff coming up for the VA-soon-to-be-JAX-Wilsons...we'll be super busy for the next several weeks and will definitely be sharing our adventures!  

Ciao!

We're moving back to the sunshine state!

I guess this is as good a time as any to share with everyone [officially] that we'll be moving back to Florida in May of this year!

After my graduation (May 15th, but who's counting??  Oh yeah, ME!), Aaron and I are planning to pack up and head back to our home state.  This is the new city we'll call home:

Jacksonville, Florida

While we love it up here in the DC area, it was time to make the big jump back to the sunshine state.  We'll miss a lot about this region!  Particularly...

DC and all the fun stuff it has to offer! 

Spring! (Which, unfortunately, has not arrived yet.)

Free stuff to do on the weekends (like seeing non-lady-like pandas at the zoo).

Being in the beautiful capital city of the USA!

Georgetown Cupcake.  WAHHHH

Our wonderful wonderful (did I put wonderful already?) friends!!! 

Our church home!

Wegman's.  Our beloved grocery store...

Fall colors.

When winter is pretty.

There's so much we'll miss.  I just don't have the space to give a picture shout-out to all of the reasons we're proud to call DC/Northern Virginia home.  There are some things I won't miss much.  This pretty much sums it up:

Snow in March.  And prolonged bouts of cold weather in general.  And digging out my car.  And wearing socks for 5 months straight (not the same ones).  And being pale.  And having a vitamin D deficiency.

Things in Florida that are calling our name:

Sunshine.  And a high of 86.  Yes, please. (Although I'm sure I'll be over the heat by June)

My sistas!  And the BEACH while we're at it. 

My parents!

Aaron's parents!

My favorite brother and sister-in-law!

And our favorite new niece, Kaitlyn Marie!

Annnd the Florida State Seminoles being 2.5 hours away!

We'll update everyone once we figure out the exact whereabouts of our new digs, but for now, just wanted to share the news!  (And while I realize the timing of my post... no, this isn't an April Fools joke...)  Have a happy day!!