Well I can't think of a better birthday gift for my friend, Bridget.  Much to her horror, we have lived in the suburbs for the last 4 years, and yesterday, her 26th birthday, was our first day in our downtown apartment.  After a weekend of packing (and sleeping in the family room), several trips in Mom's SUV and David's "boat," we have almost all of our clothes here as well as our toiletries, most of the refrigerator and pantry.  As the place is fully furnished, we really don't need much else to get by day-to-day.  After reviewing our landlord's selection of cutlery, we decided we definitely need more (I go through the 4 forks provided in a sitting), and our coffee pot also made the initial move (the one cup pot provided won't get Joey out of bed).  I'm glad that we had to make this interim move because it's helped me mentally separate what things I want to take with us from place to place and what things of others I don't mind using. 

I think this move is also going to help us get the dogs trained before we leave.  Which is going to be a monumental task.  After the car ride over (they were all bucked in, much to their chagrin), George decided it'd be a great idea to shit on the entry rug.  Shortly thereafter, I caught Moe lifting his leg over the recliner where Joey was sitting.  Each spanking was followed by attaching a leash, fielding the other two dogs while trying to leave the apartment, trudging down two flights of stairs to "go potty outside."  I believe that's all the accidents we had yesterday, but the rest of the night I couldn't really concentrate on much other than the dogs who were sniffing every corner of the apartment.  Trying to get them to sleep wasn't too bad but Moe was up roaming every hour which just made me nervous.  So, needless to say, I'm exhausted.  When the dogs woke us up at 6, I took Moe and George outside, who decided to charge a Marine in the stairwell and a chihauhau outside.  Our walk to Gray's Lake (where we got a shout-out from Ashley in her Buick) was was diverted due to flooding, but walking by the sculpture garden definitely helped remind me how all the amenities down here are going to outweigh the royal pain in the ass that the dogs have already presented.  I just ordered "the indoor barking dog deterrent" too so between that and the twice daily walks, I think we'll get by.

Here's a few pictures of the place: