A toast to Champaign!

Well we have mostly unpacked now in our new house we are renting. Truth be known we have so much space we don't know what to do with ourselves! The first two days we really only stuck to a couple of the rooms, like we were still in a one bedroom place. Lola wouldn't travel any farther then the kitchen and under our bed..that was as far as she was going. Today she discovered there is a whole other end and stairs! I have posted a few pictures, those who have visited us at our previous place will appreciate the grandness of our new place.

Over all things are much slower here compared to living in Chicago, people are VERY Friendly, don't get me wrong people in Chicago are really nice as well for being in a large city, but this is like "down home cooking" friendly. A good example would be today we went to the post office and normally we are use to waiting in line for an hour and you get up to the desk and they are rude as all get out and not helpful in the slightest. Here, we walked in, no line, a man by the name of John greeted us, and asked how he could help us. Took care of my stuff that I needed to mail, apparently something went awry on his end, and was very apologetic and corrected it. I have to say it was one of the most pleasant post office experiences I have ever had! As far as getting around, at first we worried that we would have to get a car, which was something we really didn't want to do right now. There is still a chance we might need it later but the longer we can put it off the better. Especially since I am back to looking for a job, money it a bit tight. The bus system seems pretty good, it is definitely slower then the EL in Chicago where if you missed the train you knew there would be another one in about 10 minutes. Here if you miss the bus..expect to wait 30-45 minutes.
(part of our new Kitchen, please excuse the mess. The carpet is not our choice) We found a grocery store, food is a bit more expensive here, but then again we did most of our shopping at Harvest time in Chicago which is the cheapest produce I have ever seen in my life! Reality is I am sure they are pretty comparable with the rest of Chicago. (Other half of our kitchen, triple the space we had before)
I must say my favorite part of our new place: the brand new washer and dryer! Followed by our large front porch, we have sat out there almost every night since we got here. We found this place back in April when we came in for a weekend, and we should have taken photos of it. When it came time for us to pull up on Monday we had no idea what this place looked like. We both remembered different things; we were blown away by this place when we did our walk through. Much bigger and nicer then either of us recalled, which is great, it would have been a shame otherwise. Even though we are renting, we still want to take pride in our place and it needs a face lift in a few places and minor things we could do as weekend projects. The landlord was mentioning he wanted to paint the interior of our door to match the exterior, next thing I know Paul volunteered me for the job! LOL..I don't mind at all, I was hoping he would let me do little things like that and he's going to supply the paint. Then I went into our main bathroom, and there is this very aqua blue trim going on, it has been chipped away over time. So I decided that was going to be my first weekend project to paint that and make the main bathroom feel more spa like.

Overall I have to say we have both been pleasantly surprised by Champaign, maybe this won't be as scary as we thought.