We made it!!

Hi friends!

Well, our cross country road trip will definitely be one that we remember forever. (And one day, when we head back to Atlanta, it will seem like the quickest trip ever!)

As you guys know, we ended up getting snowed in in Glenwood Springs (Aspen), but it ended up being a great experience. We stopped off, had dinner at a local microbrewery & stayed at Hotel Colorado, a really cool hotel built in the 1890's. You walk into a huge lobby with fireplaces & comfy couches, and the rest of the hotel basically looks like a mansion with multiple bedrooms, rather than a hotel. We woke up to much snow, but paved & salted roads that we could travel on (thank you, Jesus!). All in all, we had never been to Aspen before and we made the best of it.

We left at 830am on Tuesday from Aspen. We drove through the rest of Colorado, Utah, Nevada and into California. The drive was ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS- mountains, canyons, just beautiful! Pictures will come... our internet is a bit slow here at the Hampton Inn :) We made it into LA around 830pm that night, and stayed in the middle of Hollywood. We had dinner at a cool restaurant right in the heart of Hollywood & got some rest in preparation for apartment hunting the next day.

All day Wednesday we searched for a place to call home. The pricing here is obviously disgustingly expensive... we were choosing between a place more in the city, but for $2100 being the cheapest we could find, we started looking a bit outside of the city. Studio City is where we ended up-- it's 6 miles from Alex's work (we drove it at 6pm on the 101 and made it in 17 minutes!). We got a 2 bedroom for a great price. The city is fairly walkable-- grocery, pharmacy, coffee within walking distance (as well as a couple of restaurants). We have two assigned parking spaces in a covered parking lot (so hard to find here in LA). We are really excited about living in this city! The only thing we forego is that this part of LA is about 5 degrees hotter than other parts; however, for saving about $400 in rent a month, we decided we would sacrifice somewhere!

Things we've loved so far about LA:
 1.) It's a state law to have calories posted for every food in restaurants. Instead of eating about 2000 calories for dinner last night, I ate 800 because I saw the calories. I guess I can't knowingly choose to eat potato skins anymore... :)
2.) The weather is fantastic.
3.) The Morgans live about 5 miles north of us. 
4.) The Hampton Inn we are staying in now... Compared to the place we were staying in Hollywood, we are in HEAVEN. FREE breakfast & parking (hard to find here). Inside. Free WiFi. We will be here until Monday, when we move into our new home.

Things we were really surprised about LA:
1.) There are NO washer & dryer connections in apartments here. To have a washer & dryer in your apartment, you pay an extra $500/month in rent. Very different from Atlanta! Community laundry here we come.
2.) Just how expensive housing is! $2100/month for 900 sq ft! Just as we were getting a bit frustrated and thought we should just get back in the car back to Atlanta, we found Studio City and we were very thankful for that.

When we can, we will post pictures of all of our travels! We love & miss you guys so much and couldn't do it without all of your support. More to come!