Home Sweet Home, in Washington, DC

To quote Chip, "Since our last post, nothing much happened. Just an intercontinental move and buying a house."

It has been a long August. We left Beijing on August 1, bought a car on August 2, house hunted through 30 DC properties, Chip started a new position at DOS, and started Quinn in school.

For more slightly more detail:

-It was a gutwrenching, miserable departure, with lots of tears from Chip, Sarah and Zhang Ayi.

-The car is a lovely red Prius.

-The house can be seen in the photos below. (Taken with Sarah's camera phone, so apologies for the poor quality). We close on September 25th, and not a moment too soon. It is a 2 story row house in the Petworth neighborhood of DC, about 3 minutes walk from the Fort Totten metro station, and near a community garden.

-Chip is enjoying the new job. Lots of China-China-China stuff plus some Mongolia, Taiwan, Macao, HongKong (maybe we'll "have to" go to HongKong for a conference--can't help but hope!)
-After looking at 2 different public charter schools (one that wasn't quite right, and one that was 3 blocks from the house) the Dream School, a bilingual Chinese-English school, called to let us know Quinn was able to attend (he had been #30+ on the waitlist). See http://www.washingtonyuying.org/ for their details.

The front part of the house. I took this photo so Chip could see what was nextdoor--the alley way and the backs of the neighbors. Yes, the 2nd level is a porch. The house faces South on a one-way street.The basement, with full-bath, looking towards the front of the house.

The basement, looking towards the back of the house. This fireplace is non-functional. On the left the door to the "Harry Potter Suite" is ajar.

The back "yard". It is also our parking space, so some of this space will remain gravel, but we hope to garden or container garden most of it over time. The deck and fence are both new.

The kitchen. Has wine fridge too.

The dining area, granite bar that is above/behind the kitchen sink, the

half bath, and Nathan, our agent. Window faces the alley. The living area, with working fireplace, looking back into the dining area. Yes, Quinn is dressed as the Flash.

I don't have any photos of the bedrooms or upstairs, but it has 2 full bathrooms upstairs, and 3 bedrooms. One will likely be an office-y guest room, so come on over!