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Amanda is officially moved in! Well, at the least, all of Amanda’s things are now strewn about my house instead of strewn about her apartment. It’s going to take a lot of organizing before the whole ‘moved in’ thing feels complete. And if we weren’t so darn social, we might actually get that done. :)

The move itself went surprisingly smoothly. We had the U-Haul truck to her apartment by around 8:30am, and I had most of the boxes loaded before the first people showed up around 8:45. With everyone’s help, we had the truck completely loaded by a little after 10am, with only one casualty: Hannah threw out her back leaning down to pick up a shelf (of all things) and was out of commission for the rest of the day. Luckily, she’d already made us some seriously kick-ass brownies, so I had no problem excusing her from active duty.

We had the truck unloaded and returned to the U-Haul place by a little after noon. After that, it was pizza and beer time. A minute or two after everyone left, my parents showed up to see what we’d done with the place and to play with the new puppy. After they took off, we got a quick nap in before my sister showed up for similar reasons. After they left, we started a movie, only to have one of the neighbors come over. In all, it was the most traffic my house had seen in the entire duration of my residency.

Later that evening, a group of us went out to the Grand Piano Bistro, a fantastic new piano bar that had opened in Des Moines’ East Village the night before. Let me just say: this place is fantastic! The food was masterfully put together, they had a ton of beers and wines on hand in addition to a fully stocked bar (and talented bartender mixing strong drinks), and the music was great fun. Pianopalooza (dueling pianos) was the entertainment of the night. Scotty is friends with Jared of the duo, so he stopped by our table to talk a few times, and Tony is the owner of the club. He had to have been happy with how packed the place was: it took us over an hour to get a table. If you go on a weekend night, I’d suggest getting there for dinner around 7pm and just plan to stick around for the entertainment later.

Sunday, we headed down to Murray, Iowa (my hometown, which I hadn’t seen in quite a few years) for a cousin’s graduation party. It was nice to see the town again, and it was nicer that Amanda’s gotten the chance to get a feel for my roots. After the graduation reception, Amanda used my car to practice driving a manual, since there’s nothing much to hit that far south in Iowa. She did pretty darn well, too. :)

Last night was Kate Hellman’s (or HellKat, as we used to call her) 24th birthday, so Amanda and I headed up to Ames to celebrate with some of the grad crew. It was a nice chance to catch up see some people I hadn’t seen in a while. We had a really good time, though I think she and I are both dragging a bit today as a result of the late (for us) night.

Tonight? Amanda’s got a dinner date with an old friend, so I’m going to amuse myself by going on a jog, entertaining the animals, and maybe playing a little Playstation, as I haven’t gotten a chance to in over a month.

Oh, and watch for new Flickr photos. I went through my photo archives and found quite a few decent ones I hadn’t posted yet, so I’ll hopefully be posting quite a few this week. Adieu!