Dreams becoming reality

I can't express how exciting it feels to be counting down the days until I'm in Dallas. Here's a picture of Ben and I at my favorite chicken finger place--Raising Cane's! This was right after he picked me up at the airport. I'd been asleep for 3 hours (my flight was at 6:15am Cali time) and it was already time for lunch! After this we went back to Ben's apartment where he caught up on some homework while I slept for a bit. Then we went to Half-Price Books in Dallas near SMU so I could sell some books and buy some more (our favorite thing to do).

Today, we went apartment shopping. Since I'll be moving here right aft

er graduation, we have to start looking now. This is the last trip out to Dallas that I'l

l take before I move out.  All that to say this was our only chance to check out apartments together! We are trying to stay pretty local so we can commute easily no matter where we work. We decided to look in Plano, a suburb of Dallas. First we went to Hunter's Glen.

They were okay. We decided that since these were the first ones we were looking at, these could be our fallback. On the advice of our friend Jake, we checked out the cars in this complex. They were on par with cars one would find at a college. All in all, this one was a maybe.

Next we went to Madison at Chase Oaks.

The gate required a remote so we had to go inside and meet with a leasing person. We gave her all of our preferences and she showed us a 1 bed/1 bath unit.

This was the outside of the apartments. The complex was full of nice cars =)

This is one view of the 1 bed/1 bath. It was small, but we expected that. Something like this in CA would easily go for $900 a month. The price as it stands right now is $630/month. In this picture, Ben is standing in the dining room. The wall to his left are mirrors to make it look bigger. You might be able to tell if you click on the pic so it enlarges, but the crown molding was what impressed me in this unit.

This is the bedroom. I loved the big window here, and especially loved the walk-in closet. It was pretty good size as well. The picture below is the same room, only the view from the closet. The door on the left leads to the living room and kitchen and the one on the right leads to the bathroom.

We LOVED this apartment. I had actually wanted one with a fireplace. The units on the third level have these, and we did go to see it. The fireplace was weirdly placed and the washer and dryer were in the entryway. I'd post the rest of the pictures of this apartment right now, but it's 11:47 Texas time and I'm exhausted! More tomorrow!