Last October, Erin and I traded in our cozy (a.k.a small) townhouse in Washington, DC for a longer commute, less crime and more space in Falls Church, VA. Northern Virginia is huge, but it's essentially a bunch of small towns that all run together. Falls Church is incredibly diverse, so you can get just about any type of cuisine you desire on any given night. Overall, we're very happy with the move, although some days we do miss the 2-mile commute to Capitol Hill. We love the front porch on our house and can be found out there at some point during most days if the weather is halfway decent. The house actually used to be a Cape Cod. The previous owners took the roof off, built up the second floor, and totally remodeled the entire home. They did a great job - thankfully for me due to my lack of carpentry, electrical and plumbing skills.

We currently share our home with two cats - Briggs and Jasper. We found Briggs as a kitten outside of Erin's townhouse in Baltimore back in 2004. He was quite scared, wouldn't eat, and hid for almost two weeks. He now is 5 years old, weighs 25 pounds, and has decided that life as a house cat is better than life as an alley cat. After his first vet visit, it was found that Briggs had FIV. Long story short, it's the cat version of AIDS (F standing for Feline). After we moved to DC, we decided that he seemed lonely and needed a friend. We looked around online to find another FIV-positive cat (they can transfer the disease to each other but not to people or dogs), but unfortunately most are put down and not available for adoption. After some searching, Erin found a lady in Maryland who had gotten one through a trap and release program and wasn't able to take it to a shelter for adoption. We jumped in the car, drove up to Baltimore in the snow, and got Jasper. She waived the background check, figuring that if we drove up to Baltimore in the snow to get an FIV-positive cat, we must have really wanted him.