Our house, in the middle of (a) Rome street...

We live in a lovely little apartment building next to the main Academy building. It's accessed by an electronic iron gate that swings open when we wave our keycard at the sensor (one of Indigo's new favorite activities). I believe that there are 7 apartments in our building - all house families. We're in number 5. There's a quaint little elevator that we can use - Indigo calls this the "alligator" and pushing its buttons are another new favorite activity.

The apartment itself is fairly nice. Small by rural standards, but spacious for a city. We inexplicably have 2 bathrooms but no living room. Our kitchen is large, with enough room for a full table and eight chairs, and a couch and side table on one end.

All the main rooms have ceiling fans and these huge windows that you can fling open to let the air in. Also, I suppose, real "Roman" shades. I should take a picture of them - they are unlike anything I've ever seen.

The best part of the house is our patio. We are the only apartment to have one (although there is a rooftop patio, too), which I think more than makes up for not having a living room.

Here is a picture of our patio in the morning. There are a number of pots on the side bench; I think I will get some plants for them. And hopefully remember to water them. One huge bonus of this patio is that it's completely safe for Indigo to be out there, even if I duck back into the apartment for a moment. There's no way that she could fall (or even to climb up on a bench.

Here the view from one side of the patio - palm tree!

And here is the view from the other railing. Both pictures look out over Academy grounds.

Indigo's taken to enjoying her breakfast out on the patio. As soon as she gets her milk in the morning she says, "Outside!" Why not?

For the most part, I really like living here. The apartment's nice, there are laundry facilities in the basement, an inclosed courtyard for the kids to play in, and the added bonus of having several other children in the building for Indigo to play with (and parents for me to chat with). The best part is probably that the Academy has its own private playground across the street, called the Triangle Garden. It's a nice little park, with a swing-set and slide, a sandbox, plenty of room to play soccer or baseball, some benches and a gazebo, and a little water fountain. Plus, lots of trees and shade. It's also gated off, accessible only by our electronic keycards, so it's private and there's no chance of the kids leaving the park and running out into the street. More photos of that playground later.