Progress

I keep meaning to update, but we have been busy, busy, busy unpacking and settling in! Plus, our wireless internet has been seriously acting up, so much so that I have to plug in to the modem in the office to even get internet. So, a lot of my time has been dedicated to trying to fix that instead of blogging. Sorry!

Anyway, I can't believe we've almost been here for 2 weeks already! Our stuff obviously got here on Wednesday, thank goodness! The movers were pretty good, but didn't unpack our stuff like we were told they would. I'm kind of glad though, because it would have been absolute chaos. You see, everything has a number on it (boxes & furniture) and they call out the number when they bring it in and you check it off to make sure you got everything. So, we had 3 movers bring stuff in, Nick checking off the numbers, and me telling them where to put everything. If we had combined that with having to tell them where to unpack everything...no thank you! Thankfully, most of our stuff made it here alright, although they pretty much killed my cheap desk (which I don't really use anyway) and we noticed a few scratches. Somehow, my old TiVo I got in college (6 years ago!) died on the way too, although we moved that ourselves. Thankfully, I have another one though, and I was able to get a really good deal on a replacement.

We're settling in pretty well though. There are still a bunch of boxes, but we're getting there! We recently finished unpacking our bedroom completely. I never realized how many clothes I have until I tried to cram them into one tiny closet, unsuccessfully (half of my clothes may or may not be in another closet...). Apparently I got really spoiled with the walk-in closet I had to myself at our old house! Nick said he never knew I was that much of a girl, ha ha. Now I kind of regret deciding not to use the room with more closets for our master.

The kitchen has been good for awhile too- although we still need to find the tray for our microwave. Random, I know. The living spaces (dining room, living room) are pretty good too. There are probably 10-15 boxes scattered about the house, so it's really not that bad, but I know we're anxious to get settled. And, it's obviously non-essential stuff like books, so we're not in a huge rush to get them unpacked, fortunately and unfortunately. We're getting pretty well organized though. The next step will be decorating. We weren't originally going to hang things on the wall, since we'll only be here until April-ish, but the plain beige walls are a little bit boring!

We're loving it here so far though, especially the dogs! We have frequented the dog park almost every day and Rufus has had a heck of a time attempting to hunt the squirrels in the backyard. The weather has finally turned a bit fallish (thank goodness! 90+ with 100% humidity was starting to kill me) and the leaves are falling and it's just gorgeous! We're definitely loving it here, and the fact that we know and are meeting so many people definitely helps. We had a wonderful lunch with some old friends from Texas on Sunday. Well, off to unpack some more, I suppose.

I swear I'll put some pictures up once the house looks a little more "together".

Settling In

So we still don't have our stuff yet (it's still scheduled to get here on Wednesday, fingers crossed!), but we're settling in pretty well. We've frequented the dog park almost every day, which is especially nice since now our fence is supposed to be put in tomorrow instead of today (annoying, but whatever). As a result, we've met a whole bunch of people already! I didn't know it was so easy to make friends, ha ha.

We also went to our new church yesterday and loved it. I'm so thankful I got a recommendation from a friend who is from the area. Anyway, this was their first week in a new building (convenient timing on our part, ha ha) and everything (worship, the sermon, the people) were great! So glad we don't have to go church shopping! We ended up going out to lunch after wards with a couple we met and

But ya, we're obviously still anxious to have our stuff already and really get settled, but so far we're definitely enjoying ourselves here so far! And we were able to do a little shopping this weekend and get some rugs and stuff to make our new house more homey.

Oh, and since Nick's Captain's course doesn't start until November, he was able to get into a Stryker course in the meantime and is going to try to go to airborne school as well. Busy, busy!

Georgia!

Wow, so much has happened in the week since I last updated. I have no idea where to start! I'll have to update about our last weekend in Texas at a different time because I'm not exactly sure where our camera is at the moment.

The major story is, of course, that we are in Georgia! We loaded up our cars on Monday and had a pretty uneventful 16 hour drive. It was a little bit long the first day, but it made the second day nice and short. We each took a dog in our car and they pretty much did this the whole drive:

Trying to get as close as possible

Although there was a little bit of this too:

So happy to be in the car!

We have some friends here who were nice enough to let us stay with them with the two crazy dogs in tow. Man, a real bed beats an air mattress any day! I think we will be wearing out our welcome soon because, although we were able to get a house (YAY!), the moving company is practically holding our stuff hostage. Our stuff beat us here and got to the area on Monday, but when we called to let them know our new address, they told us that they won't be able to deliver our stuff until next Wednesday! We're praying it will be much sooner! We're really happy that we're fortunate enough to have hospitable friends, but it would be soooo nice to be able to start getting settled.

Anyway, our house is really cute and is only 3 doors down from where we're staying with our friends, funnily enough. It's 3 bedrooms (2 of which are big!) and 1 bathroom (kind of a bummer, but oh well) and we're getting a fence put in the yard for the dogs. It's nothing too special (it's pretty typical Army housing with swanky linoleum floors and stuff), but it will definitely be more than adequate for the time we're here. There was another neighborhood that was available to us as well, but the only houses available were on the second floor and didn't have yards. That made the decision pretty easy! And I just couldn't see us living there, whereas, I knew we could live in our current neighborhood.

Another perk of our neighborhood is that we're within walking distance of the dog park, which is within a nice, big park:

Where we took our morning walk

So far, I'm loving it here though! The humidity is a little rough, but the cool mornings and evenings totally make up for it. I'm anxious to explore more and get back into a routine once we start getting settled.

Boxes, Boxes, Everywhere!

Well, our stuff is now on a truck headed for Georgia! Woohoo! The movers were totally awesome and got our stuff loaded up in about 4 hours.

The packers came on Tuesday and Wednesday and were just alright. They only managed to mistakenly pack one thing we really needed (the bolts to keep our washer from moving- luckily we were able to find those), but randomly left a lot of stuff all over the house. Luckily, most of it ended up getting packed in the end, but it was annoying to find lots stuff here and there that really should have been packed.

It was also really weird realizing what you need/want when all of your stuff is packed (potholders, a teapot, etc). Guess we'll be pros next time around though, which will be way too soon, let me tell you! Here are some shots of how our house looked last night:

Our office full of boxes

A bunch of boxes in our bedroom

The million boxes in the kitchen

But now, our house is very empty, except for all the stuff we will be moving ourselves. It's weird though, I feel like our house is smaller without all our stuff. Like, our Master Bedroom seems tiny! Isn't it usually the other way around? Isn't your house supposed to look smaller with stuff in it?

I'm glad the major moving chaos is overwith and our stuff is on the way, although I really wish it was going to take less than a week (fingers crossed it'll be sooner). Crazy that we'll be in a whole new place next week. I can't say I'm terribly excited to unpack & get re-organized, but I'm ready to be settled again. For now, we're scrubbing the house down and blowing up the air mattress. Monday (when we leave) can't get here soon enough!

Crunch Time

It's crunch time! The packers are coming on Tuesday and Wednesday and moving us out on Thursday. Eek! Today and tomorrow are now dedicated to getting in gear and getting everything ready: namely, putting aside the stuff we're personally moving. I'd like to say we've been seriously working on getting ready for the past few days, but we've been super busy!

I had my last days at the pregnancy center and work on Wednesday and Thursday. It was really weird leaving the pregnancy center. We all had a nice little lunch together and I got lots of hugs and amazing prayers. I'm definitely going to miss those ladies terribly! And, of course, I feel like I learned a ton through volunteering there. One of the biggest things was how God totally provided. Some days (actually, more often than not), we had more ladies coming in than counselors, but somehow it always worked out. And, it was so completely obvious that I was supposed to be doing data entry instead of counseling. I think there were a total of 3 or 4 times that I was supposed to go in the counseling room in the last month, and none of the appointments showed up. I can't just pass that off as irony.

Friday was a post holiday, so Nick and I were able to drive down to San Antonio for a visit with Alice & her husband! We stayed Friday night and did a whole bunch of fun stuff. On Friday night, we ate some delicious Mexican food, went to a horse race (which we got into free- yay military discounts!), then went to a movie theater that also serves food. We saw the Expendables, which was a thoroughly amusing pure action movie. Definitely a good time.

Then, on Saturday, we went down to "float" the river (I talked about it here as one of our Texas "musts"). It was really fun and relaxing, although if I did it again, I'd go when it was a little less crowded. It was sweet floating down the river in an inner tube for 4 hours, although the best part was probably the little rapid-y part that they call a "chute". After that, we all drove up to Austin and had dinner at our new favorite Mexican place. Then, since it was such gorgeous weather, we wandered around downtown and stopped in a couple of bars.

So much fun, but I am completely exhausted! I'm definitely ready for a break, although that doesn't look too likely in the near future. Although we won't have all that much to do once the movers take all of our stuff on Thursday! I'm not totally sure how we're going to last from Thursday when they take our stuff until Monday when we leave, but I'm sure we'll figure it out.

We've figured out all that we need to accomplish in the next couple days and we did some major packing today, so we should be on track, although very, very busy!

Progress

We are really starting to make progress towards this move! Which is good, because we are at 13 days and counting. We've almost had a few meltdowns between trying to tow Nick's Bronco and getting our packers/movers all set up. Thankfully though, God is good and what could have been major fiascos (us not getting our stuff moved, having to drive 3 cars to Georgia) have turned out alright.

Some of the major things accomplished in the last couple days:

-A moving company has already signed on to move us & is coming to check things out on Thursday
- We met with a property manager and we're taking in all the paperwork tomorrow
- We might actually make money renting our house
- We have bought a trailer for Nick's Bronco (since we'll be moving again in less than a year)
- Nick has started out processing & has his clearing paperwork
- We have packed all of our liquids and candles, since the Army won't move those
- We have booked a hotel en route and have a place to stay the night we get to Georgia
- The housing people in Georgia know we're coming

Recovering

Man, I am SO glad it's the weekend. We are thoroughly enjoying getting some time to relax. Nick really hasn't had to go in to work much since his replacement took over, but between visitors and the chaos of getting ready to move, I'm tired!

We had some more fun times hanging out with Mike but he is on his way back to Germany. Our other friends, the K's, had a little party on Thursday night before he left. I don't know the next time we'll all be able to hang out, so that was definitely a good time.

We found out at the last minute that our old youth pastor and his family were planning on coming into town last night. They were going to stay with us but one of the kids got sick, so they didn't end up coming. As much as we would've loved to see them, the timing was probably not the best, so it all ended up working out. And, we were able to be amazingly productive yesterday too!

Scout got dropped off at the vet in the morning and had quite the day, poor baby. He originally went in to get his teeth cleaned and one of his teeth pulled. He had a gross infected tooth when we first rescued him and they did something with it, but somehow it wasn't totally pulled. So, that was the tooth I wanted pulled.

Well, once they put him under, they saw another tooth that needed to go, so they went for it. He also had something funky going on with his eye this week, so they checked it out & sent him home with some eye drops. They also checked out his ears and he had yet another ear infection, so he came home with some ear drops too.

I'm really glad they were so thorough, but at the end of the day he had 2 teeth pulled, his teeth cleaned, an ear infection and an eye infection and came home with 3 different meds. He's doing really well actually, but I just felt bad that there were so many issues with my poor dog.

The most exciting part of the day though was that Nick got his Bronco working! It's a 1971, and let's just say it's "moody". It has literally been sitting in our garage not working since about March of 2008. He's been tinkering with it on and off ever since, but to no avail. He ended up taking it to the auto center on post and was able to DRIVE IT HOME! Very exciting! We were hoping to get it running before we had to move it (we're going to tow it behind one of our other cars-which has been interesting in and of itself), and so that was huge!

We were also supposed to have an appointment with a property manager, but that got moved to Monday. I feel like we're finally making progress! Only about 2 more weeks to go, CRAZY!