Sweet Home California!!

Today marks one week that we have been in our new home! 

What a week it has been!  Last Monday when John called the moving company to see what dates we could have our stuff delivered, we were given the following options:

• May 20th (the next day)
• After June 5th

At this point we hadn't submitted our renter's application yet, so we began frantically filling out paperwork. I dreaded the thought of being stuck in a TLF for another day let alone a couple more weeks.  After we submitted the paperwork, John mentioned to our landlord the predicament with the delivery of our stuff.  Thankfully they approved our application and met us that night to get us the keys to the house.  

All set to go for moving day!

Little did we know that we weren't the only delivery the movers had scheduled for the 20th.  John and I showed up at the house at 8:30 anticipating the movers to be there soon.  LOL! They didn't show up until noon, and even then they only had half of our stuff.  Since the second truck didn't arrive until after 5 PM, the movers didn't finish until 7:30 PM.  It was a long, hectic day, but we were incredibly grateful to get all of our stuff back!

The movers had their work cut out for them

One of the many mountains of boxes o.O

We have managed to make quite a bit of progress with unpacking!  John has been unpacking during the day while I work and I unpack at night to play catchup. Our guest room is almost ready, the office and spare room are almost unpacked, and yesterday we emptied the master bedroom closet of all boxes.  Let me tell you... I was beyond relieved to find some of my summer clothes!  I have been cycling through the same (very limited) selection of summer stuff since April.

 Our house has been every kids' dream come true! We have enough boxes to build the ultimate box fortress!  Unfortunately our "kiddos" have had very different reactions to the clutter and boxes around the house.  Hannah leaps through the house as if she is singing "Falalalalala, spring is in the air!" She loves hiding in random places and jumping out to scare people when they pass by.

Begley on the other hand is very afraid of boxes. We have to be careful when placing boxes in the hallway because Begley  ends up "stuck" on one side of the house.  This is how he spent the time we were unpacking boxes in the closet.

With settling into one place comes belated birthday presents!!  Celebrating a birthday while living in a TLF and in the middle of training isn't exactly fun... but I think the grill made up for it!  

   

I am looking forward to getting completely settled into our new place. For now, I have to make it through Wednesday and get packed for my trip to Florida!  Can you believe that the precious little girl on the right is graduating??

Welcome to California!

We have been in California for a week now and we have stayed busy!  We kicked off last week with an afternoon of house hunting.  John and I have been looking forward to buying a home since we left Alaska.  Boy were we in for sticker shock!  I believe that if you are going to go into debt to buy a house, you might as well love the house you are in. Unfortunately, we have not been able to find a house that we loved within our budget.

During our house hunting adventures we did stumble across a home that, as landlords, is our worst nightmare.  The outside of the home was gorgeous and it had an awesome back yard.  When we took a peek inside... we were shocked.  The tenants' dog had torn the walls to shreds in some places, the grout in the kitchen would have had to been replaced, the carpets needed to be deep cleaned or replaced, and the garage smelled like cigarette smoke. Oh yeah...during our tour I found a melted push pop in a cabinet. o.O The tenant was supposedly a realtor.  How could the tenant let this happen??? All I could think was "What if this happens to our house in Alaska???"   The market here doesn't appear to be buyer friendly, so we have moved on to Plan B- renting.

 We are close to settling on a house to rent. We are hoping to look at one more house this week before making a decision.  At this point, I'd be ok with setting up my bed in a park.  I just want to sleep in my own bed.  Since December 15th we have been in hotels or TLFs for all but 3 weeks.  I miss my stuff. It would be nice to not cycle through the same summer clothes over and over again.  I would like to microwave a meal and not have the Internet crap out on me. I would like to have a clean and spotless bathroom. A thermostat that actually works would be a major bonus at this point.  Oh yes..  in Alaska, our TLF thermostat  was stuck on high so we had to open the windows to cool off.  Now that we are in California?  Our AC doesn't work at all and we have no fan in the room. *facepalm*

We did manage to arrive to California just in time for allergy season.  Poor John has been suffering all week.  Supposedly June is better. I guess time will tell!  Speaking of June... my sister graduates high school in just a couple of weeks!    If we can get settled into a home before my flight out, I should be able to spend some extended time in Florida.  I'm stoked! I'm ready for some sunshine and time with family and friends.

So tomorrow begins a new week!  My fingers are crossed that we find a place to call "home" soon!

A New Adventure Begins!!

We are finally in California!  

Rewinding to Thursday...New Mexico was freezing! We did not anticipate 48 degrees in May.  After we hit the road Thursday morning, we ran into some crazy weather (this seems to be a recurring theme in our road trips). When we stopped to get gas, we noticed that it looked stormy in the distance.  We thought we wouldn't run into any problems.  Hahaha!  John gassed up the jeep while I ran inside to get some drinks.  When I came back out... it was hailing o.O

 Thankfully it wasn't too bad so we were able to keep driving.  

Thursday was a "short" trip day... only 8 hours of driving.  Other than the hail storm, it was smooth sailing.  Cell phone signals were still pretty sparse, which meant dropped work calls and desperate attempts to accomplish as much as possible while I still had a signal.

                                                              Hannah, our navigator

  

Thursday evening we arrived in Lake Havasu, AZ. Our evening consisted of good food, great beer, and even greater company.  There was no debate when we opted to stay another evening.  Despite the fact that we have spent most days sitting in a vehicle... traveling is exhausting.  It' was also  a great opportunity for the furbabies to have some fun and not be cooped up in the car all day. 

Friday after work, I enjoyed a few hours in the pool with a bottle glass of wine. I enjoyed the time in the sun, but am definitely paying for it.  On the plus side... I arrived in California without ghostly pale skin- score!

 The drive to California was great! I enjoyed taking in the scenery and my first California sunset!

So far today we have accomplished restocking the kitchen.  This afternoon we begin house hunting by driving around with a list of homes we have found and figuring out what homes we don't want to tour later in the week.  Living out of hotel rooms is no fun and I am ready to be settled back into an actual house. Please be praying for us this week as we begin searching for our new home!

You're A Long Way From Home...

One thing I have noticed during the trip is that a lot of people will comment on our Jeep tag.  The conversation normally begins with "You're a long way from home..." and is usually followed by "How are you enjoying it here?"  or "How was the drive" or the occasional "You can drive from Alaska to here?!" (thanks to some maps, people think Alaska is an island...)  John and I love sharing our experiences in Alaska!  The funny thing about being a "long way from home" is that home really is wherever the Air Force sends us.  So right now "home" is a hotel room :)

During this trip, I've learned that traveling with pets is a lot like traveling with kids. Sometimes you are lucky and you have  a kid who knows to go to the bathroom when you stop, eat when they are told, and are generally laid back and can entertain themselves (in our case Begley).  Other times you end up with a whiny little brat who isn't happy with their food or the fact that they are having to breathe the same air as a sibling (in our case Hannah). Let's just say Hannah was lucky I didn't drill holes in the car topper and stick her up there today.

Hannah wasn't terrible... but we really did have a long day and her meowing didn't always help the situation.  (I really need to bring those kitty drugs to the front of the jeep tomorrow.)  We left Arkansas by 9 AM, loaded the jeep and hit the road!  Arkansas and Oklahoma were pretty uneventful. 

Texas started out nice...

It went from gorgeous to nasty in no time!  Well... the Texas version of no time, because Texas is huge.

The wind was absolutely awful!  We were already driving 5-10 mph under the speed limit in order to save on some gas, but the high winds we had killed our gas mileage. The wind had the trailer swaying.  With us fighting against the wind, we ended up with more stops for gas.  I would say the perk of such a long day was getting to enjoy our turkey salad twice!  We didn't intend to end up with such a large container of turkey salad, but if you have ever visited Four Winds in Pensacola, FL- you know the owner can talk you into anything.  :)

I ended up doing a lot of work from my phone today.  Working remotely on an iphone is not easy... especially when this much of your "desktop" is displayed.  It took a while to get things done, but projects were accomplished!  (I'm also thinking an ipad for Christmas will save me some future headaches)

 The wind storm finally let up around 8 PM and we still had a ways to go.  Funny thing about New Mexico... cell phone signals and gas stations are hard to come by.  We were just a tad bit paranoid about running out of gas!  After our last stop for gas, I was fighting to keep my eyes open and we still had another hour drive.

New Mexico sun set

We are checked into a hotel for the night (somewhere past Albuquerque).  Hannah just about had a heart attack when we took Begley outside for a walk.  I could hear her meowing down the hallway when we came back.  How we ended up with two pets who suffer from separation anxiety, I will never know...

750 exhausting miles today.  Thankfully, because we drove an extra hour tonight- it will (hopefully) be one less hour of driving tomorrow!

California or bust!

Well, it's been a while since I've been able to write. We have been going nonstop!

John and I had an awesome time in Boston! Considering we were only there a couple of days, we accomplished quite a bit!  

We even managed to squeeze in five games of Settlers of Catan.

  Katie came out the winner by the end of the weekend!

After Boston, we headed back to Dover to pick up all of our stuff. Since we had a change in travel plans we ended up driving straight from Dover to Alabama. John and I have awesome timing when it comes to weather.  We ended up driving straight into the ridiculous weather the south was having. I love a good thunderstorm, but the amount of rain people got was ridiculous. Roads were washed out and homes flooded.  My heart goes out to my hometown. The citizens of Pensacola always rally together to help each other out in a time of need, and this is no exception.

John and I enjoyed spending time with family while we were in town. We finally have both pets back, and oh boy... do we have some retraining to do!  Both of them were spoiled rotten the past few months.  Begley was a hoot when he finally got to see Hannah.  He was licking her face and surprisingly... she let him.

Today, we began the first day of our four day trip to California. For the first two hours of our trip, Hannah would not stop meowing!  Lucky for her, the travel meds were out of my reach. Thankfully (for us) she finally calmed down.  

Hannah didn't miss John at all :P

We are traveling with a trailer this time.  I'm trying to do my fair share of driving....It's just really hard to stay between the lines when you are carrying 15 extra feet of cargo. Aiee.  It has not been fun for me.  I have to give props to my husband..... he is simply awesome and keeps our long car rides fun and entertaining :)

For tonight- we are in Fort Smith, Arkansas.  We enjoyed some fabulous BBQ while catching up with friends in  Little Rock this evening.  Being able to see friends along the way makes these long days totally worth it.

650 + miles covered today, let's see what we can accomplish tomorrow!