Phew. It's been a whirl-wind of events around here lately! Moving ourselves isn't like it used to be! Dogs and babies sure add to the adventure :)
A few important things happened before we took off from Ft. Rucker, Alabama - they deserve their own posts, but this will have to do... Our good friends
Ben & Chelsa came to visit (if you scroll down, you can see one of the pictures of the daddies and girls). We got to meet little Aubrey for the first time. It was so great to see them, and we were so glad they decided to make the long drive down! Chelsa & I were due the same day, so it has been awesome to swap pregnancy stories and even more fun now to catch up on how the little ones are developing.
Joella had a very special day the day after Matt's graduation. We had her Baby Dedication at church. It was our opportunity to commit to raising her to know Jesus and have the church pray over her and her future. Since it was our last Sunday there, it was kind of a send off for the whole family. We got a couple pictures that day - it was a very personal and touching dedication.
Matt's family came down to help us pack / load. You may remember seeing pictures from Matt's graduation. We all had a late night and an early morning before we checked out of our place. We didn't get to say goodbye to everyone that we should have - we will miss all the great people we met there!
Finding a place to live here at Ft. Hood didn't turn out to be as easy as we expected. Rentals move FAST here. By the time we would find a few properties we liked and call / check on them, they would no longer be available. The first time Matt tried to submit an application, the guy next to him in line was already applying for the very same property. The house we moved into was tricky too. It was actually already applied for, but I guess the first application fell through. We had been calling all morning to check on the status. We rushed to get an application in -- at the same time the person behind Matt in line was also there to submit for it and at least 2 other people called about it while he was in the office. Things aren't quite the same as in Iowa -- we are used to property management companies / landlords meeting us at the property and returning phone calls. Here, they just hand out keys for you to look on your own and have you keep calling them if you want to know something. Scheduling appointments to look at places is rare too. Regardless, we finally found a place that works perfectly for us!
We moved in as soon as we could -- La Quinta was nice, but it was getting old living out of a hotel and we needed to get some serious laundry done! We moved in Good Friday and because of the holiday, the utilities place was closed and we couldn't get our account set for water. Fortunately the electric and water were still on from the previous tenants...
Not for long! We weren't thinking all that clearly and Monday morning went out and bought a LOT of groceries only to find out that the power AND water were out when we got home. Our first clue was that the garage door didn't open... Matt got some ice to salvage most of our food. We only had to go about 30 minutes without water but about a day and a half without power. I actually had fun with it -- kind of like camping inside. Matt made good use of his head lamp :) You can't tell that it was dark in this picture but it was.
Since we have never lived in a house before, we also haven't had all of the responsibilities that come along with it. Matt bought a mower and got to work.
Not only that, but he also spent a good couple of days working on our car. He replaced the axles and fans in our Maxima. We decided to only keep one car down here, so that got interesting when Matt needed extra parts / tools! He took a few runs and we took a family walk to AutoZone. We also rented a car for a day so that Matt could run the errands he needed to get the rest of the needed parts /tools. We started to reconsider our decision to leave ourselves without our second car AND leave my bike across town in our storage unit! Oh well, it's been an adventure.
Stay tuned for Catch Up Part 2: Settling into Texas (more pictures!!!)
Like I mentioned before, we've met some neat people. One of the first families that we met is getting ready to move to Paupa New Guinea - Rich recently got out of the army and will be flying helicopters to transport Bible translators there. They are waiting for their monthly support goals and are planning to move by the end of the year. It's been fun to learn a little about what life will be like for them in the near future. We also got to meet Ruthe's parents who are also missionaries - they are currently working on the Asheninka Children's Shelter in Peru.
