We're here!!

Metropolis, home of Superman!

Viva Las Vegas!  This is all 6 of us:)

Somewhere in a desert ...

Home, sweet home!

It is hard to believe I'm officially LIVING in the big, beautiful state of California!  The days have been sunny and blue, the weather has been DIVINE, and amazingly enough, I'm loving apartment living.  I really was unsure whether or not I would like it.  Lack of privacy, lots of noise, living somewhere other people had lived previously ... it just seemed like a great big step backwards from owning a house.  But ... it's pretty cool.  First of all, the place was SPOTLESS when we moved in.  Not a blemish on a wall, not a cobweb to be seen, sparkling bathrooms ... when we rented a house years ago right after I got married, it was GROSS.  I mean, we were cleaning while we were trying to move in, and it was AWFUL.  Now, here we were trying to stuff 10lbs of mud in a 3lb bag, but at least we weren't having to paint/dust/fix stuff while we were at it!

The good thing is I got rid of a LOT of stuff.  I mean, we threw away tons of crap before we even left, and as I was unpacking here, threw away MORE crap:)  When we started loading up the moving van, the hubs was seriously worried everything wouldn't fit.  Like, he was really freaking out about it!  But, because he is a wizard at the game of Tetris, it all fit, and we made our way west!  What an experience.  My in-laws went with us and drove our truck.  We pulled the car behind the moving van.  Little dog rode in the van, big hairy dog rode tethered in the back of the truck.  She did GREAT until we hit Nevada with the literal 121 degree temps.  At that point, we pulled her big, furry butt into the truck with us, and squeezed her into the floorboards with all of us 4 people and all our stuff.  It was NUTS how cramped we were the entire time!  But we made it happen:):)

I was honestly surprised that the Vegas heat didn't go away at night.  I truly thought the temps would go down to the 60's or so.  Not there!  It got down to around 95.  Wow.  I have never experienced that kind of heat, and I don't care to experience it again!  Next time we head there, it will NOT be in the dead of summer.  Rifle, Colorado was a little hidden treasure that I would LOVE to see again.  It's just outside of Vail, and is so raw and beautiful, but not as touristy as some of the other places.  Gorgeous!  The Rockies would have been fun to drive had it NOT been for that danged moving van.  That thing was affected by the altitude, and the weight.  It was driving so badly, David had to unload the car, and I had to drive the car through the mountains.  We STILL had to chug along at about 30 mph, but at least we didn't blow an engine, phew!  Speaking of blowing an engine, I was definitely worried about tires.  God was with us, though, and we actually made it 2800 miles with OUT blowing any tires.  Thanks to the hub's vigilance, though, we ALMOST did blow 2 on the trailer.  We had stopped in St. Louis Missouri to sightsee at the arch, and he glanced down at the back trailer tires.  Both back tires were in seriously bad shape.  One had a huge flat spot, and the other seemed to be separating, so we called Penske, they sent a mobile repair unit within an hour, and they were quickly and with no hassle replaced.  Even though the van was loud, cumbersome, and had a crap engine when it came to "pulling the mountains", I would recommend the company again.  Great price, great customer service!  We took time to stop at all the rest areas in each state to get pictures with Piney the pine cone, as well as some cool family pics.  We never plan to make that trek again, so we had to document for sure!  It was exhausting, it was stressful, but at times it was pretty cool.

It's now Thursday, we REALLY began to unload boxes last Saturday.  We arrived late Tuesday evening, unloaded the van, then returned the van Wednesday morning.  We then took day trips to the Avenue of the Giants, Lake Tahoe, and San Francisco.  The in-laws had never been west of Alabama before, so we tried to squeeze in as MUCH as possible on this trip!  It was exhausting to drive 5 hours one way after we'd spent 5 days driving across the country, but hindsight is 20/20.  In the end, I think it was worth it!  It was great to see the sights again, and to witness the in-laws' shock and awe.  Saturday morning, we took them to the airport, and then came back home and began to demolish the towering stack of boxes.  AND to put back together every little dinky piece of furniture we'd had to take apart.  Wow.  What a task!  I'm proud though, by Monday things were a little less chaotic, and by today things are 100% done, finished.  All that's left to do is hang a few more pictures here and there, but it's ALL DONE.  And I'm happy!  The apartment in many ways is nicer than my house was.  WAY cleaner (guess that's my fault!).  Nicer counter tops.  Better walls.  Crown moulding.  Better (and cleaner!  and no holes in it) carpet.  Better tub.  Bigger bathrooms.  Bigger 2nd bedroom.  Better washer/dryer.  WAY worse fridge though, that's a bummer:(  I loved my double door/ice and water in the door combo and we traded that for an el cheapo basic model.  Oh well, I will get over that!  We have de-junked so much that everything feels so much cleaner and fresher.  We tend towards clutter, so trying to get away from that.  We HAVE to with our limited space!

I will post some more stuff later.  This is already a novel!  I only just now today turned on my computer for the first time which is why you're seeing this blog post:)  I will get back into the swing of things, it just takes time!  Trying out having no cable TV for the first time ever ... we bought an antennae, and will be using Hulu and Net Flix.  I will let y'all know how that works for us.  So far so good ... Just grateful and thankful we're here!  Not sure why yet, but I know this is where we're supposed to be.  We will go enjoy the pool/hot tub after dinner and say our thanks as we fall into bed:)  This is an exciting adventure so far, I will keep y'all posted.  Night night you east coasters!!