We've arrived

Well, we've spent night two in our new home...

We left Nevada a week and a half ago. It was a bitterly cold morning, but our friends braved the cold and came and said goodbye anyway. It's hard to leave such loyal people behind! Adam's parents also came out to bid us fare well. We drove ALL day, stopping only for fuel and a couple of meals. We ate lunch in Salt Lake city and dinner the other side of Wyoming, so we made great time. The kids did wonderful for us. The girls used the restroom when we stopped for fuel and meals, so there were no emergency pit stops and no complaints, except for Jacqueline getting tired mid way through day two of sitting and decided to stand and "stretch" in the middle of the van. Day two put us in Oklahoma very very late... like 1 am late! But, we made it there, climbed right into bed and passed out! Much of Monday was spent sleeping in, and we made a trip to say hi to my grandma.
We did get to meet up with my family for dinner that night, and it was fun for the girls to get to run around to so many people they hardly remember and tell them all about our trip.

The rest of the week we hung out with my family, Wed, Adam went on a few calls with my dad and ended up at a fire with the dept and helped put out a fire, this has been established as the best part of his "vacation". Thursday we went to see my aunt and took my grandma to lunch with just us girls. It was fun to have the ladies together for lunch, Grandma of course had to take the girls shopping!! We spent the night with my aunt and was able to hang out with her much of Friday as well. Friday night we spent the last night at my dads house and got to bed WAY to late. We were getting up at 430 to leave.

Sat morning we left in the freezing cold, knowing there had been reports of snow along the way. We drove all day in the pouring down rain, some so bad we could hardly see the big yellow truck in front of us, the wind was terrible! The girls-slept through most of it! We had lunch in Memphis and decided that cracker barrel is not too bad of a place to grab lunch. When we finished lunch, we had to fuel up before heading out, and midway through the fuel up... the hail began. FUN TIMES>

We made it to the other side of TN on Sat. if you've ever driven through TN you know just how long this day was. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful state... but hard to see through the rain and wind. We made it to the little town just outside of the bad part of the mountain range we had to cross, we thought it best to tackle that mountain in the daytime, with fresher-er eyes and brains. We stayed the night somewhere along the smokey mountains. I only know this, cause all the signs kept saying exit to Smokey mountain national park.

Sunday was well..... interesting. Up to this point, we had no actual problems to speak of, just driving and more driving... Until we tried to leave our wonderful little hotel on Sunday morning. It's 530 AM, it's dark VERY VERY cold....and raining.. When Alexandra points out the completely flat tire! UGH... so my dad started the truck which I am SURE made everyone happy since it's diesel and very loud... we put the kids and the turtle in the truck and watched as Adam tried to fix the flat... we used a can of fix a flat to no avail,... so we pulled stuff out of the trunk, Adam lowered the spare tire down from under the van and to our surprise, it was a regular tire... YAY since as I said it was 530 on Sunday morning. 20 min later, we got the tire changed, got fuel, skipped breakfast and headed out. This put us late as we were actually on a schedule Sunday to meet up with the new landlord at 11 am! We started over the mountain in pouring down rain and watched the temp gauge in the van go down to 34 then back up to 38 all morning.. this was important, since they were predicting terrible snow for us... we finally made it over the mountain and into North Carolina. I was sooo grateful to see that sign! We realized two things. However, one.. the guys we hired to help unload the truck, never called that morning to get an address! and Two that we were not going to make our meeting, and I could not find that landlords number... AHH So, I called my brother, who checked my email for me and gave us his number.. YAY technology. By this time the rain/hail/sleet and times made everyone in North Carolina-FREAK OUT!!! Our new landlord, didn't want to drive out to meet us in the "bad weather" and asked us to come to him-in downtown charlotte, with a 26 ft moving truck followed by a 5 ft trailer.. yeah.. okay! We met up with him, got the code for the door, paid him and were off again. By this time it is 33 degrees outside, and just dumping rain... We FINALY made it to the new house, took our first ever look at our new home and then began the terrible task of unloading the truck. alone! It was an adventure to say the very least. My dad lit the gas fire place for us, so we could come in and get warm from time to time. The unloading of the truck could not have been more laughable. We would come in for a break and the rain would all but stop, the second we would walk into the garage.. the bottom would fall out! Several times, the rain made noise.. ah yes the wonderful sound of freezing rain. It was so cold every ones hands just hurt trying to move things into the house. My dad and Adam unloaded that truck from about 1230 until almost 7 pm in the freezing rain. It was terrible for them to be out there! The last 45 min they were out there, the rain turned to sleet freezing on impact over the metal ramp of the truck.. it was down right dangerous to be moving boxes off it. By the time they finished it was snowing, we were starving and tired. We went to go find an Outback I had spotted earlier in the day... this was not easy for two reasons. I could not remember the exact location only the general area and the light snow was now thick heavy wet snow, falling at two inches and hr., We finally found outback, got out of the car and the manager said, we are closing due to snow! WHAT? Are you kidding?? Did I mention it was only 730 at night? So, we asked him to point us in the direction of some where that would not be closed! SO, again we set out wondering around trying to find somewhere.. we found a wonderful steakhouse with a great waiter that made out meal very nice. It was in the fact the best meal we'd had in a while, maybe it was because everything was finally over..., but it was great.
We then had to find a Walmart to buy some things for the house... that was a mess! The roads we were told, don't get plowed here since it doesn't snow... this confused us since we were driving in 4 inches of snow! We got lost finding Walmart since we didn't know many of the roads have two names... we don't know either! We happened upon it at 10 that night and grabbed a few things and went home. Everyone just kind of died... we fell into our beds, and into comas!

Now, apparently since it doesn't snow in N. Carolina, when it does people loose their minds... no one, and I mean no one was open Monday... the Uhaul and Penske places were close... most of the gas stations were closed and there was a spin out or accident every mile on the highway.
We had to make a trip back to Walmart for the rest of the things we didn't get the night before, and 60% of the employees had called out of work that day. SO, the CLOSED half of the store... electronics, jewelry, the auto shop, the bakery -CLOSED. they had one door and four cash registers open. It was the dumbest thing ever! So, for future reference we know that if it snows-don't bother!!

Now, the house? It's great.. the bedroom for Makenzie was so big we put Alexandra in with her, and they have a whole half of the room left... Jacqueline has a big room and then we will have a spare and there is a full bath too. Downstairs is everything else. The kitchen is nice with a decent amount of cabinet space. The master bedroom is pretty big, with a huge bathroom the size of our old kitchen and a walk in closet that could hold a queen size bed in it. The neighbor hood is nice and there are several houses for sale, including a beautiful one across the street!
I don't have pictures yet since all you would see is boxes right now! But, I will get some up soon.

Adam went to work today-thrilled to be back at it. I have to go to the new school today and enroll the girls before we drive each other nuts.. and I am still on the search for a trash can... not cause I'm picky... cause, we can't find one!

I have most of the kitchen unpacked, and we had our first home cooked meal in our home last night YAY.. itwas wonderful!

The cable, Internet and phone are all connected, email me if you need the new number or the new address.

Everyone we have met has been nice, the neighbor offered to move his cars off the street if we needed more room for our truck and cars and another neighbor stopped and chatted with us for a few min about our move... although it really could have waited since he was in his car... and we were standing in the rain... but it was a nice gesture.

We really miss our friends, and things are kinda sad for me that I can't show them our new house, or plan a big move in BBQ with everyone, Adams at work and other than a errand I have to run today, Im pretty much alone here again. It's a rather gloomy prospect that it will probable be some time before I make any new friends here.. mostly because I don't have time to get out for a while. So, Im trying not to let that get to me too much. This weekend my mom and her husband will come for a visit to see the girls, so I have to clear up some of the obstacle course by then, and sometime in the near future, my nephews and sister in law might make a trip, so we have things to look forward to, other than unpacking these boxes!!