We Are Here

We have been here for almost a month and I am a terrible blogger. We moved in the night of August the 21st directly after we closed on the house. It was a perfectly stormy day with lightening and bursts of hard rain to welcome us to green North Carolina. (It is incredibly green here, more so than Hawaii. That is one thing I have already fallen in love with; the green forests, grass, and beautiful plantlife.)

The entire moving process went smoother than I could have dreamed. Flying from Hawaii to California, then driving across country was an adventure and a wonderful time for Daniel and I to explore the US. Our first multi-night stay was in Missouri, where Daniel's parents live. We ended up staying there for a week and a half. We were not in a hurry to get here to NC and live in the hotel on base before our house closed, so we stayed there. Daniel was able to work a few days in the shop with his Dad and I was able to do some great shopping with Mom. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and look forward to another long visit. Here is Daniel and his Dad. (They love getting down and dirty in the shop.)

Once we got here we started visiting churches right away. We have already visited three churches and it seems like there is no end in sight of the churches around here. We are still praying about our choice and planning on visiting some more in the following weeks.

Meli has adjusted peacefully. We finally got her some toys to target her playful biting onto rather than our ankles. She finally knows what it is like to be a mainland cat and be able to drive for long distances without seeing the ocean. I think the one thing she wants to do now is explore the outside. She has started pushing through my legs to get outside to say goodbye to Daniel in the morning. I am not too excited about letting her out on a regular bases, but just in case she escapes we got her a name tag for her collar with our phone number. She is still getting used to that. This picture is of her on the carseat floor. She slept about 95% of the time on the drive across county. She loved having free reign of the car when she was outside of the cat carrier.

When we first moved in we had a few projects in mind for the house. The first big one was painting our red bathroom blue as well as our bedroom. It was our first big painting project together and it turned out great. We are happy with the color and Daniel is a great roller. I was a taper and edger. We made a great team!
Daniel also became an amateur plumber, installing our garbage disposal and removing the toilet to paint behind it. He also did some minor electrical work when he switched around some of the switches for the lights. (Some switch positions were not very logical.) I guess it all comes along with moving into your first home. He will become mister fix-it now for everything... :)

Biggest news this week is our furniture arrives on Thursday! We are very ready for our own bed, pots and pans and every other amenity we have been doing without. We are very gracious for the borrowed items from family and friends. Thank you for helping us adjust. It will have been 4 days shy of two months without our household goods. I am very excited about making our new home more comfortable. There is only so much sitting in lawn furniture you can do. :)Thankfully it is scheduled to come this week!

The unfortunate news for our family is Daniel is going to be deployed again in a few months. He is already undergoing training with several other Marines. The training is keeping him busy and requires him to drive an hour to work everyday rather than the 15 minutes we had planned. We had to adapt to this change in a matter of two days. The USMC keeps you on your toes. I am so thankful we are on the east coast now.

We are so much closer to family and we have already been able to see my side of the family several times since leaving Hawaii. We are grateful for our new house and the ability to have several guests stay with us without being too uncomfortable. (I can't wait to get the furniture!)

Well, that is the update for now. I will post more pictures of the house once we get settled. I hope everyone is able to get this page as clearly as they were able to read our Hawaii page. Thank you for your time and love.