Home Sweet Home

PRAISE GOD!! We finally found a place.

Our last week at the hotel we decided to look for a place off post all week long from dawn until dusk if we had to. Thankfully, however, God had other plans. Yes, we spent all day Monday (7/18) looking for a place and we went from the lowest of low houses to the ones we wished we could afford but weren’t even for rent or sale. We went to a realtor’s office for a list of available rent houses and he was trying ever so hard to get us to BUY a house even after we told him no over and over. He said you can get a good house and could get us a payment that would be $600 a month. HAHA Thank goodness we are on the cash flow plan and according to Dave Ramsey, we need to be able to put 20% down when we get a house…so that’s what we will eventually end up saving for.

Anyways, back to the house. After a discouraging day of looking it was 3pm and we stopped and tried one more realtor. She gave us two houses in our exact price range. They were the last two we viewed that day. Well yep, after looking at both (twice, we went back to each house twice to make sure we were set on a decision) we went back to the realtor and told her we were interested in the first of the two she had given us.

She told us there was another lady interested in the house we liked and let us know that she takes the applications on first come first serve basis. So instead of leaving her office with the application and thinking it over for the night, we applied right then and there. We turned in the application at 4:45 and she called us as we got back to our hotel around 5ish saying that we had been APPROVED!!

So, Thursday we signed the papers….and got all of our electric and water set up, and also got an appointment to have our furniture and stuff brought to us the following Tuesday (7/26).

This is the outside of the house.



CAMPING OUT:
Our days at the hotel had expired, the army’s 10 days were up and we stayed longer on our dime…so Monday 7/25 we had to check out of the hotel and have a camp out that night at our new house with no furniture or anything. So we went out and bought an air mattress…




Let me tell you about the house…

It’s a beautiful two bedroom, one bath house with a big backyard, wood floors and a small, rocky driveway. A perfect house for the two of us just starting out. We’re so excited, this is our very first house together.
--There’s a park right in front of our house and it’s filled with prairie dogs or gopher things and they have huge holes and they’re always out walking around or sitting up and eating something. It’s way cute.
Before we went to bed last night) we took a walk around the park area. It’s very beautiful and a nice little walking/joggin/running area. Here’s some pictures of our sunset walk.





Moving Troubles:

We were supposed to get our furniture and stuff delivered on Tuesday, but when 3 o’clock rolled around we called to see when they might be heading over only to find out that our stuff was lost. They had no idea where it was in storage and they never contacted us until we called them. So the whole day was a waste. We ended up getting up before 7 just to be ready for them at 8am and I was so looking forward to our bed. One night on the air mattress was enough for me. But, you know what they say, “you wanna make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” We didn’t end up getting our stuff until late Wednesday afternoon. Once it was all moved in, Man our house went from being big and empty to feeling small and cramped.





As soon as the movers left we got to work. First and most importantly we wanted to put the bed together so we’d finally have our very own queen size comfortable bed to sleep on.




Then I started on the kitchen so we could finally get a home cooked meal. After three weeks of nothing but fast food or out to eat restaurants. It took me a while but now that it’s all set up im ready to start cooking…





Here's another picture of the progress we're making on the house and unloading....actually we only have a few more boxes to go so it's almost all done! :)






There's some more new to write about but ill have to post it later :) Right now im going to spend the rest of this evening sitting on the couch with my amazing husband watching some tv before church tomorrow.

Welcome to Oklahoma....

We made it to Oklahoma around 5p.m. last Saturday afternoon. We got all our things up to our new temporary home (aka the hotel room)

This is our hotel room from the distance...


What a long trip, thankfully it wasn’t as long as the one from NY to TX. After we got checked in, we got some dinner and decided to just rest at the hotel for the night!


We have a beautiful view of the mountains…I can’t get over how beautiful the sunsets are!




Last Sunday we tried out First Baptist Church in Lawton. It was a good first visit. We plan to continue to go back and eventuarlly try out the Sunday School to see if we can find one so we can get more involved. We were so blessed to have found a great church to visit on the first try. We may keep trying others, but I was blown away by how easy it seemed after 6 months in NY not finding any good churches that use the Word of God.
--we went back this morning and were blessed again with another good message.
Yes, we’ve been blessed and I have a feeling it has something to do with all the prayers from before we even left New York for a church home.

After church Aaron went to the Welcome Center and signed in




Then we spent the afternoon at the mall and driving around post and Lawton to get our bearings.

HOUSING:

We finally got on the housing waiting list on Wednesday thanks to my amazing Aaron. We spent Tuesday looking around at apartments and townhouses….and Thursday we went to look at a few houses just in case we have to live off-post. Im so thankful for Aaron and him getting information about other houses off post that may be more in our budget. He’s so helpful and im glad we’re going through this together. We’re still praying for a place to live (preferably on post) but waiting for God’s guidance to wherever He wants us to live.

Time Moves Fast: The End of Our Stay in Texas

It's amazing how time flies when you really wish things would just stand still because you want to just live in those moments where you're at home, surrounded by the ones you love, and relaxing.
Well that's how i felt the two weeks we were home. Aaron got to see his parents for a few days and i spent most of my time with my family. We stayed at my parents' in Waco the whole time except the weekend we went to South Padre with Amber and Aaron's nephew (and mine!!)
Im so thankful for the time we got to spend back in texas with the ones we loved. Im especially thankful for all the my parents did for us by letting us crash at their place for two weeks and eat their food etc.
My favorite memories were the nights that the four of us (my parents, Aaron and I) would stay up till midnight playing Nertz and the times i got to spend with my little sisters playing soccer outside with them or listening to Arianna read me a story and giving a heart to heart talk to McKayla- big sis to little sis. I love my family and i definitely love being a big sister.

Now here are pretty much a whole bunch of pictures from the last few days we were there....

RACES















We raced to the swings...





My dad and I had a nice chat and saw we were being spotted with the camera so we picked our noses ;) I love him!


Overall, we had a great afternoon at the park.



SOUTH PADRE ISLAND

Aaron and I invited Amber and our nephew Jacob to the beach for the weekend. We enjoyed the schlitterbahn and the ocean…it was a great vacation! We got a hotel actually on the island so we could spend most of our time at the water no matter where we were….there’s a lot that happened but overall we had good memories and nice sunburns to show for our amazing weekend!




And more pics...

TEXAS

Picture from Saturday when we arrived in Texas. Dad sent this photo to mom when we had just got home that afternoon. She was at a scrapbooking class all day and when she got the text she was so excited we were home she text back and said she was leaving early! :)

BACK IN TEXAS

We got to leave NY around 2pm on the 23rd. Aaron and i ended up making it back to Texas by the 25th around 3 in the afternoon. The trip was long. We were able to pack everything in our car, but just barely. We ended up riding with stuff in the front passenger seat too where the passenger should have leg room for a long road trip, but we made it somehow. By Saturday we sure were glad! I don't think we could have traveled very much longer!!

When we got to Waco, we surprised everyone!! I got BIIIIIG hugs from my adorable sisters (all three of them) and my mom and dad. It was great.

Sunday we got to go to church and went out to lunch as a family (everyone but Amber cause she went back to her place)...just a great start to a relaxing few days before moving onto Oklahoma and starting yet another interesting journey of life.

Next step was to make sure everything was ready for the movers to get our storage unit cleared out and taken off to another temporary home until Oklahoma...Boy, we had no idea what we were in store for TODAY!

This moring we had a little trouble with our movers. Turns out that the army double booked us. We had an 18wheeler come and the guy was like "are y'all having movers come to load this thing?" and "Where will you be wanting this delievered" and "Will you be able to take delievery on Thursday?"

Well of course we had no answers for any of the questions. The army just told us the movers would come with boxes and packing stuff and would repack our stuff for us really good and take it to storage until we had a place or for up to 90 days.

So 20 minutes later, Aaron gets ahold of the Movers and they show up with their boxes and ready to load up in THEIR own truck lol...they asked us what the 18 wheeler was doing here because they had NO idea what was goign on with that either. lol





Well, anyways, long story short... the 18 wheeler dude ended up leavign and the movers repacked, loaded up and moved our stuff out of our storage unit.

Phew! Now we're set for the rest of our "vacation time" here in Texas till we go to Oklahoma.

Now Aaron's visiing his parents in College Station while im enjoying time with my family. And this weekend we're going to South Padre :)
Life is Good...

Getting Caught Up

Last week was a pretty FAST week...

TUESDAY *June 14th *
I spent the morning with my friend Brittney and her kids. We went to Target looking for her a swim suit because we were planning to go to a waterpark that weekend. After swim suit shopping we ended up at Lowe’s while she looked for her dad a father’s day gift and stuff. It was a nice morning just chilling and tagging along on her shopping trip. It was nice to get away from the house. Then we had lunch and she had more stuff to do that afternoon so she dropped me off at the apartment.

That afternoon, Aaron and I made a spontaneous trip to Alexandria Bay, NY. It was about a 35 minute trip, not far at all. We ended up taking a boat ride to see Boldt Castle. We got to walk around inside the castle (which definitely isn’t as cool as the castles in Europe) and stuff. It wasn’t as great because they’ve remodeled the castle and it doesn’t look anything like the original *they showed pictures*
But the outside was beautiful and the water surrounding it was too. It was cool going on the boat ride there because we were the only ones on it on the ride over. It was a pretty quiet day, just walking around and viewing the beautiful place. Here are a few pictures…




These show the updated rooms and the way they used to look





And here's some more...





We also would have LOVED to cross this bridge….yep, it’s the bridge to CANADA, but yep, no passports : ( but I still had to get a picture of it!



WEDNESDAY *June 15th*
Aaron and I had a picnic at Thompson Park. After eating we walked about 6 miles walking the beautiful trails, we definitely got our exercise in, by the end of it my legs were burning from a steep hill we had to walk up for FOREVER lol. Gotta love being in the mountain/hilly area! I took random pictures of myself cause I was having way too much fun






Thursday *June 16th*
Aaron had CQ on Thursday. CQ is a 24 hour shift where they “guard” whatever they’re in charge of “guarding.” In this case, Aaron was supposed to man a desk at one of the barracks. So at 8:30 I took him to CQ and dropped him off.
After I left, I went and picked up my friend Jessica and her baby Leon. I had invited them out to walk around the park with me like Aaron and I had done the day before because I felt so good after that good walk and exercise. We enjoyed a nice, but hot walk. Pushing the stroller and the sun beating down on us the whole time (cause we couldn’t take the paths with trees and shade with the stoller, there were too many stairs) it was really hot so we didn’t stay as long as I had hoped for, but the conversation was nice and to get out with Jess was fun. We walked 5K, but by the time we made it around to the car we were pooped, and lil Leon was sweating even though all he had to do was sit in the stroller while WE pushed and WE walked lol

*After dropping them off I went home and made some sausage bread for the Yorks. Brittney and Sam have been amazing friends since we’ve been up here, they’re so nice and I kinda wanted to make it to say Thank You for letting us use their washer and dryer sometimes so we don’t always have to go to the Laundromat.

I brought Aaron lunch and we played some Nertz for an hour or so and then I went to the Yorks and dropped off the sausage bread. I then headed home to get the computer and make brownies for Aaron while he was on his shift. At that time I decided to take a shower and get movies, games, and candy so I could stay with him for a while until it came night time.
Well, I ended up staying up with him throughout his whole shift. We barely made it. And yes, I’ll admit I went to sleep in the car when he had to go turn in some of his army stuff and when he went back to finish off his shift. So, I stayed awake for all but an hour of the 24 hour shift…I definitely feel sorry for those guys. It was so boring and I had Aaron around, I can’t even imagine what it would have been like to be alone for that long, it was definitely a LONG SHIFT!!

Needless to say, FRIDAY when we finally got home after his shift, it was about 11, we got showers, ate lunch and PASSED OUT!! There was a “ladies night” but I was way too pooped to go. Im sad that I didn’t too because it was the last one that all of us were able to get together before we leave and then everyone else starts leaving after us.



SATURDAY
We went to a waterpark with the Yorks, their two kids, the Morris’s and one single soldier I never really got to talk to him so I don’t really know his name…but it was a fun filled day. It was small, definitely not as great as the ones down south, but for NY it was pretty awesome. Im just glad the weather wasn’t too cold. There was wind, and there were chill bumps, and I could see mountains…haha the water was even HEATED in all but one ride, but we rode almost all the rides and had a GREAT day. I even came back with weird burns in random splotchy places because apparently our sunscreen splattered on weird?! But it’s turning into a tan and it was my first real GOOD tan for the summer!! Can’t wait to perfect it once we get to Texas.



GETTING CAUGHT UP:

We’re leaving this week. On Thursday. I did some major cleaning today around the house and I’ll probably start packing on Wednesday since we don’t have too much to pack, it shouldn’t take a whole day to pack everything. Aaron’s just trying to finish all he needs to do with clearing and then we should be Texas bound at midnight of the 24th!! AMEN!!