Kansas Week One

We've been here a week and 2 days!  A friend suggested I change the title of the blog to F#@! Kansas, and don't think I haven't thought about it in the last few days! :)  Things are going fine, don't get me wrong, but with this being our first move, and from a place we loved and lots of friends and a great church, not to mention family at most a half a day's drive away, this was, and is, going to be HARD.

We moved into our house last Tuesday. We are living on post and if you want our new address, please email me and I'll be glad to send it to you. I am, for obvious reasons, not posting it on the public internet. Our household goods arrived on Thursday, so we had a couple of days to clean and organize all the items we'd brought along with is...at least as well as you can organize without any furniture to put them away in/on!  It also gave us a chance to think through were we wanted the big items of furniture to go.

We did take the house with the laminate floors downstairs, which we agreed was a smart decision.  This meant we had to take the house "as is" or wait 10 days for it to be repainted. The previous tenants only occupied the space for 11 months and the house was brand new for them, so it is in good shape.  We took it "as is" so we did not have to wait, though of course once we "living" in it I saw more dings in the walls and cleaning that needed to be done, but so it goes. I assume the previous occupants had a big black dog! 

All of our household goods arrived, nothing was lost, thank goodness. A few items were damaged, which I suppose is also inevitable, though  nothing too major. The most upsetting is a large chip out of my china cabinet, but it's not too noticeable. The handful of other things that are broken or damaged are repairable or a minor loss, so all in all we are pleased, especially in light of some horror stories I have heard.  Charles' college roommate and his wife lost a huge amount of stuff in their last move.

Friday the moving company sent people to unpack, at our request. They were here for the morning and basically unpacked everything in the living room, dining room, and kitchen, as well as several boxes upstairs of the guest room/office/linen closet persuasion.  While the unpacking help is great, they do just unpack and leave the contents where ever there is counter or table or floor space, so it does create a big mess.  Ultimately we *think* it was good to get the boxes out of the way so we could really see the space better, though I do see why some people don't want them to help.  It is overwhelming! I think next time I will try to label the boxes myself on the front end with more specifics of what I see go in them, which will help with the unpacking later.

I promise I will post some pictures later this week, once we feel like things are a bit more camera ready. We have made a lot of progress, but there is still lots to do! We are waiting on some storage solutions to arrive which should also help get things shaped up.

Emmy is doing well.  We could definitely see an improvement in her attitude once we settled into the house, even before the furniture arrived.  I am sure we were also happier to be in the house, and she sensed that. She has slept better in her own room and only woke up the first night in the middle of the night. She is behaving more like her normal self, though I would say the "terrible twos" have definitely arrived and she likes to be a challenge sometimes!  She has handled the last few days quite well, though, and we have made a point to get her things unpacked and settled. Her room is done, including pictures hanging on the wall.  We have her toys organized in the great room and we have plans to set up many of her bigger toys and some books, etc. in the basement so we have a place to go for a change of pace. Our den sofa and kitchen table are set up down there so we can use that space as well, even though we were told it could flood. We decided it was worth the risk since it is more climate controlled than the garage, so it is a more pleasant place to work and play, especially this time of year! 

We visited a church yesterday and we were fairly happy with it.  We cannot compare every place to St. John because we were always be disappointed. No place is perfect (nor was St. John!) and this church had lots of kids, a DCE and Youth director who were recognized yesterday as they both approach their 5 year anniversaries at the church, and we liked the sermon.  The music left a bit to be desired, but we aren't planning to join the choir here so we can live with that. They hymns and organ music were good, so that was a positive. :)  But know this, St. John family, we miss you so, so much.  I fought back tears during the service, both out of sadness from being away from you, but also from relief from finding a place quickly that looks like it could be our temporary church home. We will go back next Sunday and see how it goes!

Well there is a quick update from week one! Stay tuned for more!

Kansas

Well hello internet. We're baaack! 

So much to say about the last few weeks and why I have been absent, but we'll get to that later. A big reason has been our move from GA to KS, and we're finally here in Kansas.

We got into Ft. Leavenworth a little before 4 pm Central today and went straight to the housing office, just in time to get keys to 2 different houses for us to check out. One is is ready for us to move in immediately, but has carpet in the living/dining. The other has laminate in the living/dining, which we surely prefer, but just had tenants move out, so we'd have to either take it as is or wait up to 10 days for it to be painted/cleaned.  We have the weekend to decide since the office closed at 4:30.

Emmy still has a bad cold, and of course she is sleep deprived and doesn't quite know which end is up. Several low key days of no traveling with regular naps and bed times are definitely in order so we can hopefully get our happy, well behaved little girl back.  She is doing well, considering all the illness, and total disruption to her schedule and life.  But, she's definitely not herself and that's stressful on us and of course I'm sure she is feeding off of our anxiety.

We are settled into the hotel on post for the weekend and just plan to relax and maybe check out the area. Charles and I never shopped for good winter coats before we left the Southeast so that needs to be a number one priority since the high today was like 28. My poor hands were already dry and now this cold dry air is zapping them even worse! Fortunately there's plenty of shopping in Kansas City, including a Cabella's, Dad. I know you're proud. :)

Our stuff is here in a warehouse so hopefully we'll have an address on Monday to give them and we can schedule delivery.  Some of our loyal readers have heard our tales from the move so far which included my very raw emotions being rubbed the wrong way by our packers, who made lots of comments about how much stuff we had. Well, when we got the word that our household goods had arrived to the storage facility here, it included the weight total. Guess what it was? 11,800 lbs, over 5,000 lbs UNDER our limit. So there, packers, take that!

We are tired and anxious and emotional about it all, a little too tired to be excited at this particular moment, but we'll get there. It's an adventure for sure!