Catch Up

Ok, this is my 1st attempt at blogging, and it is also going to be a VERY QUICK one just so I can catch everyone up to date on things while Caroline is napping, so pardon the sporadic order of information!

We are finally in Little Rock! After months and months of planning, packing, and saying goodbyes we have finally landed in our destination. It has been a busy week to say the least but we are starting to feel like our feet will hit the ground soon.

After loading our truck on Sunday afternoon, we stayed with Ben and Sarah for one last evening in Macon. We headed out early Monday morning, June 1st with a caravan of cars headed to Arkansas. Isabelle the cat, Caroline and I were in Brad's truck, followed by Niki and Nana Deb(who quickly gravitated toward our car after the first few hours), Brad driving the 26 ft Penske truck, and his dad, Papa Ron driving my car. We endured the 12 hour trip and were SO blessed to have a happy baby (and cat) during the entire ride! No fussing, no breakdowns, nothing! Caroline did better than most of the adults! We were READY to finally arrive. We owe a lot of thanks to our good pals at Baby Einstein for that- Brad invested in a DVD player for the car. I was very hesitant at first b/c I know babies aren't supposed to watch to much TV and such, but let me tell you....she did amazing and we all kept our sanity for that day, and she maybe only watched her little video 4 times through out the trip, so tsk tsk if I was a bad mommy, but it worked! We smuggled the cat into a hotel for the first night here and enjoyed a nice night of sleep before the big moving day.

We had a little chaos on Tuesday morning as we were supposed to begin unloading our stuff at our apartment. The apartment was not ready, and really wasn't up to par with what I had envisioned in my head. SO...the hunt for a new apartment began that morning at around 10 o'clock. We were so blessed to have found a 3 bedroom (instead of a 2) and were able use the third bedroom as our "storage room" instead of renting one. The move up to the 2nd floor of a tiny apt wasn't too much fun, but we survived. The Hobbs were angels by helping us get set up, cleaned up, organized and stable enough to spend our first night comfortably. It took a few days to get all the boxes out of the way but we kept a lot of things packed up b/c we only signed a 3 month lease in hopes of finding a house to buy/rent for the rest of the time. We will most likely find that we can survive with a lot less "stuff" than we think and will never want to unpack some of those boxes. :)

We love the city of Little Rock so far- we look forward to experiencing it a little more in the weeks to come. It has every kind of retail, restaurant, specialty shop you can imagine. It has rivers, parks, golf courses, and hiking close by. We went down to the river in the downtown area one evening with the Hobbs and enjoyed dinner and seeing where the river market is set up. I would like to go sometime soon when it is open and running. There is a definite divide in the town from safe to unsafe. Brad and his poor dad had to experience a gas station in a not so hot neighborhood as they returned the moving truck. We have heard that about the town, and kind of feel like it may be a lot like Macon where you just don't go into certain necks of the woods. I think most cities that are large enough to have a lot of different kinds of people in it have different areas, that's just how it turns out it seems. But overall we have seen WAY more nice neighborhoods and sites than the other.

We visited Fellowship Bible Church on Sunday morning and it was really neat. We enjoyed it, but I must admit, a few tears were shed as I sat and remembered Ingleside back in Macon. Not because this new church was bad, just different. I missed the familiar faces, the familiar places. Church hunting is an emotional roller coaster it seems because all of our family and friends were tied into our church in Macon, and they are irreplaceable. BUT we know that God is going to bring new friends and loved ones into our lives. We can't wait to meet them! That was church visit #1 and it was very positive. Caroline actually survived the whole church service in the nursery without me getting paged...which is a new thing for those of you who knew how much she loved the nursery at Ingleside heehee. When we came to pick her up afterwards she was playing in an excersaucer next to a few little friends just enjoying herself. Maybe she has lots to talk about since she's moved across the states.

We look forward to my parents coming into town on Tuesday. They will be with us for the next week and a half as we travel with them up to Missouri for a family reunion in Branson. Then they are coming back here with us for a while. It will be great to have them here with us... we miss them already. I am so excited to see my whole family at the reunion this next week. I will get to see my brother, and my sister Cara (who is preggo!!!) and her husband Chris. I can't wait for them to all come out here to visit...maybe when we have a little more space to accommodate. But we are also up to all piling up together in our tiny apartment. :)

Sorry this was a smorgasbord of info...I just wanted to get this blog rolling so that I could jump on it in the future. I'm hoping that once "normal" gets established I will be able to schedule in blogging into my daily routine. So, look for more soon..and yes, pictures will be coming too! We have to find the cords to plug all the cameras/video up with. It is in a box somewhere....