Sorry to leave everyone hanging for a few days, but it has been for a good reason...we've moved into a rental house! After driving around the Springs for a couple of days looking at properties, we decided on a 4 bedroom house through a realty company that a church here recommended to us. The house is HUGE (to us!) and we have certainly been blessed. The company gave us a discounted rent since we went through the church (the owner goes there), and the three guys that were living there didn't want to clean the house, so THEY gave US money to move in early, and we used some of that to have a cleaning crew come in and clean the carpets, bathroom, kitchen, etc. It has been an amazing few days. This time last week, we were still on the road between Starkville and Amarillo, and now here we are moved into a house with plenty of room for guests! God has been good!

Aunt Bev and Uncle Wade and their friend Joe helped us unload the Budget truck on Saturday, and we got everything into the house and garage (yes, garage! that will be a lifesaver when it snows). On Sunday, Joel and I visited Village Seven Presbyterian Church, a large PCA church about 5 minutes from our house, and the same one that recommended the realty company to us. We showed up 20 minutes late because the service started at 10:40, but it was nice to be there! We plan to visit again and hopefully attend Sunday school to meet some folks our age. We found out that a friend of a friend from Starkville is interning in Colorado Springs this summer with Focus on the Family, so we hope to meet up with her sometime! It will be fun to see a familiar face.

Our Memorial Day began with the delivery of our 2nd washer/dryer set in as many days. On Sunday, we found a seller on Craig's list and went to pick up the appliances while we still had the Budget truck. The seller was an older man, and said we could bring them back if they didn't work...good thing he was true to his word, because after Joel and I lugged them down stairs and hooked them up, the dryer wouldn't turn on at all and the washer stopped mid-cycle. We called "Ron" back, and it turns out that his son, also named Ron, is an appliance repairman. Big Ron bought the washer and dryer off a neighbor who was moving to give her some cash, and was told that they worked just fine. Thankfully, Big Ron and Little Ron were both quality individuals, and Little Ron brought us the 2nd set on Monday morning, and even helped us get them all up and down the stairs AND set up! Once again, things worked out perfectly. We noticed that the dryer wasn't drying very quickly, so we checked the vent to the outside and spent the next hour vacuuuming out lint from the ducts. The following picture shows a garbage bag full of the stuff:
That solved the problem, and I've been wearing out the working washer and dryer since then.

Today was the big day...Joel's first day of work! Things went really well, and he thinks he'll really enjoy the job. I dropped him off bright at early at 6:15 this morning, and went about the rest of the day unpacking boxes, setting up utilities, and other minor details. The most exciting part of my day occured when I got back to the house after running an errand...to preface this story, I'll let you know that our neighborhood has LOTS...I mean LOTS of squirrels, and they're pretty big! They've already chewed up part of my bird feeder, and we think we have a resident in the attic. I got out of the car and walked in front of the garage and came face to face with one of the stubborn sciurids. I realized I had my camera handy in my purse, so I'll let you watch:


If you see that nice square hole above the garage door, we're thinking that is one of his entrances/exits.

On a side note, it has been FREEEZZZING here! We've had our windows open, but finally had to close them today because Joel and I were both walking around the house in long pants and fleece jackets! We've slept with our electric blanket every night we've been here, and it has also been raining! Colorado is supposed to have only 60 non-sunny days per year, and they've used up quite a few of those in the time we've been here...I think it was a bait and switch.


Not sure what this guy was doing in May:


Here is a picture of our den in the middle of unpacking boxes:


Sorry for the long post, but we'll try to update again soon. We're having to travel around town to use the internet until we get ours hooked up!

Looking for shelter

After going to bed at 10:00 last night, Joel and I awoke refreshed and ready to view some apartments/houses. We drove around a few areas of town that we'd not seen yet to get a feel for those parts of the city, and met a realtor that we talked to last week. We were referred to him through a church that we plan to visit, and right now, we're thinking the house he showed us may be the winner. It has a lot more space than the townhomes and apartments we've found, and it has a yard and garage!

Hopefully, a final decision will be made tomorrow, because there is a chance we can move in early next week (preferably even Sunday or Monday)!

If this one doesn't work out though, we drove around town enough today to find something we hope. We had lunch in Old Colorado City, which is a neat little area just west of town. For supper, we went to Garden of the Gods and ate a picnic dinner and walked around the park. The entire day was a little drizzly, but the mountains were still beautiful with the clouds hanging in front of them!

Garden of the Gods from far away.
This old man of Asian descent was walking with an umbrella, wearing a blue sport coat, and humming in the Garden of the Gods.

We made it!

We arrived in Colorado Springs this afternoon...around 3 pm central time, 2 pm mountain time. It is certainly beautiful! We got a late start from Amarillo this morning, but we had a good night's rest, which made it worth it! We saw lots and lots of antelope along the way, and finally got our first view of the Rockies!

After getting semi-settled in a hotel and grabbing a snack and sweet tea from Chick-fil-A, we drove around town a bit to orient ourselves and check out a couple of the properties we've been looking at online. Seeing the city in person really helped us narrow our search, so hopefully we'll have some luck tomorrow! We can't wait to unload the Budget truck and get situated here so we can enjoy Colorado Springs!

Well, we're pretty much pooped from the past few days, so I'll post some pictures below and call it a night!

Joel arriving in Starkville after finally acquiring a truck.
Joel and Mrs. Butler in front of the beautiful artwork at the TN welcome center.
Crossing the mighty Mississippi.
My workstation on the road (time, mpg, mph, and all other necesary road trip calculations)
THE ROCKIES! (wayyyy in the distance)
Entering Colorado.
Another Budget passing us...
Pike's Peak!

Rockies or bust…

I’m writing this on the road as we near the end of our first day of traveling west. The day has been (thankfully) pretty uneventful…much less so than our day of packing yesterday!

A review of yesterday’s events: Joel reserved a 16’ Budget truck and car dolly about a week ago, and we were supposed to pick it up at 10 a.m. yesterday. It turns out that the place in Starkville didn’t have our truck…or any other truck we could use. Our options were to choose another rental service with no reimbursement from Budget, or drive to Columbus to pick up a 24’ diesel truck that they would let us use for the same price as the smaller truck. We weren’t very happy campers, as we anticipated lower mpg’s, more difficulty driving, and high diesel prices, but God was certainly taking care of us. The ordeal set our packing back 3-4 hours, it has turned out better than the we could have imagined! Diesel was more expensive than gasoline in Starkville, but has been much cheaper than gasoline the farther west we go. Also, we could have fit all of our goods in a 16’, but it would have been much tighter and required a bit more figuring than the spacious 24’ truck. All of that to say…my parents helped Joel and I load the truck for 6 hours yesterday, and we finally locked the loading door down around 8 or so last night!

Sooo…just picture us in the big rig shown above, and insert that in a map of the U.S...and that has been our day! Joel let me start the day with a City Bagel pickup order, and we left Starkville at 7:30. I’ve kept myself entertained by keeping up with our mpg’s and mph’s with my notebook and atlas and acting as navigator, while Joel has been in his driving zone.

A few views from our trip so far…

PICTURE TO COME SOON: Mrs. Butler met us at the Tennessee welcome center to deliver my b’day present and wave us off, and it was fun to see her as we really started our journey, though I don’t think she liked seeing Joel as a truck driver.


PICTURES TO COME SOON

Thus far, my favorite part of the trip has been using the diesel lanes at the Love’s Truck stops…it’s a whole different world on the other side of the station.

PICTURE TO COME SOON

Well, we’re turning in for the night in Amarillo, but we hope to have some more exciting posts over the next few days as we arrive in and explore Colorado Springs

P.S.- if you ever have to drive I-40 across the country, note that Arkansas and Oklahoma City have terrible roads. I didn’t even want to think about my crystal and china in OK City (see video:)

Miles traveled from Starkville: 916

Hours traveled: 7:30 am-11:15 pm

Avg miles per gallon: 9.4

Average miles per hour: 60.7

Spring Forward!

What a wonderful weekend to gain an extra hour of daylight. Though I've never understood time zones, much less daylight savings time, I had a great time basking in the sunlight until after 7 today. I've spent the last two time changes in Georgia on Eastern Standard Time...I'm not quite sure if that means I've lost or gained an hour or two in the span of my lifetime...oh well!

Week 5 at CDC was decently uneventful...some conference calls, a seminar or two, more conference calls to discuss when the next conference call would be, and some more work on my project.

This has been a nice relaxing weekend. I was a bit stir crazy by 5 o'clock Friday afternoon, as the day had been beautiful, and my 15 minutes of eating lunch outside by the stream at CDC didn't quite cut it- all I wanted to do was get to the house and sit outside!

Saturday, Emily B. was in town for a wedding shower, so I met her for a little while- it was nice to see a familiar face from home on my last weekend in Atlanta. I then went to a few fabric and furniture stores I'd been hearing about, and had a really really late brunch (3 pm) at West Egg. It was perfect, as I sat outside and enjoyed the pimento cheese grits on my blue plate breakfast.


Saturday afternoon, was spent reading on a blanket in Grant Park watching packs and packs of kids and family reunions enjoy the weekend. Today, I did the same, but picked a spot near the Zoo Atlanta entrance where I could hear the man playing the bongos outside the gates and hear the occasional zoo train whistle! This morning, I went to my fourth church (a different one for each weekend I've spent in Atlanta), a small and new congregation that is actually not very far from the house!

Not much else to report...I'm looking forward to my last week at CDC and finishing the project I've been working on...and then heading home for good this weekend!

Pictures!

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

The cul-de-sac covered with snow

Joel and I in the blizzard



Andrew and Joel wrestling in the snow

Staying warm and happy indoors!

Meanwhile, back in Atlanta...
The big blue ostrich in Anna's backyard, covered with snow! (reminds me of the time I saw an emu run across the street in our old neighborhood...)

Also, I found this article online that tells a bit about the branch that I'm working with at CDC: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/health/02deat.html?pagewanted=print

Snow Day for some (unfortunately, I didn't get the e-mail)

Since I'm sitting at a closed CDC this Monday morning with the two other people in my branch that didn't get the memo: "CDC's Atlanta campuses will open at 10 am Eastern time Monday, March 2, due to inclement weather," I thought it would be a good opportunity to update my blog!

Last week (week 4 of 6) was a bit more varied than the previous weeks...I went to the Georgia Aquarium with a USDA veterinarian, went to a meeting in Conyers, GA between USDA, CDC, and some state of Georgia veterinarians to discuss funding and projects, and accompanied the USDA vet (from the Aquarium trip) to a horse farm east of Athens on Friday. The Friday trip was fun, and it was nice to be out of the office, though on that particular day, "out of the office" meant "standing in the rain." But thankfully I had my new rain jacket that I got for Christmas, and I stayed dry!

Joel and I met again in Birmingham this weekend, and I decided that I wasn't going to let Atlanta traffic beat me again, so we devised a new way for me to get out of town. Joel was sitting at his desk in Starkville looking at Google maps and Atlanta traffic cams, guiding me down some back roads to avoid the two hours of traffic that I ran into last trip. I'm not quite sure if this way was faster, but at least I was moving the speed limit the entire time, so I felt like it was!

In Birmingham, we enjoyed a really really lazy weekend, and woke up to a winter wonderland on Sunday! We were glad we were at Andrew and Amy's for the surprise snow, because Joel and I certainly wouldn't have been building snowmen and throwing (as many) snowballs if it has just been the two of us in Starkville. I'll post some pictures from the weekend tonight from the house!

Well, I guess I'll go now- only 1 hour and 4 minutes until people should start showing up at work!