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January 07, 2006
Hello from New Jersey
I'm Back!
Here we are in our new home in New Jersey. We are still swimming in a sea of clutter. The movers just brought our goods yesterday. It feels so good to sleep in our own beds after nearly 3 weeks of various hotel rooms.
It was quite a trip getting here. Three weeks ago tomorrow was our last night in our home in San Antonio. After spending two nights basking in luxury on the Riverwalk, the kids and I left for Kansas City. (Eric had to remain an extra day for outprocessing, which is basically going from office to office at Lackland begging for signatures) We broke down and bought a portable DVD player and thanks to Disney the trip to KC was really easy. Okay, mostly easy: from San Antonio to the Oklahoma border you pass about a half dozen or so drive-thru Starbucks. But once you cross over you might as well forget about drinking decent coffee. I even had to resort to drinking McDonald's coffee in Kansas. (gasp!)
We then spent a few days in Kansas trying to schedule visits with so many family members in so little time. Eric's 95 year old grandmother who had flown by herself from Seattle was even there.
On the day after Christmas we hit the road again. It took us almost 3 days to get to New Jersey and once again thanks to Walt Disney and the feature-length film it was a relatively easy trip. The best part was stopping in Indianapolis to meet Suzanne and her beautiful daughter.
We arrived in New Jersey late on Wednesday the 28th and actually were able to choose a home on base the next day. (more about that later) We would have been able to move in on the 30th had the movers notified us that our possessions had already arrived, like they were supposed to. But as you can deduce from my tone we had to spend a week at the Amerisuites because we never got the phone call.
The high point of the week was when Iris poured a cup of hot tea onto herself and scalded her arm. The front desk called 911 and 6 paramedics and a policeman converged upon us and thankfully told us that her burns were minor and there was no need to go to the hospital.
Just a few thoughts from the past 3 weeks:
I have seen the inside of enough gas station restrooms to last a lifetime. (Remember that I have 2 young sons who have frequent urges)It will be a very long time before I will be able to step foot inside another Applebees, Chilis or Fridays.
It will be even longer before I let my children eat another order of chicken fingers.
So here we are.
Posted by Julee at January 7, 2006 08:15 PM
Comments
Congrats on making it to your new home! So true what you said about the Riverwalk- the lights reflecting off the river is definitely one of my most magical childhood memories.
Posted by: Yolanda at January 7, 2006 11:27 PM
I'm sl glad you all made it safely to your new home. I am very happy that you are back!! Enjoy 'decorating'! :) And, Happy New Year!!
Posted by: Erin at January 8, 2006 08:51 AM
At least you didn't throw out the kids' cold weather gear!
Glad to know you have landed. Amazing that you are in a house so quickly since around here the waiting list is a year or so...even though there are a lot of empty houses.
Hey, at least the military has not been boring so far. A pain in the butt yes, but not boring.
Posted by: Colleen at January 8, 2006 04:42 PM
Hope your holidays were good... good luck settling in!
Posted by: Lisa at January 8, 2006 07:57 PM
Julee!
I have been following your adventures. So glad to hear you are back on the east coast. Give love to the family! Miss you!
Posted by: Yvonne at January 9, 2006 11:17 AM