Trail Tuesday #1

There are so many trails in this area and I decided we needed to take advantage of it.  So I declared Tuesdays to be Trail Day.

We drove to the trailhead I had found on the map.  I was proud of myself for finding it, and off we went... with varying levels of enthusiasm.

The girls were bitterly disappointed in the trail. This is what it looked like- dry, brown, and just a dirt path across the mountain. It was hot and boring for them.

This kid had a good time.  And so did I!

But we did hike out a ways.  I had promised 20 minutes out, and 20 minutes back. 

Thankfully we reached a small peak after 20 minutes, and got this glorious view.

These three felt the view was worth the effort.  Delaney was a good sport, but she was not impressed at all.  I still considered it a successful first effort.

 

Moving in

We did have about 30 minutes to run through the house before the trucks arrived.  It was not enough time to really make a plan, other than to establish who got which bedroom.  (Marian got the smallest because she's the minimalist. Callie got the middle size because she has more stuff and she's the one who will be evicted for company. Delaney and Rylee got the biggest room because they have to share.  Dan and I got the master bedroom that is weirdly downstairs.)

Hooray!  This is the truck with our UAB, or our Express shipment. They pretty much just unloaded and unwrapped most of it on the lawn and they were done in under an hour.  As they were wrapping up, the main shipment of HHG arrived on a much bigger truck.  This truck contains about 900 lbs of stuff.

This is how Ryle feels about having to fit everything in her new room.

This is what the living room looked like.

Ahh, here you can see the kitchen.  There is a long counter separating it from the family room where all the boxes are piled.

I have to say that the Okinawa packers did a marvelous job packing.Our stuff was remarkably intact and well packed.  However..... The labeled them like this.  It kind of says "kids" and "Diving" and I don't know what else.  Note that it does not tell you where it came from or anything else. How do I know where to put the box if I don't know what room it came from?!  All the boxes were like this.  And this box... well, it probably contained one pair of diving shoes, and some toys and desk items.  The stuff they wrote on the box was usually whatever item was on top and it could be anything!!

The game of "Guess What It Is" is a lot less fun when you really have to start with "Guess Where It Goes".  So most boxes ended up in the living room or the garage storage room because we just had no idea where it was suppose to go until we actually opened it.  Good times!

And then there were gems like this.  Apparently, in poorly written katakana, this actually says "weight". Funny enough, it contained 3 sets of hand weights inside a bucket.  But I'm still amused!

This kid was thrilled with the prolific critter life in the area.  I really need some photos of what's behind the backyard.  The girls think it is funny that we have coyote warning signs in our neighborhood.

 

The house

Rylee took this marvelous selfie with the front of the house.  The entryway is oddly claustrophobic, but is set back and private as well.

This is what you see as soon as you walk in the door.  I do love all the bright light and the cool floor.

The stairs just inside.

The stairs that go up lead to the three bedrooms and the stairs down lead to the garage.  The door on the left down there is the water closet and on the right is the spacious laundry and storage room.

Not gonna lie, I do love this laundry room!

If you walk past the stairs, and into the living area, it looks like this.  An odd L shape with this column in the middle? Whaaat? On paper it is the living room, "sun room", and dining room.

I seem to have dropped the ball here.  On the other side of that wall there on the left is the galley kitchen.  So tiny. So narrow.  So small.  And next to it is another small family room, and the master bedroom.

This is Delaney and Rylee's room.  The rooms were decent sized.  Not large, by any means, but not tiny.   On the small side of regular size. 

I did get to meet my next-door neighbor.  She thoughtfully brought toilet paper and dinner-makings.  I kind of love her!

And with the movers coming and all the stress of getting into the house, this was how I felt!!

 

We hates them, we does; Stupid military Housing

Thursday morning we left early to drive the 6ish hours to San Diego.

Except.... it WASN'T 6 hours!!  We sat for almost 2 hours in non-moving traffic just after Barstow. It was brutal.  We left Cedar City around 7:30am, crossed a time zone, and did not arrive to San Diego until 6:30pm.  It was a 12 hour journey!  And it was awful. I never want to do that again.

But we drove by the house and checked it out, got dinner and settled into the hotel for the night.  

Let me mention that Lincoln Housing Management did not send us the lease until Wednesday afternoon.  Dan and I were working on filling out and sending the second copy on Thursday.  And Lincoln had promised multiple times that they would put a lockbox on the door with the house key, and they would email us the code so that we could get into the house Friday morning.  Because we had the MOVERS scheduled to come on Friday and their arrival window was 8-10am.

Well, here we are Friday morning.  No lockbox, no emailed code.  Did I mention that they had assured us multiple times that of course this would happen and there wouldn't be an issue?  Yeah, big issue for me. We had to hang out for a bit.  The shade was nice, and the neighbor brought us a bowl so Levi could have some water. But yes, that's what my house looks like!

This is my "here is my new house and I'm so stressed I may meltdown at any moment, but I'm gonna fake it till then" face.

This is the backyard. It is big.  And nice, except for the naked patches of grass.

And the girls and Levi are just chilling. We had to wait for Dan go over to the Housing office, which doesn't open till 8:30. They had to MAKE THE KEYS while he waited.  Yeah, we hate Lincoln.  Hates them with a burning passion, we does.  Dan arrived back with the keys around 9 and we finally got to look at the house we had committed to.

Wrapping it up

Tuesday morning I was able to stop and visit two friends.  I'm such a bad person, I didn't get a photo of us at all!! I stopped by my friend Steph's house and the kids played while we visited. Next, we stopped at a park to meet up with my friend Beth.  Her daughter played with the girls while Beth and I caught up and I enjoyed it immensely.  I love that I have such great friends.

The park where we met up with Beth.

The girls had a great time playing on it.

And climbing this awesome tree.

But I'm pretty sure these photos were all taken in the 10 minutes before Beth got there, and then I put the phone/camera down and didn't pick it up again.  Sigh.

But then we got to Cedar City and met up with Dan and Delaney..... and Levi!  Dan did get a fun video of Levi seeing  us for the first time in months.  He was excited.  So were we.

Dan took the girls to the pool on Wednesday.  Rylee said it was the best pool ever.

And I do love where my in-laws live.  We walked out the door, down the street an into the mountain.

Levi was thrilled to be with us on the hike.

And it was so pretty!  Rylee was happy to pose for me.

And I wanted a selfie.  How fun, to live right in the mountains!

Levi, the wonder-dog, looking over the valley.