And....we're blogging! We pulled out of our home of 30+ years, Thomasville (the City of Roses), on July 6, after about a week's worth of intense fun with family and precious friends; saying "see you laters" and rejoicing together with anticipation over all that will unfold as part of God's great plan. We drove to the Atlanta area that first evening and enjoyed some yummy P.F. Chang's with Chad's cousin Kristy and her family, and then we stayed the night in a hotel room before hitting the road.
On July 7th, Chad and I celebrated 10 years of marriage by driving, with two fabulous kids (and a great DVD player!) in the backseat, to our new home state of Kentucky! We enjoyed a faboulous dinner with the extended Wilkerson family at my Uncle Russ and Aunt Karen Byron's house in Lexington, then we got a good night's sleep at Red Papa and Nannie's house before meeting up with our sweet friend Jean Thomason (a.k.a. "Miss Pattycake") for a late breakfast. God was so good to have Jean in Lexington for a children's ministry expo at the same time we were coming through town! He knew that would do my heart good! After we finished eating, Chad sweetly took our wiggly boy over to Home Depot to "do guy stuff" while Mary Beth and I enjoyed chatting with "The Cake" for another hour or so. I sooooo enjoyed getting to catch up with Jean, and Mary Beth has mentioned, at least once per day, since then that she CAN'T WAIT to go to Nashville and visit Mrs. Jean (so she can introduce her to TobyMac)! :)
That afternoon (July 8, if you're trying to keep up), we drove into Hebron, KY, our new hometown. The Biblical city of Hebron was known as a city of refuge, and we have been encouraged through prophecies prior to this move that the Lord is moving us to a place of refuge--so we think the name of our new town is pretty cool! After go-go-go-go-going, we're excited about a season of rest in God's presence. We drove around to complete some "newcomer errands" (signing up for utilities, local car insurance, library cards, internet, etc.) and quickly began to miss the convenience of Thomasville's one-stop utilities/internet/sanitiation/water sign-up office.
The movers would be delivering our household good on the 11th, so we had a few nights to spend in a hotel. When stopped at the Wendy's to eat a salad and borrow a wireless signal, we learned that ALL the Hebron hotels were packed (something about a NASCAR race in the area), so we chose to go north of Cincinnati, to a hotel we'd stayed in before--Embassy Suites in Blue Ash, OH. We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at the hotel, and driving back and forth to/from Florence (Hebron's version of "Tallahassee," but it's only 10 minutes away from our house!) to shop for new bedding, towels, and other stuff.
On the 11th, we met the movers shortly after 8 a.m., and they had everything unloaded from the truck by about 3 p.m. I still had MUCH unpacking to do, but I had managed to put away all the kitchen stuff, so I ran to Kroger for our first load of groceries, threw together some guac with blue corn chips and a berry-mint salad, and took a quick shower before we all piled in the car to head over one exit to Tom and Ann Lightner's house in Burlington. Ann is the director of our Classical Conversations Foundations homeschool group here in the area, and Tom directs a Classical Conversations Challenge (middle school, I think) group. They also happen to be the owners of the wonderful house God has provided for us to rent! They bought the house when it was in foreclosure, and they've pretty much redone the entire thing! It's like living in a new house! We so appreciate all the work they've done!
At the Lightner's house, we shared a yummy potluck dinner and a great time of fellowship with some new friends--the other families in our new Classical Conversations group. Mary Beth and Noah enjoyed swimming with the other CC kids in the Lightner's beautiful pool, and Chad got to know some of the dads while I was able to chat with some of the other CC tutors (I'll be tutoring the "Apprentices"--Noah's class--this year).
Since that fabulous gathering, we have pretty much been doing one of 4 things:
*Picking up more stuff for the house from Garden Ridge or Lowes in Florence,
*Enjoying grocery shopping at the A-M-A-Z-I-N-G Kroger Supermarket a mile from our house (I just THOUGHT shopping was a pleasure @ Publix in Thomasville!--Alton Brown would be so jealous!)
*Checking out area restaurants--we've sampled the goods at about 5 Mexican places so far, and we really like Famous Dave's BBQ in Florence...we've also found that their definition of "good BBQ" north of the Ohio River is pretty disturbing! ;( Kirby Horton needs to move up there--they really need help!
*Unpacking and organizing our new house.
We've taken a few breaks for walks/bike rides around the new neighborhood, and to play the Wii that Papa Ron so generously sent up with us, but otherwise, that's what we've been up to.
I'd been checking internet from my tiny cell phone screen until yesterday, when the Zoomtown guy finally got here to hook up our internet connection--YES, we MISS YOU, Rose.NET!
I knew that several of you had been waiting for a blog post, so I wanted to go ahead and get this up. Now that EVERYTHING's been put away, and we do have "real" internet on the laptops, I hope to take better pictures and give you some decent blog posts in the near future.
We ate out a good bit last week, but since about last Friday, we've eaten at home almost every meal, and I had probably not cooked more than 5 home-cooked meals in the 5 weeks leading up the move...so it's been quite a change! It's been fun, and Chad and the kids said the food actually tasted good (I really tried, Grammy!--we've had grilled chicken, spaghetti, steak, and pot roast)...BUT...Chad just texted me, and he's really in the mood for a "restaurant experience" (we can't call them "dates" anymore--we don't have babysitters up here!). So, I need to get off this computer and go get ready. Hopefully, we'll get a webcam tonight, too, so we can Skype some of you guys tomorrow.
Blessings from the North Bend!
--Kristie
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