Off and Running

So, after breakfast on Thursday, I called Joni, got directions to our new house, and off we went. (Jim and Joni are letting us borrow their Durango until our cars get here.) Joni met us at the house with Sammy, and the key. Wow, is it nice. It’s a lot bigger than the pictures Joni sent. I trying to decide if I should take some pictures of it empty and put them on Flickr (if I do it won‘t be for another week when we have our own internet instead of using the Starling‘s). I’ll put new ones up after all of our stuff gets here sometime in September. Ooooh, yeeaaahhh. September. Anyhoo. After checking out the place, we walked over to Jim and Joni’s (that’s right, walked, they live that close!) where the boys and I hung out while Josh went out to figure out water, gas, electricity, etc. You know, those minor things.

Josh made it back by 11:00 when Joni and I took the kids to gymnastics! This was too much fun, and great for my boys. Basically, this lady has a little gym that she lets little ones come in and just run around and use the mats and trampolines and things for an hour (it costs $5, and is so worth it). There’s also balloons and hula hoops and bubbles. Oh, we all had a blast. Another woman I knew from Germany was there with her 2-year-old daughter, Claire, too. It was nice seeing her again. Until Zeke tackled Claire. As bad as it was, it was kind of funny. Claire took the balloon Zeke was playing with so Zeke ran up behind her, wrapped his arm around her neck, grabbed her shirt with his other arm and pretty much threw her to the ground. I think we might have a problem on our hands. Claire got upset, but she was okay. Zeke was too excited to even realize he had done anything wrong, but by this point, the hour was up and we all left anyways.

Then we went back to the Starling’s house, picked up Josh (who was taking a nap this whole time), got some lunch then went back to the hotel to put the boys down for naps. Well, I took them back for naps, Josh stayed at the house to wait for the water company to come and to move packages we had mailed to the Starlings to our house. Since then it’s been getting things set up, getting all of those utilities going and making constant trips to WalMart for this and that (we live pretty much right across the street from one - I think that is going to be a very dangerous thing), and just hanging out, getting acclimated to the time change, our new house, our new surroundings and everything like that. Oh, and being sick. How could I forget about that? Yeah, nothing says, “welcome to your new home” like throwing up! I got sick Friday night, Zeke threw up Saturday morning, then Josh was icky Saturday afternoon. Sunday Joni had it, then Monday it was Deacon’s turn. I seriously hope it’s all behind us ALL of us now.

Oh, yeah. And then, on Saturday I found my way to post and then found my way to the commissary and did some food shopping. And by some, I mean a LOT. You want to talk about overwhelmed? That post and the commissary are HUGE! I walked into the store and it was like I was Madame Blueberry walking into the StuffMart on VeggieTales. I was feeling woozy. But I made it through in under two hours and headed back home. I cooked dinner that night. I tell you what, nothing helps to make you feel more at home, in your new home, than making dinner for your family. Granted, it was just a box of macaroni and cheese with some apple sauce, but still. I think it went a long way to giving some sort of normalcy to all of us.

The Big Day

Where to begin? How about with 5:00am when we all got up so we could get dressed, pack up the car and drive to the airport? Because, you know, that was fun. At least we hit very little traffic (not too many other people on the road at 5:45am I guess) and made it to the airport with little ado. Deacon did start to fuss about 15 minutes from the airport, but he quieted down when we put on his favorite cd with his favorite song.

Returning the rental car was surprisingly easy. Almost too easy. We’re a little skeptical as to whether or not we did it right. It did take us awhile to get to where we turned it in as all the traffic that wasn’t on the road was at the airport by the departures zone, and so we sat in traffic for a good 15 minutes there. But we turned in the car and made our way into the airport and to the check-in counter. Where there was an incredibly long line. So, I found some benches and fed the boys breakfast while Josh stood in line with all the luggage. He’s such a good man.

Once the boys (and I) finished breakfast, we headed over to where Josh was still waiting in line. My little animals got bored with this quickly so I did little laps around the airport, pushing them in the stroller to keep them somewhat occupied. Zeke got out occasionally and helped me push Deacon along, which is always an exciting time. Then they kindly let us go to the “special help line”, or something like that, since we had kids and a lot of stuff going on. This was great. Especially since as we checked in, we found out that our suitcase was too heavy. You know how if your suitcase is too heavy, you can pay $50 and they’ll put it on the plane anyway? Well, our suitcase was too heavy for that even. This meant that the boys and I went back to the benches to hang out while Josh went and bought another bag for the plane to move pounds and pounds and pounds of stuff into so our suitcase would make the weight limit.

While the boys and I were hanging out at the benches, which really meant I had to chase down each boy as one would take off in one direction as I would bring the other back, who then go off in another direction as I brought the other one back, and so forth. And people wonder how I’m so skinny after having two kids. Anyhoo. Also at the benches were three Indian American (as in from the country of India, not to be confused with Native American Indians) women, with their kids. They were very cute, and really enjoyed my boys. The oldest girl (I would guess she was close to 10) kept touching Deacon’s face, and rubbing his head. It really was sweet. Sweet, that is, until we heard the little one (probably about 1 years old) crying. As we looked over, there she was, curled up in a little ball on the bench, with Zeke lying on top of her. Oh yeah. So, we quickly pulled him off and scolded him, as her mom picked her up and comforted her. I apologized, and tried to get Zeke to apologize, but since he doesn’t know how to say “sorry” yet, we didn’t get far on that front. After that we quickly moved stuff from the suitcase to the new bag and finished checking in.

From there, it was off to the gate. Then enough time to change both boys diapers, go to the bathroom myself, then get on the plane. We bought these CARES seats for the flight so we wouldn’t have to carry their bulky carseats all over the place, and they were great. Deacon may have been a wee bit too small, but it worked and the boys didn’t really struggle against them. I highly recommend them for anyone with a child still using a car seat.

Then there was TEN. HOURS. ON. THE. PLANE. Probably the longest ten hours of my life. Actually, it wasn’t that bad. It didn’t feel like ten hours (probably because we watched [without sound, mind you] “Horton Hears a Who” five times), and the boys were really well behaved. Of course they each slept for maybe 20 minutes of the TEN HOURS, and they each had moments where they melted down and cried for a few minutes, but over all, they really were great. Some women who were on the flight with us, and who saw us later on in the airport told us how well behaved our boys were and how well they did. So, I guess that counts for something. But once we landed in Dallas, we made our way through immigration and baggage claim and customs, then dropped off our bags again, and headed to the gate our next flight to Lawton was leaving from.

We had a little bit of time at this gate so Josh and I just took turns doing laps with the boys in the stroller until our flight was called. Then we boarded the tiny plane (13 rows for 52 passengers and 1 flight attendant who would read the instructions bit by bit and then demonstrate them bit by bit) for Lawton, Oklahoma. It’s about a half hour flight and with taxiing, it takes about an hour. About 5 minutes after we got seated on the plane, Zeke fell asleep. Ahhh. Deacon, on the other hand, stayed awake the entire flight, only to fall asleep once the plane finished taxiing in Oklahoma. Perfect. So, we let everyone else get off first before even moving, trying to give the boys that ten extra minutes of sleep. Not that it mattered, since neither one of them was happy to be woken up. But we had survived and made it safely, and the Starlings were there to greet us at the airport. Yay!

Then all the boys piled into one car, we girls into another, and it was off to the hotel, where we bade the Starlings good night, and pretty much went right to sleep. Well, Josh was majorly stressed out by this point and yelled at Zeke who was seriously stressed out and WAY over tired as he‘d essentially been awake for 20 hours by this point. This stressed me out even more, so I yelled at Josh for yelling at Zeke and sent him to go buy milk for Deacon so I could give him a bottle before putting him down for the night. And through all of this Deacon was asleep in his carseat, sweating up a storm. Because, you know, it was 50 degrees when we left Germany, and it was 103 degrees when we landed in Lawton. Oh yeah, from cool and mountainous to hot and flat. Gotta love opposites.

Anyhoo. We all slept pretty well until about 4am when Deacon woke up and made sure the rest of us got up with him. So, we got up and played and watched some Animal Planet for two hours then went back to sleep for another two hours until the boys got up again, and had breakfast and then we just hit the ground running. But that’s another post for another day.

Safe and Sound

Well, we're here. And boy is it hot! Kind of a shock going from 50 degree days to 100+ degree days. Also from beautiful mountainous Germany, to flat (but beautiful in it's own way) Oklahoma. But we're here, and we're safe and we're starting to adjust. We got cell phones, we're in our house (even though we don't have gas yet, which means no hot water), we have a house phone and soon we'll have internet. Which means I'm using Joni's computer, which means this isn't going to be any longer. I just wanted to let you all know we're here and we're doing well. Thank you for your prayers. They were greatly needed. But, I'll write all about the flight and stuff another day. Until then...I hope y'all have a great weekend!

Pray For Us

Well, tomorrow's the big day. Tomorrow we wake up bright and early (since we're in Germany still it will be bright when we rise at five a.m. or so), pack up the rental car with all our goodies and ourselves, and make our way to the airport. Then comes the flight. The incredibly long flight. The ten hour flight. The ten hour flight where our energy balls will have to be confined and controlled in a little bit of space. The ten hour flight that precedes a two hour layover in Dallas, which is followed by a one hour flight. I'm trying really hard not to stress out over it all, but from every way I look at it, it's going to be a LONG day tomorrow and we will definitely be needing your prayers. Tempers will be short, meltdowns will occur (and I'm not just talking about the kids here), and we will all be overtired starting the day. But, once it's over, it's over. We will land in Oklahoma, probably have some dinner, then go to the hotel we have reservations at there and fall right asleep. Let's hope the boys sleep through the night too. Let's hope they don't wake up at 1a.m. thinking it's really 7a.m. and want to get up, eat and play. Let's pray for that too. Having said all that, I guess I should go since I should probably be packing or throwing things away that we brought to the hotel with us, but aren't bringing to Oklahoma with us. But really, both boys are actually sleeping, and I am enjoying the quiet and the peace for as long as I can. Hopefully we will have all our utilities and things set up in our new house by the weekend, and I can blog again then about the flight and our house and all that fun stuff. Until then, here we are, one big happy family. Tchuess!