Alive and Well in Maryland

I thought I would have more spare time on my hands to finally catch up on my blog, but find that most of it is either spent researching houses on the internet or actually seeing them.  House hunting is a process! 

Josh and I made it safely to Maryland.  The move with surprisingly smooth.  The moving company got everything packed up and loaded on the truck without a hitch.  I was amazed how many boxes it took; they tagged 370 items including furniture.  There was a lot crammed into that little apartment.  Having someone else do the packing is certainly the way to do it.  I was able to clean the bathroom and the kitchen while they were packing.  By the time they were done loading everything up the apartment was clean.  Wahoo!

The only hitches in the whole process have been related to our apartment.  The first night it took us 30 + minutes of walking around to find our apartment.  Finding stairs to take us down to the second floor was a trick and the parking garage is a nice feature but we got lost thoroughly the first night. 

Josh had his first day of work on Tuesday.  Went out to get in the car and came back in a minute later and said the cars were gone.  I was shocked and didn't believe him and had to go see for myself.  Indeed our Sienna and our Prism were not where we had left them.  Talk about a pit in your stomach!  Josh scrounged to get a cab to work (he was late) and I was left to figure out how in the world to get our cars back.  The temp housing company was a lifesaver.  Turns out we had put the wrong parking passes in the windows  (they gave us two white and two green and didn't tell us which to use where) and our cars were towed.  They found out what company had towed our cars and an employee was even gracious enough to drive me to the boonies (lets say gheto/white trash area in the middle of nowhere) to get my cars.  The operation was a man sitting in his SUV on a gated lot full of 20+ cars.  He had a laptop in his car took my drivers licence and my credit card, took my thumb print twice and $420 then let me take my cars.  Insain!  The lady from Oakwood was a lifesaver!  Prayers are answered.

House hunting is a rollercoaster ride.  We've adjusted the area we are looking in.  I saw one yesterday that has a lot of potential and I'm going out to see more today.  If only I had a million dollars!

I'm missing my boys.  I am grateful that we were able to leave them in Utah during the move.  Things would have been very difficult with them around (can you imagine if I had them on Tuesday with the car towing?).  I look forward to seeing them on Sunday.  It's cute to talk to them on the phone.  Most of the time I'm on the other end listening to them talk to someone else.  It melts my heart to hear their little voices on the on end of the line.  Man, they are cute buddies!  Sam is excited to get a house.  I'm afraid he will be disappointed when we get him here and we are living in a pretty minimal apartment but I'm sure working hard to find him a house.

Something else I'm very grateful for... GPS!  And I'm grateful we got two of them for Christmas.  I don't know how anyone can survive without them out here.  I am so turned around without the mountains.  It doesn't help either that all of the roads are curved and windy and that none of them are on the North/South East/West axis.  Everthing is either NW or NE or SE or SW and then they call them North or South when really they aren't.  Arrgh!  I'm going nuts!  It also doesn't help that the GPS map turns so you are always driving up.  I think I'm doomed to be GPS dependent as long as we live here.

Ramble... ramble.  I'll see if I can find my camera cord and put up some pictures of Josh's graduation.  The rest of my pictures are all on our portable hard drive and that will take some time to set up.  My goal is to do better with the blogging even though I'm being slow on the start.

Happy New Year, everyone (who hasn't given me up for dead and still checks my blog)!