On Post Housing

This morning Cameron woke up, walked Isis, brought us back some breakfast from the dining area, and then left to go to the housing appointment.  While he was gone, I dressed the girls and gave them a breakfast of champions:

It was raining outside and besides, we couldn't leave Isis by herself (hotel rules), so we all just chilled and watched some cartoons while we waited for Daddy to return:

Odette: "Mirror, Mirror on the wall...who is the fairest one and a half year old of all?"

Mirror: "T'would be thou if thou had'st left thine headband on, but as thou art, t'will be another until said piece you finally don."

Odette: "Shoot."

Trying on Daddy's gear:

When Daddy got back to the hotel, it was still raining and we couldn't move in until 1:30 pm anyway, so he got us some lunch and then we just chilled for the next little while:

1:30 finally rolled around and we rolled out!  Here is a very beautiful bridge that greeted us as we made our way into the Fort Benning military installation:

Proud signage:

I thought we were going to go right to our house and start moving in, but I guess there was still more paperwork to fill out.  The girls napped while we waited for Cameron to be done with all of the formalities:

When Alegria woke up, she thought this was our new house (it's the Housing Welcome Center, sorry!):

Drumroll, please!  This is our neighborhood/street...

And this is our "new Georgia house!!!"  (As Alegria calls it!)  :)

First to enter:

First to explore:

Master bathroom:

Master bedroom:

Bedroom 1:

Bedroom 2:

Bedroom 3:

Hallway (with two large/wide closets and one regular-sized one):

Guest/hallway bathroom:

Living room and dining room:

Kitchen/breakfast nook:

Mud/wash room (with veiw of the neighbor's house):

I had bought Isis a bed while Cameron was deployed so that she wouldn't have to sleep on the cold, hard ground, but after she tore it all up, I tossed it and she hadn't had one since.  Cameron bought her  a new one since she'll have to stay indoors until we can get a fence put up...it took some coaxing for her to finally accept her bed:

She decided it was comfy:

Alegria got to choose her room first and took the one closest to the master bedroom:

Going for a walk on the front lawn:

 



We worked as much as we could between play time with the girls...and in the process met quite a few neighbors who stopped by to say hello and introduce themselves.  We may just like this on-post living thing.  :)

After all of our travels, it was nice for the girls to finally have a warm bath.  They were happy to get all cleaned up and to see their bath toys that had been put away for a few long days!

Once the girls were in bed, Cameron and I continued to unload the truck...one of the critical things to unload being our bedroom furniture...can't wait to sleep on our awesome new Tempurpedic bed!  Oh, how we've missed you!!!  :)

And that was our day!

Hellooooo Georgia!

Cameron got up and took Isis for a walk and this is how I found the girls:

First stop of the day...gas fill-up.  Isis hopped up in the driver's seat to see what the view looks like from her master's chair:

Everything was going great at this point...the girls were happily watching their movies as I was singing to some tunes on the radio...when all of a sudden at the top of a hilly highway, I saw Cameron pull over to the left lane.  I would have done the same, but as I looked over to the left, there was a car almost head-to-head by me in that very same lane, so I decided I'd just have to move over as soon as the car passed me.  Unfortunately, what I didn't know was that the reason Cameron had pulled off to the left was because there was a mattress lying in the middle of the road.  When I saw it, I looked over to my right to try to avoid it since I was blocked to the left, but I was boxed in and there was no other way to go than to try to drive over it...

We did not make it. 

I immediately went off to the right to where I saw a few men motioning over to me.  I assumed this was their mattress that I had, undoubtedly, just ruined.

I got out and Alegria and Odette were not happy to sit in the car with no air condition on as the men tried to remove the mattress from underneath the car:

First Cameron tried using our jack to elevate our car, but it was not big enough:

In the meantime, a police officer arrived to assess the situation:

It did not look promising:

One of the gentlemen happened to live nearby and said he had a bigger jack, so he went home to get it.  When he got back, the men tried again to elevate the car with this larger jack now:

It was still not big enough for the men to remove the mattress from under our car, so the policewoman called a towing service.

In the meantime, the girls and I stretched our legs a bit and Cameron brought Isis out as well:

Poor car!  I hope nothing was damaged underneath!

The tow truck finally arrived and the men were able to remove the mattress:

What a show, huh girls?

Two hours later, we were freed from the mattress and ready to get going again. 

As we were getting ready to depart, Cameron spoke with the owner of the mattress, who kept telling him that he felt really bad for what had happened.  He said that he had just bought the mattress for his brother, but when said brother was asked if the mattress was secured in the back of the truck, the brother had told him that it was...but it wasn't.  The brother had not tied the mattress down...and the man told us he felt terrible for not having checked it himself before they began their trip home.  He paid for the towing service himself and wanted to pay us for the trouble he put us through.  Cameron didn't want to accept anything, but the man said that he'd feel bad if he didn't give us something, so Cameron finally accepted $80, we said our goodbyes, and we were off on our separate ways...us with a hopefully still functioning AC and them with the remains of what could have been a really nice matttres: 

Unfortunately, that was not the end of the tough times on our very long and exhausting last day on the road.  Later that evening it rained so hard that I could hardly see a thing in front of us and so I slowed way down.  Cameron got really far ahead of us in the truck, but luckily, through communications on our walkie-talkies, we were able to keep in contact to make sure we always knew where the other one was.  I even had to turn off any and all music and movies at one point to be able to concentrate on the road.

Finally, we arrived at our hotel destination.  The girls were very happy to be out of the car...well, we all were...and it was nice that our hotel was a nice one, too...flat screen TV with cable, even!  :)

Cameron left to go on post and get a visitor's pass to get a jump-start in the morning...he didn't want to be late to his housing appointment at 9 am! 

And I'm here with the girls...ready to welcome sleep...

Good night!  :)

Goodbye Texas...

With almost everything packed up, there's no other place to have their last breakfast in our lovely Texas house than on our dining room floor:

All dressed up and ready for the long journey ahead of us...and watching Dumbo while Daddy and I load up the last of our stuff:

Helping...?

We were loading the last of our stuff and were ready to possibly have to stay in a hotel for about a week...we'd already made the reservations at a pet-friendly La Quinta for that long.  That morning, before boxing up our computer, we had checked the wait-list for our housing on-post at Fort Benning and we were still number 18 of 42 on that list.  Cameron and I were discussing the possibilities: should we get a storage unit, unpack everything, and then when we finally get a house on post, rent a Uhaul again, load everything up, and then unload it in our house?  Or should we just pay the extra daily charges and keep our stuff in the Uhaul truck so the only step we'd still have to do would be to unload everything once we got a house...hopefully in no more than a week?  At $45 a day for the truck, we were looking at quite a bit of change...on top of a week's worth of hotel stays...

The Lord truly blessed us, though, and as we were finishing up, we got a phone call from housing at Fort Benning saying that there was a 4 bedroom 2 bathroom home waiting for us and they wanted to know when we could come by and see it!  We made an appointment for Friday morning and were told that after the appointment, we'd be able to move in by that afternoon!  What a miracle!!!  :)

Goodbye beautiful house full of memories!  We'll miss you and the wonderful home that you were to us these last three years!!!

Last stop before we hit the road:

Doralee was safely tucked in a box and surrounded by bibs and washcloths to make for as little of a bumpy ride as possible:

Nap time!

This was my view the whooooole way:

I was in dire need of this, especially once the girls fell asleep and I had no one to talk to:

I was sad that we never got pictures in a field of bluebonnets during our time in Texas and that this was the only time I'd have pictures of them that I myself had taken:

The scenery changed immediately upon entering Louisiana.  Welcome to the Swamplands!

Pit stop:

Almost there, girls...

We finally made it to our hotel.  We were all tired, but happy to be out of the car.  

Isis did well staying in her little corner of the hotel room:

Time for a late dinner:

Brushing teeth:

Alegria decided she wanted to sleep in the chair...I don't know why.  She could have shared a bed with Daddy.  Oh well!  

Tomorrow we are Georgia-bound!

Good night!!!