New Digs

And who is all unpacked and ready for a new Georgia normal? 

*This girl*

Our labor day was spent working--I'm told that is quite the tradition in the Wampler household. It's not a holiday, it's a work day. It was definitely worthwhile work, since we're now officially done unpacking. Yay!

Ok, wait. I just remembered that one box hidden in the bottom of my closet full of all the random stuff collected through the last couple of days in Albuquerque, as well as stupid things that showed up in the van during travel. If that's still there, can I still claim to be fully unpacked?

Anyway. Would you like the grand tour of our new apartment? Despite being on different ends of the country now, I can in fact hear your heads nodding. So let's proceed.

We begin in the entry way--probably the longest hallway we've ever had in a home.

To your right is the kitchen, complete with stainless steel appliances.

That door opens into the laundry room slash pantry.

As much as I enjoy laundromats, it is nice to have my own machines back.

On the other side of the bar countertop is the dining room. 

The mirrors certainly add a lot of light and make the space feel REALLY big, but I'm not always 100% sold on having them there.

To the right is the living room.

We bought that big rug new just for this apartment. I was pleased to find one that matched our existing rug so nicely. Even though I don't have a picture of the existing rug... you'll just have to believe me.

This is our game storage. Those cupboards underneath contain all of our camping gear. Had to put it somewhere...

The door off the living room is the master bedroom. We've lived off the kitchen before, now we get to try the living room.

We have a nice walk-in closet.

And our own bathroom. This apartment is 1530 sq ft--that's nearly 700 sq ft bigger than our apartment in Albuquerque. I'm pretty sure at least half of the increase is used up in the bathrooms. Seriously, they are huge. And no, I'm not complaining.

Back out through the living room and out of the main living areas, you'll find the other hallway.

On your right is the other enormous bathroom. Loving the big bathtubs.

At the end of the hall is the kids' room, complete with kids.

The closet gives nice storage for the toys.

This little alcove is a fun play spot, too.

We kept all three kids in the same room since they did so well with it before. That gives us the third bedroom for an office/craft room/storage for all the stuff that used to be in the closet outside and no longer fits in the closet outside.

I admit, this isn't my most favorite room in the house. It drives me crazy to have so much storage visible. I miss the massive amounts of cupboards in our house in Salt Lake. But, I count it as a great personal success that I have allowed for this room to exist in my house and even that I have arranged it in such a way that I do actually find it livable. Still not ideal, but certainly livable. And it beats paying for another storage unit.

Office space:

Storage space:

Relatively empty space:

The closet is also full, though not in a pretty enough way to warrant a picture. All of our food storage is stacked up behind the big shelves. We don't need access to it unless there is a major emergency, so it's not bad to have so much stuff packed in front of it. And then it's also hidden, so we're not living with a mound of boxes all the time. It works.

And there you have it. This is where we live now.

The Georgia Chronicles

Hello, hello. Did you miss me?

Yes, we did in fact move into our apartment. Between unpacking and a nasty kidney infection that popped up for me, blogging has dropped down on the list. But I'm back for tonight.

To wrap up the traveling, here is one last sleeping in the hotel picture:

Ben seems to get a kick out of drooling on other people's pillows.

And, moving on to moving. Ha. That's like a pun.

I spent the vast majority of moving day standing in this corner, checking off each box as it was brought inside.

Last time we moved, there were a handful of boxes/numbers unaccounted for. To prevent that happening again, we removed every sticker as it came in. By the end of the day, we had every single sticker. It was lovely to know right away that we weren't missing anything. Even if the moving guys thought we were a little weird for being so thorough.

After two weeks in the apartment, we are basically unpacked. There is still a mountain of empty boxes filling up my living room, and I'll postpone the tour of the new place until they're gone. I will give you a bit of an outside tour, though.

If I could describe Georgia in one word: GREEN. Remember how stinkin' brown Albuquerque is? Atlanta is the epitome of opposite. Ah, I'm loving it. This, my friends, is the view out our living room window.

We went for a family walk after church on Sunday. Out the door, through a parking lot, and straight into this.

Honestly, we're just surrounded by green. Happy sigh.

There are even some green animals we've come across. This turtle showed up right outside our apartment.

And I found this lizard on the van's tire when I was picking up Audrey from the bus.

Other than the greenness, I don't yet have a whole lot to say about living here. It's the beginning of a new place--no friends yet, not leaving the house much. Our apartment is a bit isolated, the basement level on the back of the building, so I generally don't see a single person who lives in our building. We're still adjusting to that. Well, I am. I don't know if anyone else cares.

We are slowly but surely getting settled in, though. We've had some cute moments, like Ben falling asleep at the table.

And Megan giving the family a meditation lesson. She was super cute.

Ben's imitation, on the other hand, came out looking rather deformed.

Seriously, I can't help but laugh every time I look at these pictures. Ha.

Anyway. We're still here, we're still alive. And we're starting to like living in Georgia.

Time for GRAD SCHOOL!

Introducing Mister Christopher,

Graduate Student

Classes don't actually start until Monday, but today was the grad school orientation at Georgia Tech. Chris was able to talk to more professors, meet several students, and eat free food. From all I've gathered, it was a productive day.

Audrey was excited that she and Dad are both students now.

It is certainly an interesting time to be living in a hotel. School starting has been more of one story among many, when I would have much preferred for that particular event to have more of a spotlight. But, such is life. Tomorrow we finally finally FINALLY move into our apartment. We've already hung out there for a couple hours now and again, mostly killing time before the bus came, but it will be much more meaningful to actually live there.

Before that blessed event, though, I want to wrap up on the last few hotel etc. noteworthies.

In all our road trips over the summer, I rather lost my zeal for tracking license plates. Between New Mexico and Utah and Idaho, I was always seeing pretty much the same ones every time and it just wasn't so exciting. Now, however, with driving across the country I thought we'd have a good chance to get quite a few different states. I was right.

I collected 43 different states. Booyah. With that many, I find it more mentionable to say those we missed, rather than those we have. Missing:

Hawaii

Vermont

Connecticut

Delaware

North Dakota

Wyoming

Idaho

Yes, Idaho. Holy cow. Of all states ever, that was always the most guaranteed in the license plate game in my entire life. What a one to miss.

With our switched hotels, we were able to finally split us away from the kids for sleeping. This worked out a lot better since they could actually go to sleep at a decent hour and we... didn't have to go to sleep at a decent hour. Ha. Anyway, the hotel we're in now has a bedroom separated from a living area. The doors are glass, unfortunately, but Chris came up with an ingenious plan to darken the room for the kids so they could sleep and we could stay up later in the bedroom.

I did feel just a little guilty for putting the kids on the sofabed/pillows piled up on the floor while we had two queen beds to ourselves, but they all slept just fine.

They even enjoyed it. I'm not sure what the appeal is to pillows shoved in corners, but it seems a favorite of Megan's.

We have no real semblance of normal, which is definitely wearing down on all of us. Well, Chris seems to be holding up fabulously well, but it's taking a bit more visible effort on my part. The kids are showing signs of stress, too--Ben is practically bi-polar with how suddenly he's just the happiest little man on the planet and then just as quickly he's screaming and trying to bite me. Megan has gone mostly deaf if I'm saying anything that goes contrary to her personal ideals of the moment. And Audrey Jane... well, she is convinced that, as a child old enough for school, she is old enough to own the world. They've all given us quite the seasonings to go with our plate of crazy.

We have tried to keep things fun, though. Pizza, chocolate milkshakes, and Jack Frost.

And chasing Dad all over the rooms after dinner.

In the apartment tomorrow, unpacking for fingers crossed a week, then we can start figuring out normal again. Comments of encouragement and humor strongly welcomed and gratefully accepted.