We will have to come back and talk about our awesome and wonderful family vacation to Portland, OR soon, but in the meanwhile, I know the big questions are around where we are now.
So we flew back to Fayetteville Wednesday June 29th after a week away and our home already packed up in a POD and shipped. We spent way too short of a night and morning at Adam's place on campus since we had already checked out of ours and turned keys in. We hit up Little Bread Company for one last taste of chocolate croissant goodness and hit the road. For those of you on Twitter/Facebook you probably caught much of our progress through those updates. The first day we drove ~7 hours to Jackson, TN and ate dinner there and stayed the night at a quaint hotel.
Nothing too exciting happened the first day. Heath did well. The frozen pizza crust we packed for him from Cable Car leftovers were a life saver as he got focused on sucking it to death and more than once chewed himself to sleep. I finally got to read my new book about In-N-Out while nothing else needed to be taken care of- that was glorious.
The second day we headed out to Knoxville, TN about a 5 hour drive for us from Jackson. Although it was less time in the car on day 2, Heath knew what was up now and was a little more resistant to get in and out of his car seat for quick diaper changes. And we got to him quick! The changing pad we tossed in the backseat proved genius as we were able to throw it on top of the car hood and change him without the added minutes of going inside and discovering whether or not there was a changing table at said rest stop. This was especially helpful on the many occasions we had just stopped, ate, gassed up, did bathroom breaks then 5 minutes later on the highway Heath has a BM and needs immediate changing. We forgot about the time change that happens while in TN so we were a bit later than we thought, but got to our friends, the Greenes, early afternoon. Their 2 1/2 year old Ethan had loads of energy to entertain Heath and show off all his toys to. Mason who is only 4 months was pretty content to chill and observe all of us.
Staying in Knoxville with Ronnie and Christal was awesome. We are so glad to be closer to them now and in the same time zone that we can hang out more. Jonathan went to college with both of them and Ronnie was a groomsmen in our wedding. Ronnie aptly described our night to another friend as having a small window of opportunity where the kids go to sleep and then you have about 90 minutes until it hits 10pm and you have to go to bed because you are old parents. We pushed our bedtime to later to soak in the minutes, well worth it- even though the kids did not appropriately push back their wake up time to oblige us.
Day 3 of the trip east was the toughest. For a number of reasons I'm sure, but the main being that we started off on the wrong path- traveling a windy uphill highway 50 miles in the wrong direction. Navigation said the only alternative to where we were was to turn around. So for the first 2 hours of our morning we wasted driving towards Kentucky while Heath soundly napped in his car seat. I'll move on.
We got to Blacksburg around 4pm (a few hours later than when we anticipated). We had made a pit stop an hour before and picked up water and gatorade that began icing down in our coolers in the car. We were beyond blessed to join us at our house a great welcoming crew that unloaded our POD. A few of my new colleagues from Virginia Tech came over and helped as well as three VT students who just graduated in May and were involved with the Baptist Christian Ministry on campus. Through my BCM contacts at Arkansas, they put us in touch and we were SO thankful to have these three young turks come and help strangers unload. Not only did they unload but they then asked what else they could help assemble or unpack. I kept thinking of Sister Helen talking about how she wanted to be 'the face of Christ' for the inmate on death row she worked with and tried not to cry as I felt so blessed by these young people's heart to serve us. Frank also came over and helped unload and carry Heath around the property and neighborhood while I worked elsewhere. I think Heath has a new friend!
So we are here, the traveling is done. Boxes are everywhere, but in a manageable way. For renting a house sight unseen, we are happy with what we do see now. The space is going to work great for the three of us and the location could not be any better. We walked a mile into downtown for dinner tonight and discovered a playground a block behind us along the way. Heath got a little pool today and had his first backyard playtime. He has been acting different here, very comfortable. For being on the road and staying in many different places the last two weeks, I think he senses we are staying put for awhile here!
