Part 2: Chapter 1, Our Home

Here we are! We made it! Sunday afternoon we drove onto our new base to stay in temporary housing for the night. We went to bed praying and hoping that we would receive good news the next morning when we went to get the keys to our house.

Monday morning came. We met with the housing people Daddy Bear had been corresponding with for the past month, and the good news came! "Here are the keys to your NEW house!" And not just new to us, but brand NEW. We were thrilled! We had many other things to take care of before visiting our new place but we knew what it looked like. We'd seen pictures and had been salivating over it for the past few weeks just waiting for the words we wanted to hear--that it was ours! (Keep in mind the new-builds were still in the making on our old base so we had been living in a tiny home built in the 60s or 70s and had now almost doubled in size).

There were a couple of glitches at the other appointments that first day, but overall it was very productive and we were able to rest that night knowing that it was our LAST night in a temporary lodging facility on an air force base for...well, hopefully for a LONG time! We had a house that was ours as long as we chose to live in it and we could now unpack our things and settle down for awhile. Little Bear was perhaps the most excited of all!!!

Tuesday morning we awoke, took our last family trip photo,...

...and headed to our house to meet the movers!! It was quite thrilling for Little Bear at first.

But the newness wore off and Mama Bear and Little Bear had to go find something to do to take our minds off of the madness inside our house. After we had some nice quiet play time at the base library, we went to get pizza for ourselves and the movers. They were very grateful and we all gobbled up the lunch before heading into an afternoon of more craziness. The movers were very efficient and helpful, and thankfully Mama Bear was able to scramble together a baby crib mattress that had been brought in, a blanket to cover it with, Little Bear's pillow and "Teddy" from the car, and a few books to read before naptime. LB was completely content with this arrangement and slept for 3 1/2+ hours before waking up to a quiet house that was now ours for the unpacking.

I wish that I had taken a picture of the packing paper and boxes reaching halfway to the top our vaulted dining room ceiling, but all I have is a current picture.

Not bad eh?

We are still a few boxes and a lot of organizing and decorating away from being finished so I don't have any other interior photos, but we are settled enough to live the day to day and are really enjoying our new place.

The hardest part for Mama Bear has been the adjustment going from a VAST and AMAZING community to NO community. For Daddy Bear it has been the SLOW transition into being put to use again at the workplace--he had such a nice long break from work helping us get packed and on the trip out here that he is ready to put his idle hands to work again but there is so much inprocessing and training to be done first. Little Bear's most difficult moments have been deciding which books to read and toys to play with first--he had really missed his things the past couple of weeks--and missing his Grandma, of course.

One of the neatest things about living on base here, besides our nice new house, has been the deer that we see frequently grazing in our backyard (there are currently no fences around the yards so they are literally in our backyard). They seem to be quite tame and will let you get within feet of them before they move off in the other direction.

Of course the towering trees and lush greenery all around us is also a huge plus...on the days it is sunny enough to get to see them. :) I am told the summers here make up for the rainy season, so I'm curious to see if I will agree. I'm kinda used to my weekly doses of Vitamin D--year round.

The bottom line is that we know God has placed us here for His reasons and that His planning has always been perfect in our lives. Though we may not always see it at the time, things have always worked out for the good of our family and the hard times only draw us closer to Him if we allow them to. So...that is our focus. That is the goal. And we will keep our eyes fixed on Him during this transition and will be praying for all of you as we think of you and miss you dearly.