Where in The World is Carmen Sandiego?

My biggest project of the year came up in July. After an unexpected job offer, we made a sudden move, 1200 miles away from our family and friends.  This move has been taxing in so many ways.  I've been lonesome, tired, homesick, and sick.  On the plus side, I'm making new friends, developing a new life, and have a job I love.

To start off with, we loaded the absolute necessities for a month-long trip into my car. Summer clothes, since this was July. Computers & monitor, blankets, first aid kit, toiletries, and my sleep machine, (cpap) along with a good supply of snacks and bottled water, were included in this list.  Then we hit the road.

At the first night's stop, we discovered something I had overlooked, when we got to a hotel with a pool, so we headed to Walmart for an inexpensive swimsuit.  We found that swimming at night was the perfect way to unwind after a long day in the car--or even 2 hours, which is all we made the first day, after we finally got out of the house.

We stayed a few days in a Super 8 motel. Sadly, they didn't have a pool. They did have the most secure internet we found on the whole trip--and the lowest price.  We started apartment hunting, and went to church on Sunday. "We don't know if we're visitors or new members of your congregation; it depends on where we end up living!"

On Monday Anthony went to work while I used Ethel, our trusty GPS, to find my way around town and look at more houses and apartments.  That night the owner of this darling little house called, and on Tuesday we signed a lease with him.

It's a great little home for us, complete with chicken wallpaper in the kitchen!  I asked the landlord about changing the wallpaper, but he said no. He's kind of partial to the chickens, I guess. So I am sewing cute muslin curtains and hanging color-coordinated pictures.

I found this darling table and 5 matching chairs at Goodwill, to complement our country kitchen look. I knew there was no way our dining table would fit in the space available.

After a month, we went back to our hometown and loaded the rest of our belongings into a Budget truck.  That was an adventure in itself!  Two of our sons came along; one transferred to a state university nearby, and the other helped us drive the truck and unload before flying home and off to adventures of his own in a Master's Degree program.

While we were there, we attended a special event, the sealing of our son's family at the temple. We believe that when families are sealed in the temple, by special authority, they can be together, not just until death, but for eternity. 

We have visited historic Nauvoo, Illinois, including a couple of visits to the Nauvoo Temple.  We plan to visit other local sites as time goes by.  We have also been to Lake McBride and Bloomsbury Farm for the corn maze and other fun activities. It's a great place that I hope to take the grandchildren next summer!

I picked out this cute little giraffe and started the "Ginger Project" to help the grandchildren relate to our activities and, hopefully, feel closer to us.  We take Ginger all sorts of places and take pictures to send to the grandchildren, by phone or Facebook.  It's fun.  We bought a Ginger to send to them, but so far I think she has only visited one family.  In this picture, Ginger meets a new friend.