Moving and House Hunting

Here's how the last two weeks have gone.....

(Starting last week)
Thursday Night: Girls night and goodbyes

Friday morning: observing 3rd graders at CCS for the last time (saw a TON of my former students on campus and got oddly emotional realizing I have been with some of those 1st and second graders since they were 3 and 4 years old! and won't be seeing them grow up around me anymore)

Friday night: Chow baby with the Reinke's and more goodbyes

Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Packing to save $$ on movers packing (which ended up saving us $700 thank you very much! But probably won't do that again lol)....SOOOOO tired.

Sunday night: saying goodbye to Kayla :(

Monday: chic-fil-a for breakfast, finish cleaning and packing our bags, movers arrive at 10:30, pack, stink, sweat (hottest day of the year so far with a heat index of 107), ate an entire two pizza's and box of breadsticks I ordered them, load the truck, leave by 5:30, and then we cleaned the house until around 9:30pm...SOOOOOO much more tired. So tired that I literally laid down in the closet with all of our stuff and took a nap for a little bit while Sean cleaned. I also ended up in tears several times because my body hurt so bad....ugh. I really should have asked for more help this week. oh well.

Monday night: packed our cars, locked up the house, and pulled out of McDonough. Super sad day (although it hasn't really hit me yet). Arrived in Sumter at 2:30am and CRASHED.
I drove my car with Sammy in the back, and Sean his with Halle. We made it about 3 hours and all the way to Columbia when Sean called and said he needed to stop and take a nap. We were only about an hour away and I just wanted to GET THERE, so I begged him not to....or if he was going to, then I was going to keep on going and get to the hotel to a bed! lol So, needless to say, we barely made and thank God we're alive. Wasn't a long drive, just a long week leading up to it, which made it feel very long.

Tuesday: had a hard time getting out of bed.....got out of bed, ate breakfast, went back to bed....got out of bed again and went to lunch....back to bed....and then up for dinner with the Pratt's, Howells and Mercedes for Kristen's bday. Then, back to bed. lol A much needed "rest day".

Wednesday: looked for houses.....no luck.

Thursday: looked for houses.....some  luck.

The adventures of looking for a house
We're looking for a house with some specific requirements....we're not being super picky and we're definitely 
not being picky about location, but there are like NO 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, fenced yard houses under our measly (much lower) BAH available around here!!! With Third Army coming in, the rentals are SPARSE, and the prices have gone up!
We found one that was a little higher than we wanted, but it was huuuuuuge. Probably too big for us.
Then we found another one that was much lower than we expected, but it's much farther away from base and town and is tinnnnnny (like, run into walls and each other tiny lol).
THEN, we found a REALLY great house, but it was probably too much more than our price range....I would definitely need a job to afford it. BUT, it was really pretty, PERFECT kitchen, large bedrooms, totally updated everything, and enough storage to store a whole other house! lol There was an out building that had three doors/units. The first one was for like lawn tools, etc, the second room was insulated and used for a workshop/storing small vehicle (like motorcycle or golf cart), and the third was insulated, had a bathroom and heating pump and used for a man cave/guest room! hahaha, it was really cool! There was also another storage shed that had awesome shelves and she used it for her seasonal decorations and such. Anyway, for the price and how MUCH house there was, it was a little unreasonable.
Another house was much older, stunk, was in a weird neighborhood, and a little high for the quality of house, and no garage or anything. But, we're getting used to that.....carports and half bathrooms in the master bedroom seem to be the thing around here (I don't understand the whole, no shower in the master thing...really weird).
The real estate agents give us lists of rentals, and we look at the price, area, if it has a fence, etc. The list went from about 30-40 places to about 10, and of those 10 we only really felt comfortable with a couple. Usually there is only one thing wrong with them, not multiple things; either they're too expensive, too far away, don't allow pets, or are in a bad neighborhood (from the best of my knowledge and research). OR, we drive there, it looks great, we call and it's already been rented.
After two days of driving around looking at places, going back and forth to real estate agents for keys and tours, we were pretty disappointed and hoping that something would just pop up in front of us. We got back to the hotel and I logged back onto ahrn.com, the military real estate sight where most rentals are posted, and BAM! There it was, our house. No, really, as I read through it, my heart started racing.....it was perfect. In fact, it had MORE than any of those other houses. Great neighborhood, good price (really, at the top of our price range, but totally worth it), 3bedroom, 2bathroom, two car garage, large wooden fenced back yard, garbage disposal (yes, I am dying to have one (didn't in McDonough), but most houses we've seen don't have them), security system, totally landscaped yard, pets allowed, two sinks in master and a walk-in closet....the site said it was available immediately and I flipped out, "SEAN! CALL THEM NOW!!!!!" He called them withing seconds and there it was, the bad news; tenants won't be out until July 23rd. WHAAAAAT!?!?! But it SAAAAYS....... ERG. :(  So, we continue our search.

On a better note, we hung out with one of Sean's buddy's last night and it was really fun. He, his wife and their 5 year old son are staying in Columbia this week for Skyler Jr's soccer camp, so they drove out here for dinner! Sean and Skyler were in Kuwait together and apparently did everything together (I didn't get that as much from Sean while he was gone lol). Skyler is really funny and his wife is really sweet. It was great meeting them and getting out for a while. They are stationed in Augusta, so we're planning on getting together again soon.

Other happenings this week:
-We got our P.O. box on Shaw for a temporary address (P.O. Box 52480 Shaw AFB, SC 29152)
-The dogs have spent more time in the car this week than they have in their entire lives, and are getting used to it thankfully.
-This hotel room gets smaller and stuffier by the hour.
-I almost forgot I was still in school and need to catch up on my homework asap!
-Just kidding, the dogs are not used to the car apparently because one of them pooped in it today. UGH!
-The dogs bark at every person that walks by our room.
-I'm pretty sure it's hotter in SC than it was in GA. I feel like I'm going to melt.
-We've driven around this town so much, I almost know my way around already (really not too hard there are 3 main roads that you take everywhere).
-So far we've eaten at IHop, Subway, Firehouse, Outback, Arby's, Mariachi's and Red Lobster take-out. I'm still enjoying it actually, but I think it might get old soon :)

Packing

Packing

Kristin's Birthday 

Girls night and goodbyes:Carraba's with Maggie, Kasey and Kayla