Welcome to Elizabeth City!

We arrived in our new home on Sunday, July 24. It feels like it has been nonstop since we arrived in town! 

We were incredibly blessed and overwhelmed as soon as we arrived at the amount of people that showed up from the church we visited during our last trip to EC. There were around 15 people here that afternoon - in the scorching heat, I might add - to help us unload all of our stuff. I really don't even want to think about how long it would have taken us to unload the moving truck, our van, and our Camry! We were also provided with sloppy joe's for dinner that night, thanks to our friend Annette. And not only that, but she coordinated a group of women from the church to bring us dinner for the next 5 nights!!! So from Monday-Friday, we did not have to worry about fixing dinners. I cannot even begin to tell you how helpful that was for us! We were so, so busy unpacking our 1000s of boxes (ok, maybe not 1000s, but that is definitely what it felt like!) that most times when Charis started begging for food, it had not even registered with me that it was time to eat. I swear though, sometimes it seemed like the people bringing dinner that evening were just sitting outside our door, waiting for Charis and Cayman to start asking for food, before they knocked on our door with a meal in their hands. All the food was delicious too - we had meatball subs, lasagna, orange chicken and lo mein, and pulled pork sandwiches. So, so good -- all of it!

During our first week in town, we spent a lot of time and money at Wal-mart. I lost count of the number of trips we took to that place! :) We also found things in some of our boxes that made us wonder what exactly we were thinking when we packed it 1.5 years ago! (i.e. half a bottle of bleach...plastic knives, spoons, forks...a kids' snack bowl still holding some goldfish...yes, I'm serious.) We also gave A LOT of stuff away...like rubbermaid bins, boxes, trash bags...a lot of stuff. If only we had been more willing to part with some of our clothes and other belongings before we put it all in our storage units, we definitely would have only had one storage unit instead of two! :)

Our first week in Elizabeth City was tiring, busy, and overwhelming at times (thanks to our wild and crazy kids), but it was very fruitful. We had almost every box emptied by Sunday, pictures hung on the walls, all the furniture in place, and we even made time to discover some of the playgrounds in town and take a trip up to Cheseapeake to go to TARGET!

We are so thankful to finally be home! We love our house - we love being in a house instead of an apartment! We actually have COLOR on every wall...and colors that, for the most part, we would have chosen ourselves! It's great. My favorite parts about being in our home are our bed, our big ol' sofa, and having Charis in her own crib (instead of a pack-in-play.)

As we turned into our neighborhood for the very first time that Sunday morning, I said, "Cayman!!! This is OUR neighborhood!" He said, "Dis our HOME, Mom?" "Yes, buddy, this is our home!" Welcome to Elizabeth City! Enjoy our new home as I blog about it. :)

Where the kids ate their first supper in the house!

Whenever I didn't know where a box or suitcase should go,
it was thrown on this huge pile...

Cayman's new big boy bed!

First meal at our table :)

Cayman played with this vacuum cleaner part and this hose to who knows what
for DAYS. Literally. "Mama, where dat black thing and dat blue thing?"

He really became quite imaginative with these things.
He used them as microphones, tools, and a fishing pole.

We have to water the tree behind Ian everyday,
which is the perfect opportunity to water our kids as well.

Our new outdoor table

Entry way

FULL bookshelf we had to purchase for all of our books
(we gave, literally, thousands of books away...)

Yay!!!

We HAD to purchase blackout curtains for the big sliding glass doors.
It is unreal how much heat those things let in during the afternoons!

The most comfortable bed we've slept in during the past year and a half!!!