Let the Baby Nesting begin!

We've got the unpacking bug! Along with unpacking comes the need to NEST. We have officially started the baby room. The dresser itself is quite the task. My husband opened the manual to find over 100 steps of instructions! He began separating the screws and realized this was a multiple day job. The dresser is just the beginning. Michael's dad is quite the furniture maker and he's designing a bookshelf/storage system to match our dresser and crib. We even have a gallon of the perfect shade of pink for an accent wall in her room. I'm not sure that we've formally announced the name, so please let me do that now... Mariah Gabrielle McGehee. Check out Michael working hard for his babygirl Mariah.

I have started washing everything. I'm on the very last load. Blankets clean, onesies clean, outfits clean, diapers...yes CLOTH diapers... clean! The amount of stuff a baby can have before she's even here is overwhelming! My bestie Marquet used vacuum seal bags to store all her cloth diapers and clothes. When it came time to open this gigantic bag, I commissioned my dear friend Audra to help me unload everything (picture below).


With all this baby nesting Christmas has sort of slipped to the side. We decided a tree was simply too much work at this point. So instead we hung our living room curtains which are coincidentally green and set our stacks of presents in front! Having my husband home during this holiday time has been nice and cozy. All these gifts are actually for other people. A few are for Michael and I but honestly, just having each other this Christmas is truly all I really want. (Who knows how many holidays the Marine Corps will take Daddy away from Mariah and I.) So we cherish just having this Christmas together. On that note, I should mention that if your gift is sitting among these, please know that it will be tardy!

Florida is a change of pace!

Such a perfect play on words! We are living in the Pensacola area. (Area being the key word in that sentence.) Our specific town is called Pace, FL and it sits 20 miles between the two work locations my husband will have during our stay here. He'll begin working at the Pensacola base and then switch to the Whiting-Field base during his flight training. Instead of moving, we opted to just live right in between. So Pace, Florida is our new home. (Don't worry change of address cards coming in the near future!)

The only similarities between Pace, FL and Alexandria, VA is that they are both located in the US. Pace is your typical country town. I began to realize just how small and quaint it was when I called to setup our water utility. I called, expected to hear a dial-in automated system with selections to choose from. Option 1 for new service, option 2 for billing questions, et cetera. I was quite surprised to hear two short rings and an elderly lady answer the phone, "Pace Water" in the countriest accent I've heard since living in Texas! I told her I needed to setup new service and she said, "come on in and see me." What? I was shocked. No website. No mail in orders. Simply, come in person with an ID and a check book. WOW!

(Should I also mention that on my way home from the water company, we had to come to a stop on one of the neighborhood roads to allow the turkeys to pass?!?!?!?)

As we drove around our neighborhood to get acquainted, I began to realize how much I liked the change of pace. When you wake in the morning, you don't hear cars, just birds chirping in the trees. When you step outside late at night, you don't see tall buildings around you...you see the stars. It's incredibly peaceful and a nice change of speed from the DC metro area. What I miss most about Alexandria are my friends. There isn't a day that has passed, thus far, that I haven't had the urge to hop in the car and drive to see Marian for some homemade muffins. Every 5 minutes I think of a reason to pop by Marquet's house, only to realize it's no longer just 5 minutes away. When the first Sunday passed that I knew hearing my dear friend Kati singing my favorite hymns on stage during worship was not an option, I began to tear.

The more time I spend here in Pace, I realize I am very grateful to have the opportunity to follow my husband on this journey. It's not every family that gets to explore different parts of the world every few years. Though it's a sacrifice, it's also a huge blessing. Moving away from VA has also shown me how very intentionally God planted me in Alexandria, VA amongst spiritually mature and God-invested girlfriends to grow. Mid-growth, He has now moved us to sew seeds in other parts of the country with other folks we meet. I look forward to getting knee-deep in my community here and continuing to harvest the goodness from my Virginia girlfriends.

Boxes, paper, and bubble wrap...oh my!

Let's flash back a few weeks with this very overdue post:

The official word has been given...on December 17 Michael and I must be in Florida! December 10 will be Michael's last day of work in Virginia! Let the packing frenzy begin! With only 10 days notice to get packed up and moved, we have lots to do. Finding boxes wasn't too hard. People are always trying to rid themselves of those after a move. The tricky part was going to be figuring out how to physically pack the house up while my dear husband was at work. Here's our tentative schedule:

**Thurs, Dec 2: received official word. we're moving!
**Mon, Dec 6 - Fri, Dec 10: Michael's last week of work.
**Fri, Dec 10: Goodbye Game Night to say good bye to our friends and family.
**Sat, Dec 11: Loading up the big truck with all our packed belongings.
**Sun, Dec 12: Michael drives all our belongings away pulling along his car on a trailer.
**Mon, Dec 13 - Tues, Dec 14: Spend the last few days in Virginia at a friends house.
**Tues, Dec 14: Michael flies back to Virginia, hops in my car, and we hit the road.

WHEW!!!

So how'd it go you ask??? My dear Virginia friends came by during my packing week to help out as long as they could. My bestie Marquet came over literally every single day with her 1 year old son. We set him loose amidst the boxes and packing paper, which he and the animals seemed to enjoy. She climbed counters, pulled pictures down from the wall, and decorations from high shelves. In short...she packed the majority of my house! With boxes full, lining the walls, I began to feel more and more prepared for the move. There was no way we could have all work and no play! So each day we sat down and crafted a bit in the middle of all the chaos. It was a bunch of work but also lots of fun.

Once packing ended, the truck-loading day came and that was super exhausting. I obviously didn't move anything. But, I was...in my husbands words... in charge of the sending boxes down in an orderly fashion. So I orchestrated what should go. I color coded boxes according to room so I knew what was what. In less than 3 hours our condo was empty! We then gathered at Japanese Steakhouse for some good ole hibachi-style cooking. My dear husband and I spent the next day cleaning the condo until it was spotless! Then, we headed to our friends home for dinner, a nap, and for my husband.... a long road trip! He hit the road at 3 a.m. with our friend Tim and drove the 941 miles non-stop from Alexandria to Pensacola. They spent the night in PCola at our dear friends, the Poynters and hopped on 6 a.m. flights back to Virginia.

I picked up my exhausted husband from the airport and in a short few hours, we were on the road to PCola...for good. The drive was long. The weather was brutally cold. 20 degrees! All the potty stops made the trip much longer than we'd hoped. But eventually we made it, safe and sound to our new home in Florida. We showed up around 5 p.m. Within minutes, the Poynters had arranged for their church friends to meet us at our house and unload our truck. Within less than an hour, the truck was empty!

And we've been calling this place home every since...

Turkey Celebration Madness

Folks it's been quite the three weeks! Thanksgiving started everything and from there time has just been flying by! Thanksgiving was quite fun and more intimate than we'd expected. Originally, we were hosting and 2 of our good friends were coming to share the holiday with us. We split the cooking so that it was less work on both of us. On my cooking list I had a turkey pinwheel lined and stuffed with Grandma's stuffing and Grandma's peach cobbler. Simple enough, 3 things! My dear friend was planning to bring green beans, sweet potato casserole and an especially secret Oreo pie recipe made by her husband. After all the grocery shopping, cleaning, and cooking we were finally ready and boy were we tired. Our dear friends little baby girl, Addy, fell ill and so we mutually decided to celebrate in our own homes to prevent the spread of sickness. BUTTTTTT, we'd all ready split the menu so we met up on the day of and swapped hefty portions of each dish we'd made. Then, we both went home and enjoyed our dinners. Things were absolutely YUMMY! We were sad we couldn't entertain our friends, particularly since we are moving from this area very soon. But, having a quiet Thanksgiving to ourselves proved to be very nice and intimate. After all, who knows how many holidays in the future he'll spend with the Marines and NOT with me. Sooooo it was very special indeed! Plus, baby girl was there too and BOY did she love the food! She kept telling Mommie to eat again and again and again.

After Thanksgiving I conked out. I seriously refused to move for at least 48 hours afterwards. Lets not talk about what the kitchen looked like on Friday and Saturday! As usual, I hadn't realized just how much work it was and just how tired I was. Not to mention I'm in that pregnancy phase where sleep is a luxury. Sometimes you get and many times you don't. Folks...many ... most... practically consistently...I do NOT get a good nights rest. But, that's ok! No complaints here. It'll all be worth it in a few several weeks.

December 1 rolled around and it was one of those days that seemed to go by too quickly. I had this lofty idea that I'd make my husband his favorite meal for our anniversary and then we'd swap gifts and enjoy a quiet evening together. My entire schedule was thrown out of whack when I realized I could not sleep the night of Nov.30. I tossed and turned and slept for a whopping TWO hours from 1-3a.m. Around 7 a.m. I finally fell asleep and let my body rest as long as possible. When I got up, I rushed out the door to the store to get the ingredients for Grandma's homemade lasagna. The store trip was quite trying. It was just one of those days. I felt rushed and unprepared. I was tired and hungry...and SLEEPY! Lest we not forget I'm pregnant so I walk slow and I don't bend down very much. The trip was 30 minutes of really pushing myself to not just run (well walk quickly) out the store crying! Instead I pushed through and hurried home. I got home, so satisfied with what I'd accomplished thus far - a trip to the store! Quite the feat for my energy level at that moment!!! I began unwrapping my groceries to begin cooking only to realize I'd FORGOTTEN THE MAIN INGREDIENT IN THE LASAGNA - Ricotta cheese. This is when I broke down. Tears, frustration, the desire to kick rocks...all these emotions flooded my mind. As I cried I realized he'd be home in just 2 hours. So, I put a different dinner on the stove. Oh well, I thought...he'll be disappointed but he'll understand. I felt sooooo sad. My new dinner option was cooking but I wasn't satisfied so I decided to reach out to friends. I made calls explaining my sob story to my dear friends emphasizing that a big fat NO CAN DO is totally appropriate for what I was asking. Lo and behold, one of my dear friends popped into the store, grabbed my cheese and brought it over JUST in time for me to throw the best dang lasagna I've ever made together and put it in the oven before hubby got home! Oh how I'm going to miss my girlfriends when we move. Dinner with husband was wonderful. The gifts and food was the cherry on top. Along with his gift was a card, that he evidently spent a long time picking out. By line 2, I was in tears (again that day!). It's sitting by my bed now. I absolutely love it. He really liked his anniversary gift as well. I got him a pretty snazzy pilot's watch that measures all these things I don't understand from in the air while you're flying a plane! Very fitting, I thought. To top it all off, I slept like a baby that night!

The next day proved to be much much much less frustrating. It was his birthday and with his favorite meal left overs in the fridge, I felt very prepared. My husband isn't big on birthdays. He didn't even want to tell anyone at his work! My lips were sealed. But for a split second it did cross my mind to send a singing telegram to his office. Can you imagine?! My husband had been begging me to open the gifts my grandmother got him since Thanksgiving! I'd stuck to my firm NO sir. Finally though I knew he'd be thrilled to find out what she bought him. After all gifts were open, dinner was had, and he'd come to terms with being 26 years old...another great surprise popped up that made his day! His dad happen to be in the area and wanted to get together and hang out. This was the perfect end to his birthday. I know he misses his parents terribly and the fact that his dad was doing business about 45 minutes away on his birthday was the cat's pajamas! After hubby left to see his dad and hang out for a bit, my best friend and I went maternity shopping. After 4 hours of shopping, I ended up with a few cute things that fit my new body properly and back home in bed with a cute Marine.

Whew...up next...moving!