Howdy Y'all

Our family has made it to beautiful San Antonio Texas after 4 years of trying... getting here was an adventure.


Our plan was to leave California early Saturday morning but that turned into 5pm Saturday evening. We had quite the convoy. Brent drove the 26' U-haul with Hannah, Marnie (our Beagle), Fishy (the Beta), and I in it pulling the boat. My mom, sister Grace, and Ramius (their Dobermann), were behind us in their car and my dad, the 3 other kids, and our two cats were behind them in our Expedition. Let me just say that traveling 1300 miles with a HUGE U-haul towing a boat and 2 dogs is not the quickest way to travel. We had planned on sleeping in Las Cruces New Mexico but since we left so late Saturday we would have checked in to the hotel in Las Cruces about 2 hours before check-out so believe it or not we pulled over in Arizona just before New Mexico and all of us "slept" for 2-hours on the side of the road. At sunrise we were back on the road to continue on with the other half of our journey. We arrived Monday night at 11:30 pm in San Antonio at my uncle's house and crashed there for the night until we could get the keys to our house the next day. In all the trip took 28-hours when it normally would take 18 to 20-hours, I can't believe we drove it straight!

Tuesday morning we picked up the keys and rushed over to the house to get our TVs and computers set up since DirecTv and Time Warner were coming to install satellite TV and Internet. We unloaded the the truck and tried to organize things as best as we could. While unloading we met 3 neighbors and Seth made a friend. People are VERY friendly around here, that Southern hospitality is wonderful.

On Wednesday we registered the kids for school. The schools here in San Antonio are rated very high nationwide. The elementary, middle, and high schools our kids will be attending have earned the highest ratings in the state and highest ratings in the country according to GreatSchools.net. This was actually our number one reason for leaving California was to give the kids a better education. For example the school my kids attended in California is given 3 out of 10 stars by GreatSchools.net and here in Texas their school has 10 out of 10 stars. All three of our kids will have some catching up to do but I know they can do it. The schools out here are also beautiful and after the kids were able to go inside and see it they are now more excited than nervous for school to start.

Friday morning my dad left for home (SoCal), his drive home was much nicer and shorter than when we came, he drove it straight through. Friday night Brent and I went out on a date to the Alamo, Riverwalk, Rivercenter mall, and to a movie. Brent has never been to San Antonio, he came here sight unseen, so it was fun taking him around downtown San Antonio.

Saturday we all went to Canyon Lake and spent a couple hours there with all of us and my uncle and his family. It will be a lot of fun having a nice, clean, large lake just 20 miles from the house.

Sunday we went to church and were welcomed by our new ward. Our kids met other kids that live in the neighborhood and will be going to school with so that is nice.

So far the kids favorite part about living here are the deer that roam my uncle's neighborhood. The deer are not afraid of people and will get with in 6 feet or so of you. They love the fact that their school is right behind the house and they get to walk to school and not ride the bus. They also love that we live in a neighborhood where it is safe to ride their bikes around without mom being paranoid and that the neighborhood is full of kids their age to play with constantly.

Brent and I are just happy to be here period. This move was not an easy decsion to make but now that we are here we have such a good feeling about being here and raising our family here, it is hard to explain. Sure we are going to miss our family and friends back in California and Disneyland but so much here outweighs all that. We are able to keep in contact with friends and family via computers and phone and hopefully everyone will come and visit us here. Everything will be perfect once Brent finds a job. He has already had two phone interviews with wonderful large companies so please keep him in your prayers that he gets a call back soon.

I will share pictures of what it looks like where we are at soon!