Alabama

While driving across Alabama today on our way to the Atlanta Airport, I was thinking about all the things we love about Alabama and all the things we will NOT miss about Oklahoma.

We will not miss:

1.) The blasted wind
2.) The lack of trees, water, hills, or anything pretty for that matter
3.) The horrendous customer service
4.) Having zero options for eating out. Having zero options to do anything, really...

Okay, I know I sound like a true hater, but in just this one short week of living in Alabama I am in love. Everything about our new home is better than everything about our old one. I get excited over every little thing. I think we were stuck in Oklahoma for a better perspective of everywhere else we'll call home.

So far we have enjoyed good company, good food, and beautiful scenery. We survived the tornado warnings and thunderstorms. And, in general, we have gotten very excited for our next chapter. Zack is totally amped for helo training. He just began studying. His new squadron seems like a really great community to become a part of.

More on our move to come...

End to the Enid Era

I haven't blogged in awhile. It isn't because nothing has been going on, and it isn't because too much is going on. I just feel nothing really worthy of writing about has been happening. I mean, I could talk about how excited we are to move, how sad we are to leave friends behind, how much work we're doing to organize this move right before Christmas...but it all just seems kind of obvious to me and not in need of written attention. 

We just had our last weekend in Enid, America. It is the close of our Enid Era. I guess that deserves a few blogged words.

Since the beginning of November, we have had people staying at our house. We absolutely love to host 

(so please don't take this the wrong way), but it was so nice having our house to ourselves for a whole weekend. We enjoyed our time together in our house, but we don't really enjoy our house anymore. It doesn't look anything like our house because it is all disassembled and ready for packing. Also, all we talk about is how much nicer our new house is going to be. For example, our weather has drastically changed from 70's all December to 19 degrees (that "feels like" 6) this morning. We froze this weekend and kept thinking about how our new house will have a fireplace to curl and warm up in front of. We loved living on base, especially for our introduction to Air Force life. Being off-post at Ft. Rucker will be a fun next adventure, though. 

We shared a meal at BBQ Joint with most of Zack's class. Them ribs are the only things worth eatin' round these parts. Guess we'll miss that little shack in the middle of nowhere. Another favorite place we made sure to visit on our last weekend was A Little Bit of Seattle. I think it's funny that our favorite places around are not actually in Enid. But we had fun singing along to Christmas tunes while driving to our favorite spots. We have been sharing almost all our meals with friends lately, and we are so grateful for the good company.

Yesterday was our last Sunday at the chapel. We enjoyed becoming a part of a small church community. The one thing we are really not looking forward to when we move: church shopping. The Chaplain reminded us that God will be with you always, to the very end of the age, and also gave Zack a chapel coin. And that's true, no matter where we go or what church family we are a part of God will be with us. Everything for this move has come into place in perfect timing. We know that this move is God's plan for us.

We watched some sick snowboarding videos this weekend. This made us very excited for our Christmas vacation and also helped Zack decide on a new life goal. He wants to become a Red Bull pilot for the helos that film all the crazy stunts. It sounds like an exciting second career to aspire to. Maybe even too exciting, we'll just see about that.

All that is left now is packing up our stuff. Now's our chance to get rid of all the stuff we really don't need. It is hard for a pack rat like me to downsize our crap-I mean, treasures. But that is one of the things I love about moving the most, a clean slate -- out with the old and in with the new.