My least favorite thing about the military has got to be moving. We have moved the past three summers (plus an in betweener!), two of those moves being overseas. Moving has got to be one of THEE, if not the most, stressful things in life (even when they do all the packing for you!)

So, since we're special and moved from Poland we've had three shipments come over a six week period... one by plane from Poland, one by boat from Poland, and one by big rig from our storage in Virginia.

The thing is, I always forget what a pain it is until I go through it again. Last night I was SOOO excited for our shipment to come... couldn't wait to finally get all our stuff. And now tonight after a long day of opening boxes, sorting through our stuff, and our house being in complete upheaval.... I'm super duper ornery.

All our furniture arrived from Virginia in this bad boy

And this was our next shipment by plane from Poland.

So, this morning while cleaning up breakfast I was excited to hear what I thought was our moving truck... our final shipment that embarked from the Baltic Sea, sailed across the Atlantic, docked on the East coast, and came by truck across the country. Ben went out there, but lo and behold, the truck parked right in front of our neighbor's house. Apparently they're new too. A few minutes later, we heard another large truck coming down the street, sure it was ours. But, alas, it parked behind our neighbors moving truck. Apparently their neighbors are new too! Finally our truck came, but by then there was no more room on the street. Just another day in the life of a military community I guess.

Ours is the one with the wooden crates partially hidden behind the white truck.

Some parts of unpacking are kind of fun. It's like Christmas on steroids. You open all the stuff you treasure and love and have missed. Like my Polish pottery. But then, there's other things that just make you cringe when you open the box. Like Ben's Star Trek collector's edition of Pez candies. Where the heck do I put that? Or 50 cans of Hunts Tomato Sauce that I over ordered in our dry goods shipment, and which, of course, expire next month.

My headache (not C of course!)

And of course, all the things we were excited to get, like Halloween decorations and Ben's shoes (he's been wearing super uncomfortable dress shoes to school every day), we have no idea where they are. Everything is boxed or wrapped up and it is quite the process to go through everything.

And in other news... Ben impresses us all by blowing the biggest bubble of all time. So big that Em got freaked out and ran into the other room. Ben was dang proud of himself, and signaled for me to get the camera. Yep, that's my Benny Boy.

Discoveries

Part of the fun of moving to a new place is discovering all the great things the place has to offer. Casa Verde beach is not too far from our house... we went with our neighbors the Browns.

One thing I love about our neighborhood is all the playgrounds...

Caroline is fearless... she goes to the highest top slide and throws herself off every time. She's so light weight she goes flying down the slide.

Em refuses to go down the slide without Caroline and me, so lucky me I get in on all the fun too.

A couple weeks ago we went for a Sunday drive down Highway 1 to Big Sur. This is a picture of the highway we drove down (I got it off the internet).

We got about this far when we realized we were almost out of gas. Our trusty GPS (refer to my earlier entry) told us there weren't any gas stations for another 20 miles, so we turned around and headed back to Carmel 10 miles back from where we just came. While Ben was filling up the car I noticed a rather good looking guy come out of the store and get into the vehicle right next to ours. He was sporting some tattoos and looked really ripped. Then Ben came out all excited, "Mindy Girl! Did you see who that was? It's that one famous guy... Colin, shoot I can't remember his last name!" "Colin Farrell?" "Yeah! That's him!" Even though Ben initially couldn't remember his name, he swore on his life it was him. So, we pulled out of the gas station and headed back down the highway and he followed right behind us! It was sweet. This is the picture I took from the back of our car. That's him driving the SUV! So, yeah, for like 30 miles Colin Farrell got to stare at the back of my sweet 1999 teal Toyota Corolla.
A picture of the handsome guy driving behind us. Isn't he dreamy? Almost as dreamy as my Benny Boy.

A few miles down the road we found Pfeiffer Beach... the pictures make it look more fun than it was.... it was cold!!
We were just playing on the beach and again, some lady went out of her way to come over and insist on taking a picture of us. It's hilarious. Really, though, the people here are so nice and laid back. So different from when we lived on the east coast.

This is why we need a Smart Phone

Ben and I are the first to admit that we are behind the times. We've been wanting to get a smart phone for some time, but just can't quite make the plunge since we're super cheap and love our $50/mo. family shared plan we're on right now. Love it. But, it sure would be handy to have the internet in your pocket.

My super cool flip phone. Don't be jealous

Case in point: last night we were driving home from a fun weekend in San Francisco (more on that later) and we were all starving. We had our hearts set on In-N-Out Burger, and there's like a million of them in California, right? So, we typed in In-N-Out in our GPS and a bunch came up... but it was hard to figure out which were on the way home and which were not. We started out on one, but it took us off the beaten path, and we grew increasingly frustrated with what we thought should be something rather simple. This is when we needed the internet. So, several miles down the road Ben finally just said, forget it, and clicked the first In-N-Out that came up on our GPS. It was a little ways off the freeway, but by this point we didn't care. We were well on our way, when Em announced she had to go "number 1." The thing with a 3 year old, is they give you like no warning. One moment she was happily watching her DVD player, the next she was kicking and squirming and crying that she had to go "number 1" right now! So, we assured her we were really close to the In-N-Out, could practically smell the burgers, and peeled into the parking lot of our destination, "Zipin Out Auto Repair" What??? Dang GPS! Ben didn't care, he yanked Em out of the car and she peed in their bushes. Serves them right. We eventually did make it to a bona fide In-N-Out Burger, but man, a smart phone would have really paid off that night. Or maybe we just don't know how to use our GPS.

Em at the real In-n-Out

In San Francisco

Back to School

Em's first day of preschool... isn't she cute?
In our empty house
C apparently grieving Em's departure
And of course I had to take a pic of Ben on his first day of school as well (C once again grieving his departure). If it looks like it's the crack of dawn, that's because it was. Ben likes to be, on average, about 45 minutes early to everything. This is kind of a sore spot in our marriage. According to him, if you're 15 minutes early in the army, you're late (he really said that!) whereas I'm more like if you're 15 minutes late you're on time. You can imagine the problems this creates.
The girls... almost as excited as their mother to be back in an American grocery store.
Dennis the Menace Park. Ok check this out... Ben's dad attended NPS almost 30 years ago, when Ben was in the 2nd grade. So, here is a picture of HIM taking a drink out of the same lion's mouth 20 some odd years ago.

Saturday we went for a drive along the coast to explore the area. One thing we've discovered is how nice and easy going the people are. Both of these pictures are the result of random people approaching us and asking if they could take our picture for us. Sure, why not?

Em, everso photogenic.
We drove along the famous coastal "17 mile drive" and of course, the clear beautiful day turned overcast just as we embarked.
World renowned Pebble Beach golf course. A round of golf costs $500!!

Yesterday I took the girls for a walk... Em was trying to catch up with the seagull
Beautiful coast.

So, now the issue for me is meeting people and making friends. I HATE being the new kid on the block! My sweet neighbor goes to my church and is literally ten steps away from my doorstep, which is so nice. She is in charge of playgroup and told me all about it, the time and place to meet. It was also announced in our church newsletter. So, this morning I was all pumped to go, anticipating all the new moms I would meet. And, it turned out that no one was there. As in, NO ONE. I called, texted, and knocked on my friend's door. No luck. Later she called me back and said, "Oh yeah, the reason no one was there was because I'm the only one that goes to playgroup, and we had to go to the dentist today." Ooooo-kay? I guess we'll have to work on that. I'll keep you posted.

On our way!

After spending six lovely weeks at my mom's, it was finally time for us to head to our newest adventure... Monterey, CA! Ben will be attending the Naval Postgraduate School.

A lot of people asked me why I was making the long 14 hour road trip road trip, why didn't I just fly with the girls to make our lives easier? And it's true that it would have been easier, but there was a part of me that wanted to experience a long and adventurous road trip with the whole family together. Call me crazy. I mean, aren't so many of your childhood memories (for better or for worse) being stuck in the car with the fam off to some grand destination? Plus, one thing I've loved as we moved from place to place in the military is the drive to our new destination... seeing places I've never been before while anxiously anticipating our new area. I'll never forget our drive from Tennessee to northern Virginia via the Smokey Mountains. That was an amazing drive.
So, Sunday morning we were all packed up and ready to make the 14 hour drive in our itty-bitty Toyota Corolla. It was filled to the brim. I should have taken a picture of my mom too, since she was such a big part of our last 6 weeks.
Um, yeah. The drive on I-80 through the lone and dreary wilderness of Nevada left much to be desired. We saw a sign for a rest stop which indicated that the next one wouldn't be for another 114 miles. So, we decided it was best to stop, and this was it. Two disgusting holes in the ground and I couldn't get Em to go in there for the life of her. She was scared and this time I actually didn't think she was overreacting.
A park where we stopped for a picnic on the way...

I'm not sure if these clips work, but we spent the night in Gardnerville, NV at Aunt Buffie and Uncle Brian's house. Unfortunately I'm a moron and didn't get a picture of them. But they are the nicest people and I never knew that Brian has quite the green thumb! He showed us all his vegetable plants and he was busy making pizza sauce from home grown tomatoes. We ate his homemade bread and he sent us on our way with homemade pear sauce.

The next day we drove over the formidable Sierra Mountains, and also got stuck behind this truck of hay going 15 mph up the mountain.
A view from the top

More beautiful landscape

Unfortunately, this was my fate on the trip, stuck in the back between the two girls trying to keep them happy. I don't know if this pic adequately portrays just how cramped I was. I had to sit at a diagonal with one shoulder pinned behind the car seat. Ben absolutely refused to sit back there...

And finally, we arrived Monday mid-afternoon.

Our super cute neighborhood
And the girls, super excited to be in our new but empty house! Stay tuned to read more about our new place