We’re Here!

We made it to Johnson City! After many hours of careful packing—thanks to Lee, and tying down the bike and cargo topper—thanks to Dad & Lee, we were ready to go at about 1 am! We did sleep a little and we were on the freeway at 6:30 am stuffed and hidden in our van. Poor Cal—we couldn’t even see him. And his voice was muffled. All the kids were in their own little caves.

On the way, about an hour out of Johnson City, Clark saw some snow. He wanted us to stop so he could play in it.

We arrived in Johnson City around 12:30. Clark thinks we’re in Jon’s City—Jon is his cousin. So he wants to go to Jon’s house. But he is very happy to be in a “small house”. And there is a playground here too! That is great for the boys as well as for me.

The ward (aka church congregation) here is awesome! After Lee signed the lease and got the run down for the apartment, we drove over and were getting out of our van when Melissa Smith drove up. She asked if we were the Robertson’s. She asked if she could bring dinner for us that night. How sweet and thoughtful! Her husband is a 4th year medical student and they have 4 kids. They both speak Spanish to their kids at home. Pretty cool.

A couple hours later the Bishop, Elder’s Quorum President and Gospel Doctrine Teacher all showed up and brought a queen bed, table and chairs, recliner and love seat for us to use while we are here. I am so glad I don’t have to sleep on an air mattress for four months~ The Bishop actually called the leasing office a couple of times to try and get a hold of us, and called while Lee was signing the lease. So Lee talked to him before he came.

The ward is HUGE!!! It’s quite a shock for us coming from a small branch. Even though the ward is so incredibly big, they still noticed us! I arrived late to Relief Society, and the sister conducting still noticed that I was new and had me introduce myself. I don’t think she saw me come in.

There are lots of “young” families in the ward too. Every Wednesday they have a playgroup, so we are going to go to that. I am also going to find out about storytime at the library. Clark enjoyed going in Whiteville all by himself, so I should keep doing it. I doubt I’ll find another Jeanne or Joy at the library though.

We like the apartment here. Their “curb appeal” is great! There are of course some things we don’t like, but overall, we are satisfied. We enter the building before we get to our apartment door, and that is great. And there is lots of nice carpet!!! I love IT!!! I don’t think it’s very high quality carpet, but it’s clean and quite new, if not just a few months or weeks old. It’s especially great for the girls because they are crawling around. We had lots of good practice of eating at the table or kitchen in Whiteville, and it will continue on here—and of course throughout our lives. Does anyone have an idea for locking the fridge? The concept of eating in only two places hasn’t sunk in with Cal yet.

We are on dial-up internet here. It is going pretty fast for dial-up actually. I don’t know how uploading pictures will be. The boys’ room still needs to be finished. As you can imagine, I can’t get much done during the day. Well, if you can’t, just pretend you can imagine that. Their room is halfway done. I am at a partial stand still because I need some more hangers. We didn’t bring any dressers or our changing table, so a lot of clothes are being hung up. I normally fold them—except for Sunday clothes, and put them on a shelf or in a dresser.

Okay, well, better go. The girls are napping and I should tackle that room a bit more. I will take pictures soon. You might be lucky and have some to look at by Sunday evening! Maybe sooner. Depends on how much you all imagine I can get done.

OH, so I should mention Lee’s extern stuff real quick. WELL, it should be GREAT! He has to be there about 7:50am Monday through Friday. Patients start coming at 8:00am I guess. (Except for Tuesdays, when they have a meeting and each take turns presenting journal articles to each other.) The last patient is scheduled for 3 or 3:30, and yesterday his particular doctor was “busy” so Lee got home at 4:45 pm. SWEET!! There are 4 or 5 doctors there and Lee will take turns being with one doctor one week, and then being with another doctor the next and so on and so forth. He is also already scheduled to present a journal article in about 3 weeks.

The ride to the VA is downhill, so it takes Lee about 5 minutes to bike there. We are really close—yet another benefit of this apartment—its location. It takes him about 10 minutes to get home.

Another cool thing is lunch! He gets about an hour lunch break. And since he’s so close, he’ll plan on coming home everyday. All VA employees get a $4.25 voucher to use each day at the cafeteria. For some reason Lee gets one too! We might try and get all of our milk that way.

Haley now has 4 teeth. She may actually have 5, I haven’t checked today. Plus, she has two more coming in. Shanna is all gums. The girls have been sleeping all night since we got here (about 8:30 pm to 6:30 am.) Well, Shanna has been sleeping through the night for a long time. But Haley has caught on! She normally wakes up during the night and it’s no fun leaning over the port-a-crib and rubbing her back. So the past couple night have been great.

Okay, now I better go. Lunch time!