Finally here.

So we finally arrived in El Paso on the 24th. Checked into lodging which is okay I guess. Has what we need for the most part but Chance hates that it only has a shower. The drive went fine. We left John's parents house on Monday, drove shortly past San Antonio and then stopped in Kerrville TX overnight. Unfortunately this is where I realized that my laptop had decided to take a mysterious dump for no reason whatsoever. Yay me! Left Kerrville on Tuesday morning and the rest of the driving was as uneventful as it could get. I actually longed for Atlanta traffic. Chance did great in the truck as he always does. We are blessed in that aspect. No dvd players stuck in front of him or anything. He occupied his time mostly by coloring and playing with an egg of silly putty that we bought at the Cracker Barrel in Kerrville. He had his Nintendo DS, but really didn't play with it too much at all and slept maybe a couple of hours at most. So yeah, that kid rocks.

El Paso isn't too bad really. It's nothing like "home" but so far so good rather than having to see it on the news all the time. I just try to ignore the news and focus on all the good. Which is shopping, shopping, more shopping, movie theaters so close by, lots of things to do and places to eat. It's quite a bit different than Hinesville and Fort Stewart, that's for sure.

We found a house to rent. We had found one that we really liked but the tenants weren't moving out until Saturday and refused to allow us to come and look at it. I'm too impatient for this, so we had set up an appointment to look at a house on Thursday on the east side of town. However, about an hour or two before that appointment, i just happened to open John's AKO email (shame on me! haha-but he was sitting right next to me) and he had an email from his sponsor. They had him as signing in on the 10th and he was emailing to find out what was going on with that and to call him asap. John called and let him know that his orders said the 30th and the guy told John a little about the unit. Apparently they work about 40-45 mins away from post in New Mexico and take vans out there instead of everyone driving their POV's. Which is a good thing. But we knew as soon as he said that, the house we were due to look at in a couple of hours would not work since it was a good 25 mins or so from post. But we went out there anyway and explained to the agent the issue. I asked if he had anything available on the part of town we were needing to be in and he said he did actually and it was identical to the house we were supposed to look at. The only difference is that the house on the far end of town has hardwood laminate, whereas the one closer to post has carpet and ceramic tile. So we went to look at the house and it was love at first sight. It was actually in the same area as the house we had wanted to look at where the tenants wouldn't let us. We ended up signing a lease for the house without bothering to look at any more. It seemed like there was a lot of military living in the area which is nice and there's a State Trooper that lives just up the street from us as well. All of the bedrooms are on the second floor which is nice. It has a beautiful view of the mountains and a pretty big backyard that has.....*gasp* GRASS!!! Woooot! Also the agent asked if we had pets and I said they were back east since we knew we'd have a hard time being able to find a place that would allow them. He asked what kinds we had and I told him. He said if we decided to bring Lulu out here, it wouldn't be a problem at all and he thought rottweilers were great animals. So that just made my day. Our only concern with Lulu would be that the rock wall is pretty low over by the gates to the backyard and the actual gates to the backyard don't lock nor can I figure out a way to lock them. The wall is super tall in the back and around the sides, taller than me-but just at the front it's probably four feet at most?

Our stuff gets delivered on Wednesday so I am very excited about that. I'm tired of living out of a suitcase. We've been doing it since January 16th, so I am pretty much over it at this point. I just hope and pray our stuff gets to us the same way it left and nothing major is missing.

John started in processing today. He told me a slightly amusing story when he came back to the room for lunch. He said there were 11 of them in processing and the instructor said to raise their hands if they thought they weren't going to deploy. John kept his hand down as did everyone else. The instructor said "well good, because there is only one person in this room that isn't deploying and can you guess who that is?" I figured the guy was being facetious and would say himself, but he pointed at John and said "It's THAT guy. He's not going anywhere". Music to my ears!! I can just imagine the thoughts going through all the other soldiers heads, but ah well. John has definitely earned a break. Lol, I guess we will soon see how much of a break he is getting. I really hope he likes this job and it doesn't wear him out.

Anyways, I'll make a separate post with pictures in a bit. I'm going to go get my cook on. Well as much as I can anyway. Thankfully I didn't let the movers pack my favorite Calphalon Everyday pan as I would be so lost without it. The stuff they have in our rooms is eh. Lol.

Come on Wednesday!!!