We Made It!!!!!!!!!!!!

Greetings from nice, warm Tucson! The traveling zoo rolled into town Sunday afternoon and was all moved in to the new house by 1300 on Monday. The trip and move in went very well. We are now getting all settled in and Candi is already back to work.

My dad flew into San Antonio on Friday and we left early Saturday morning…er…late morning. He drove the U-Haul truck, pulling Candi’s SUV on a trailer and followed Candi and I in my pickup. We made it a full day and stopped in El Paso the first night. Sunday we finished up the trip and rolled into Tucson before 3:00 PM. We were able to get a quick walk through of the house that we had already sent a deposit on, turned on the power for, paid for other utilities for, and scheduled cable for…in other words, we did things a bit backwards, but I didn’t want to sign a lease on Monday morning without actually seeing it. Monday morning we went to the property management agency and listened to a lady tell Candi and I (on a second grade level) that we couldn’t remodel the rental or commit crimes in the rental…and then she finally let us sign the lease. We immediately went to the new house and the three (and a half) of us had the U-Haul unpacked by 1:00 PM. Even with dad doing a lot of this:

The house turned out to be great. It was built in 2000, but it has been given a new coat of paint, new tile floors, and new fixtures so it looks almost brand new. Best of all was the huge walk-in closet…it could almost be a drive-in closet, but don’t let anyone know what I thought was the best part because I am supposed to be a “fighter pilot!” The tile floors will make it easy to clean (although we have already bought a few rugs) and all the yards around here are all rock, so that will be easy to maintain. On a side note, I still think yard means grass area, but I don't know what else to call it..."rock area that surrounds our house"??? That is way too long, so we will go with yard. Jaxson (our year old yellow lab) still isn’t sure about it…he still walks on the rocks like they are hot coals, which is one of the funniest things to see: a big, clumsy dog try to tip-toe. Our other dog could care less about the difference. In true Arizona form, we have cactus in our yard.

Our new address is 7733 S. Titanite Lane, Tucson, AZ 85747, for those of you who want to send me lots of chocolate and surprises! If you Google map it, we are just South of Davis-Monthan AFB (DM) and the massive bone yard that is co-located with the base. Our house and solitary subdivision are right off the East side of the air traffic going in and out of DM. Candi doesn’t run outside every time a jet flies over, so I am guessing she doesn’t think our location is as cool as I do.

Here are a few pictures of the house.

Notice that Zoe is not caring about the rock backyard and Jaxson is watching from the flat surface...he is such a wuss! I have a lot of work to do to get him to be a hard core hunting dog!

The trip was painful for Candi, but she did great. She was very uncomfortable and said, "I just want to get there" many times, but never complained. We tried to hurry as much as possible, but we couldn't go too fast because I didn't want to blow up my second U-Haul transmission. Most importantly for us, we went to DM yesterday and got enrolled in Tricare (the military insurance program) so Candi can go off base for her health care. All she has to do is meet with her new doctor and then she is good to have a baby. It is just that simple.

Well, we will share more later, but many were wanting to know the latest. We still haven't gone to the grocery store and we are tired of eating out, so I must leave you all now. Not to mention, we have HD television now, so I better get back to watching TV while Candi continues to get the house ready. Not really, but the new TV does look awesome in high definition. We're also still trying to get our wireless up and running. Many thanks to a neighbor for not securing a "BelkinWireless" and allowing us to "borrow" their internet service. It isn't stealing if it is for a good cause, right?