We are now Homeowners!

Beth and I have joined the Homeowners club. We went to the closing meeting today and finished all the paperwork. We are now the owners of a great house here in KY.

The sellers will be out tomorrow and then it is all ours. On the downside of that, our movers can't deliver our things until Tuesday. Looks like we will be in the hotel for a little while longer. We can't wait to get settled and put some personal touches on the place. We might get some family help in our sister Jennifer to come over for some painting. I am lobbying for an UT orange color in one room, but Beth is not exactly on board with that so far.

On a bright note, it looks like we already have our first house quests lined up. We can't wait.

Louisville at last

Our cross country trip has come to an end.

Today on our trip I almost had to cry. Let me explain...We needed some breakfast and some go-go juice so we got off the interstate east of St. Louis. I drove 3 miles off the exit just to get to a Hardee's. I really wanted to get a good biscuit(AZ doesn't have their breakfast). When I pulled up to order my BEC (read best breakfast sandwich: Bacon, egg, and cheese) I saw one of the most grand sites in this country. Mello Yello was on the menu. Can you hear the angels singing? I know I could. It is good to be back in Mello Yello country. After we fueled up, it was back to driving.

We made it to Louisville today around 1:30. After grabbing some lunch, it was off to check into our hotel/temporary quarters/squatting pad for the foreseeable future. We are staying in the same hotel as on our house hunting trip. I remember it being a whole lot kooler last time. I have already had to get missing items from the front desk twice. Beth and I are both bummed out because of the substandard TV and its lack of audio video inputs. This means 2 weeks with no Wii. Reading, internet, and mindless television will have to do instead. I'll try to keep everyone up on the latest happenings from KY. Monday is my first day in my new office so wish me luck.

Day 2 and 3 update

I didn't get a chance to post last night mainly because I was lazy. That's right kids, all I did was drive for awhile and couldn't make myself post a blog update...not good.

Day 2 found us in Oklahoma City. Last time when we drove through TX I didn't like anything that I saw, but this time there was a lot of AG that looked really kool. OK also was interesting to see as we drove through. Beth was amazed by all the oil derricks throughout the countryside. We ran into a lot of wind on the way through the state, which made for some fun driving. Yesterday was a big blow to my manhood. I have this compulsion to drive Beth and I everywhere. It is a deep rooted idea that that the man should get us from point A to point B. Is this logical? Heck no, but I never said I was a logical man. So when I got sleepy yesterday after driving 350 miles, I gave the reins over to Beth for the last 150 miles to Ok City (this would repeat itself the next day). We had some storms come through that night, but seeing how I was tired I slept right through them.

Day 3 ends with us in St. Louis. We are a quick 270 miles from our new home city. The dogs are still adjusting to the trip, but as I type this Spike is eating his dog food for the first time on this trip. Beth went out and grabbed us food and I chilled with the pooches. Now we are getting to settle in and get ready for our last leg of this trip.

1st day of travel to Louisville

Beth and I started our cross country trip today. We said bye to our friends (Curt and Ali) and hit the road out of Phoenix. We made good time to northern AZ and stopped to eat lunch around Winslow, AZ.

From there we went to Ganado on the Navajo Reservation. I had been to the Hubbell Trading Post before without Beth, but had been wanting to go back with her. One at a time we went in and looked around for Navajo rugs (remember the dogs are with us). We found two (very small ones) that we liked so we're really happy. Can't wait to see them in our new house.

We got back on the road and headed toward NM. Now comes the part of the trip that we had to find a hotel that would allow dogs. It was a harder task than one might think. As I type this we are settling down for the night in Albuquerque. Tomorrow we will get up and drive for another 8 hours or so. Stay tuned...

AZ is not for everyone

Let me start this post by saying Arizona was great for us, but this is not the case for everyone. Yesterday our movers came and packed/loaded our whole place in a matter of 12 hours.

A couple of particulars that you need to know first; Jose was our driver and calls PA home, it was 112 degrees at our house yesterday, we had a four man crew (including Jose) moving us, and they had to use a Uhaul to ferry our things from the condo to the tractor trailer.

So here is the story. Jose called us on Saturday to confirm the time and see how much stuff we would be loading. Now is a good time to tell everyone that Jose had never had a job in Phoenix. He was supposed to start about 9:00 in the morning, but Beth convinced him to start a little earlier because it was going to be so hot. He showed up at 7:30 in the morning Monday and started packing. Jose started out the day in a good mood and was joking around and moving as fast as he could. Skip to 3:00. Now it is really hot and they have started moving things in the Uhaul. The day started going downhill for Jose. He was sweating like a pig on the way to a bacon factory. After their 2nd trip in the truck, he was our house finishing up and I asked him how he was liking the weather. His response was, "I HATE it. This is like torture, and if someone gave me a half million dollar home here for free I would still not live here." I laughed out loud at this statement so inquired, "Does that mean that you won't be taking anymore jobs out here anytime soon?" Without skipping a beat he answered, "I am NEVER coming back here on a job. I will turn down every job that comes to me for Phoenix." That's right folks, one day working in Phoenix was too much for this east coast guy. He right then and there swore off Phoenix as a whole. So next time you hear someone saying that old line about Phoenix being a dry heat, Punch that person in the face and then tell them you "don't tolerate that kind of talk."

Going away lunch

I just had an awesome day at work. Our whole office went out for my going away lunch, along with a few extras. I got a happy surprise when I found out that Janet (friend from work that is not with us anymore) came along to see me off. Janet is great; we had a ball while she was there. She and I once decorated Dave’s office with as much ASU stuff as we could find. Dave is a U of A grad and saying he dislikes ASU is the understatement of the century. Janet and I would play pranks on each other all the time. It was really nice to see her again.

TGI Friday’s at Chase Field was awesome (I am attaching some pics in this post). The Dbacks were playing in Cincinnati today so the field was empty except for some grow lights. It was a perfect view to take in while eating lunch. I think everyone had a good time and there were laughs all around. After lunch we all went back to the office and ate some dessert.

After dessert, there was some fun poked at me and my southern heritage by Dave (it was all funny) and then Steve gave me a couple of pictures. He had photo shopped me onto these fake magazine covers with pictures I didn’t even know he had accessible. One is me doing a standard Jeff “there are no lights on in the whole house” look and is supposed to be the Poker player of the year with Bluff magazine. Beth and I both laughed until we hurt. It was just a fun day all around.

This is just one more reason that makes it hard to leave Arizona. I wouldn’t change one thing about my office and our time here. We are excited to be moving, but that doesn’t change the fact that Arizona was a really good thing for us.

After we left the office we headed to ASU and bought some tickets for Wicked this weekend. Beth has really wanted to see it so I am glad we are finally getting to go. So we have that and the river to look forward to this weekend.

The Move Looms

As I write this we are 2 weeks and 2 days from our move from Arizona. It seems like it was literally yesterday that we found out we were moving.

Since my last post we went on our house hunting trip to KY. It was a learning experience to say the least. There is too much to get into here, but we found a house near the end of our trip. Beth and I are really excited to be getting our very own house and being closer to our family. I also got to go by and see my new office and meet everyone, very briefly, that I will be soon working alongside. Everyone was great and I am eager to get to know everyone better and see how the office is different from Arizona.

Our last few weeks here will be wrapping up household whatnot and spending some time with our friends that we are really going to miss. This Saturday is our last Salt River trip for the foreseeable future. I am going to take my digital camera for the first time and try to take some good pictures. I'll put some on here after I recover.