from the middle of a move

So we are here.  Wednesday seemed to last forever, and I'm not sure why since both our flights were pretty much on time and travel went quite smoothly.  Maybe because I am just tired of traveling.  On the way to luggage claim we walked past a huge bay of windows looking out on to the tarmac and Isaac asked "are we going to ride more airplanes?"  Oh man was I grateful to say that there are NO MORE AIRPLANES in our immediate future :)  [At least not until late April, but that's another story for another post.]

Traveling on Chinese New Year turned out to be pretty cushy.  It seems that the Chinese would rather be at home celebrating because there were plenty of empty seats on both our flights.   Added bonus: we could see fireworks exploding as we landed.  Pretty cool.

Finding transportation from the airport to our temporary housing was a little tricky, but God provided (a hotel bus that was sitting idle with no customers - certainly not our typical mode of transport but it worked).  We got to our friends' apartment (they are not in country right now) and it was freezing.  The outside temperature was 45, and inside a concrete apartment with no insulation the temperature was ..... drumroll please..... 45!

We bundled our kiddos, cuddled them into bed and turned off the lights.  Chinese New Year is the noisiest thing I have ever experienced, and it's no secret that I am not a huge fan.  But this year was such a pleasant break from the norm.  It was noisy, but a muffled, muted version of noisy.  In previous years we have lived outside city limits and there are few regulations on where firecrackers can be lit - which means they get lit inside the apartment complex, right outside our windows all night long.  This year we were inside city limits and no one is allowed to set off firecrackers in the apartment complex.  The closest ones were about a half block away in a large park area.  Wow, what a different half a block makes! 

Our new apartment (more on that later) is outside city limits, and I already proposed to Matt that when the New Year rolls around next year we'll have to move into the city and live with friends :) 

By Thursday morning the inside temperature was on the rise and we were all rested and ready to head out to see our NEW HOME!  It's about a half hour drive from where we are staying, and as we pulled into the complex the kids were peeking out the windows, so curious about our new place.  Matt (who is the only one in the family who has ever seen the complex, and even he had not seen the actual apartment) yelled "hey, there it is, those are our windows".  The very first thing the girls spotted?  Their treasure baskets, sitting in their bedroom window.  Awesome.  They were pumped. 

On the whole, it is in much better condition than we anticipated - it's clean, not too moldy, and nothing seems to be broken (a relocation company packed our things in our old city, trucked them 500 miles north, and moved them into our new apartment last August when we were already in America). 

But we still have a LOT of work to do.  A WHOLE lot.  Honestly, it's really overwhelming.  And having the kids underfoot all day long does not make for fast or efficient progress.  Today we did get the girls' bedroom furniture arranged and I even made up the beds, so it looks move-in-able (although there are no clothes unpacked and lots of little details left to finish).  We started in on the living room too and I even spent an hour or so in the kitchen.  It seems like every time I attempt to complete one task I discover ten more things that need to be done along the way. 

We did grab some unused space heaters from a friends' apartment which made it nicer to spend the day there.... we all wear plenty of layers, and I wore Matt's fingerless gloves all day long. 

In addition to all the furniture moving and unpacking we have two big obstacles to mount before we can move in..... First, we need heaters (not just space heaters, but wall mounted units and a large heater for our living room).  We have checked two stores already, and only one had the heaters we want and the installation workers are on vacation until Feb 12th (this is a big holiday and many stores are not even open, most workers get at least a week vacation, some get two weeks off). 

Second issue is that our gas is not hooked up yet.  The earliest we can do that is Feb 8th (again, due to the holiday).  Gas heats our water and runs our stove so it's pretty essential. 

I took some photos yesterday but left the camera at our new place, so I can't upload them now.  I'll try to remember to put them on my computer when we are out there tomorrow. 

It really is a cute place, the living room is a bright sunny yellow and our little front yard is going to be really cool when we get it cleaned up.  One day at a time, one foot in front of the other, and we are going to make it a home.