Well, we are no longer in New Zealand.  We arrived in the States on the 18th of June and are now in Williamsburg, VA.  These last few weeks have been a complete whirlwind.

We first flew into Orlando, FL.  My mother-in-law picked us up from the airport just after midnight (bless her!) and we headed to a nearby hotel to crash.  My MIL was so excited to see us that she and I ended up talking till nearly 4am that morning.  Yikes!  Of course, just as we were heading to bed, Jack woke up, so it wasn’t till almost 6am that I finally got some sleep.  It was a long few days.

We spent about a week in my husband’s hometown of St. Simons Island, GA.  While there we visited with family and old friends and I was able to meet some of Chris’ cousins for the first time.

We then headed with just about all of my husband’s side of the family, including his only paternal cousin (+ her husband and their son) to St. Thomas.  We stayed there for 2 weeks, relaxing, visiting, and having a good time.  Joe loved all of the attention and it was nice to reconnect with people.  My introverted tendencies came to the fore now and again, but I was usually able to take a nap when the boys were napping (if I needed it) and have a bit of time to myself.

We flew from St. Thomas to Richmond, VA via Atlanta, GA.  The flights were a bit hectic, but aren’t they always anymore?  Plane travel has become like bus travel, in my opinion.  Everyone shoved in there with you bringing your own food, drinks, etc., rather than having things served to you.

We made it into Richmond on time, but our luggage was delayed.  We stayed the night in an airport hotel and by the time we woke up in the morning, our luggage had arrived.  Thank you, Delta!  Chris picked up our rental car and decided to upgrade to a slightly larger one when he saw what we’d originally booked (got it using the rest of our Air New Zealand airpoints…. won’t be using those anytime soon!).  I’m glad that he did for reasons I’ll explain later.

We drove to Williamsburg on Sunday morning and checked out the town while waiting for our 4pm check-in time.  Williamsburg is lovely.  So far, it has struck me as an easily navigable town and most of the town is in keeping with the “colonial” feel of Colonial Williamsburg.

The next day, Monday, meant meeting our realtor at 9:30am and hitting the road to view some houses.  I’ll admit – I was a bit disappointed with what we saw that first morning.  However, I reminded myself that everything she had shown us was in an area that was, in my opinion, slightly less desirable.  She had lined up some other properties to view for the following day (today) so I kept an open mind.

The properties we saw today were in a different part of town and I liked them much more, as I expected I would.  Hmm… self-fulfilling prophecy?  I don’t think so.  The area we saw today has better schools and the neighborhoods are more established.  I saw one house in particular that I really liked and our realtor is writing up a contract on it as we speak.  I’m praying that things will go through, but also remembering that everywhere I’ve ever been, God has provided the perfect spot for me to live.  I don’t expect that to change, but it would be nice if His “perfect” spot just happened to be the one that we’re writing up all of the paperwork for at the moment!

Other than that, we’ve gotten phones and depending on how things go with the house-hunt, the next step will be securing a vehicle and finding furnishings.  Lots to do, but we’re trucking along.  Joe and Jack are pretty cruise-y kids, so they’ve done well throughout this process.  I have noticed that Joe seems to be a little more anxious when one of us leaves, even if just for a moment (e.g., his dad pushes him in the shopping trolley to a different aisle and Joe can no longer see me).  He’ll start to cry and need reassurance that I will be there in just a few minutes.  I wonder if all of the change has made him worry that WE might change and disappear.  After all, his friends in Auckland aren’t here anymore.  His grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins who we just spent several weeks with aren’t here anymore.  Perhaps he’s worried that he’ll go one aisle over and not see me again anytime soon 🙁

I’m looking forward to exploring Virginia and Williamsburg some more.  I can already tell that I like this area based on what I’ve seen.  It’ll be fun to take a breather here soon (even when we were on vacation in St. Thomas, I still didn’t feel fully relaxed because of all of the things I knew we had coming up in the future) and enjoy our surroundings.