Here We Are!

So much has happened since we last logged on and blogged.  Where should we start?  How about at the beginning:
We moved out of our Temecula home on Wednesday after being in the 'moving mode' for quite a while.  In fact, we had been eating on a picnic blanket on the kitchen floor for a about a week.  All of the kids loved that, and if someone spilled- the floor can be mopped, no harm done.  Tuesday night Jessica and Emily went on their last Mutual activity.  It was a five mile hike for girl's camp all around  the beautiful, old, unique, very hill-ee Meadowview neighborhood.  They had a great time and did a lot of walking.  That night Dad, Mom,  Jessica, Emily, and Spencer stayed up till 11 fitting every last thing in the truck.  Thanks to Dad's amazing packing skills the only things that wouldn't fit were a truck tire- meant for a tire swing here, a couple of boxes of paint and pesticide (illigal to carry anyway), some tools, brooms, and one box of dad's old uniforms and boots.  After everything was packed in very snugly, everyone high-fived each other and went to bed.  Then next morning all the un-needed sheets and blankets were stuffed into the spaces between bikes and furniture.  (Dad actually fit all of our bikes into the truck after telling us we'd probably have to give them away!  Jessica's and Emily's bike fit onto a bike rack on the back of the truck.)  We ate breakfast, gave the blue truck a quick wipe down and loaded up.  We said good bye to the neighbors (it went by fast for them too) and we were on the road by nine.  Jessica and Spencer got the first turn of riding in the moving truck with dad.  We drove past Temecula, past Diamond lake, past the farms, and to Palm Springs to get weighed.  We drove past 29 Palms (our home before Temecula).  We drove all day until we hit Arizona.  We passed an ostrich farm specializing in feather dusters.  We stopped that night and went to IHOP for dinner.  Little did we know that we would be having pancakes for dinner for almost every night until we moved into our house.  We spent one night in Arizona, and then we moved onto Texas.  In Texas there were a lot of oil drills and a couple of refineries.  We stopped at a motel in Van Horn, Texas.  Van Horn was known for its delicious water, and although there are no offers from bottled water companies, it did have good water.  We spent two nights in Texas; one on one side, the other night on the other side.  We then drove through the southern states; Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina (not listed in order) and we found ourselves in a very green, forested country.  Even the empty abondoned lots are green.  We passed over the Mississippi after having gone through a very heavy rainstorm.  The Mississippi was indeed as huge as everyone makes out to be.  (My chief source is Mark Twain, unfortunatly, and even he didn't dissapoint me.)  All the rivers are big here- when you can see them, since some of them were overhung with trees and brambly bushes.  We stopped in Pearl, Mississippi, to go to church.  There are a lot of churches in Mississippi, and everywhere here, just not LDS ones, it would seem.  The ward was very small in Pearl, and we could see the bishop's face light up when all ten of us walked into Sacrement meeting, and then we had to dissapoint everyone by saying we were just visiting.  All the classes and teachers were wonderful though. The next day we continued on our way.  We made it into beautiful North Carolina, and it rained every day since we crossed over the border.  We arrived in Wilmington.  It is close to the closest other small town, since there are no big cities here.  We looked at the house for the first time and discovered that we did have a lot of neighbors.  Mom and Dad did all the paperwork the second day and we were there and we began moving in that night.  We unloaded all the next day and finished the day after that.  We explored the yard and house and started setting up furniture.  The couch, the table, the internet...  Then we dropped dad off at the airport so that he could go back to California.  We went to Walmart to get a few important things and then we suddenly decided to go to the beach.  The beach we go to is the North Topsail beach on the island connected to us by a bridge.  The island is lined with three story colorful beach houses, and the beach is flat and is great for boogie boarding or just standing past the breaking waves and letting the unbroken waves sweep past you.  However, it was really windy and we almost broke our beach umbrella.   Saturday morning we went to the beach again, only this time we were there at seven A.M., to see if it would be better.  It was less windy, and the water was great.  Jessica, Emily, and Spencer went out really deep, until mom called them back in.  There were actually fins on the horizon!  We decided, after seeing two 'creatures', that they were just dolphins.  After that everyone didn't go out as deep and mainly looked for fish and shells. We were home at nine, and spent the rest of the morning outside.  The neighbor is getting her yard cleared and the yard clearers were very nice.  They paused while we removed a turtle from the yard.  They also helped Jessica and Spencer put a rope around a tree branch in the front yard to make a swing, which is now popular with all the kids on the street. (Sometimes we watch them playing on it, after asking our permission, while we eat dinner.)  On Sunday we showed up at the small (not as small as Pearl) ward and everyone was expecting us.  We were known as the 'California family.'  We each found our classes and our classmates and teachers.  Everyone is really nice.  Jessica and Emily are all set to go to girl's camp.  There are 18 girls from our small Hamstead ward going to Camp F.R.O.G. at Camp Pretty Pond.  F.R.O.G. stands for Fully Rely On God.  That night a family in the ward brought over some brownies and ended up staying for about an hour to visit, and the kids played Playmobile, which was one of the first things unpacked.  Then yesterday we stayed home and spent the morning outside watering and playing on the swing.  Spencer set up the food storage shelves upstairs mostly by himself.  Jessica and Mom had to help him put the wood shelves into metal frames.  Today we spent the morning outside exploring the section of our yard that splits in half our next door neighbor's back yard.  We are planning to put our garden over there, so we hope they don't mind looking at what will probably be our dwindling efforts at a real productive garden.  Emily discovered a raspberry, or blackberry, vine in the forest.  We transplanted it closer to home.  Then, after a couple more searches we found many more.  About six have been transplanted, and the transplanting stopped when we noticed that there was a berry bramble forming and that to transplant them all for special care would result in an over-population of our yard.  We went in finally when the mosquitoes came out.  We spent the rest of the day inside moving food storage upstairs and onto the shelves.  An elevator will be a priority in the next house!  (Decided after moving all the 45 lb wheat and bean bins upstairs.)  Now it is dinner time so we will upload pictures later. Bye!