We made it!

After nine months of knowing where we were headed, researching, and anticipating - we finally made it! Fort Drum is beautiful! Most of it is forested, so you see turkeys, deer, chipmunks, etc. all over the place! We arrived in the Fall, so the leaves on the trees have been breathtaking! It is pretty big and spread out, so I spent most of the first week getting lost - usually looking for a gate to get out of!

When we got here, we didn't have a home, so we stayed at a hotel for 17 days! That's right a hotel room with 2 queen beds, a chair that pulled out to a twin bed and that's it! So, we rented a storage unit for the little bit of our belongings that we had kept with us and lived in tight quarters! We were blessed that we only were there for 17 days! It wouldn't have been too bad, but it rained so much that the kids really couldn't go outside to play. So, we would usually go explore in Watertown and go out to dinner to pass the time in the evenings.

Well, after the longest summer of their lives (May 20 - Sept. 9) the kids had to start school!

Here are their first day of school pictures:

Denver going into Kindergarten!

Sadie going into First Grade!

Mauryn going into 4th grade!

Sadie and Denver go to a primary school (K - 3rd grade), and Mauryn has to go to an Intermediate School (4-5 grades). They have done well, but it has been an adjustment. We were used to Tucumcari Elementary, where I had taught for 3 years and we were all in the same building, and had a ton of familiar faces! But as the weeks go on (they've been in school for about 3 weeks now) they are feeling pretty comfortable with it. But I must say, many times a week our sweet Tucumcari Elementary is mentioned by one of us and how much we miss it and all our sweet friends. But what a blessing to have such great memories and a wonderful place to call "home."

And it has been fun to tell people we are from Tucumcari, New Mexico and hear their reactions..."You are from where????" or "How do you say that????"