one week down...a lot more to go!

Well, we made it through our first week in New Orleans. It's been an emotional and physical adjustment, but I would say we have settled in pretty well for the first week. We went to an ice cream "freeze off" last night at the pool. It was basically a homemade ice cream contest. We got to sample all of the contestants entries...DELICIOUS! Stephen's boss, Jim, won with his ice cream peanut butter chocolate with butterfinger! YUM! (We voted for that one!)

We have not met too many young married couples WITHOUT kids yet, so that has been a little difficult. Not that we don't love people who have kids, it would just be nice to find some folks that are in our same "frame of life" right now. So prayers would be appreciated about that.

I've pretty much gotten settled in my classroom. Connie, my parapro, has been a HUGE help! All we have left to do now is move one table out of the room and do the "knitty gritty" stuff to get ready for the first day of school like putting name plates on, labeling the cubbies, decorating the door, etc. I also have got to make my lesson plans for the first two weeks of school sometime, but I'm hoping Connie can help me with that, too. The curriculum is spelled out for me, but I still need a little guidance to understand what kindergarten has done in the past. Everything was pretty much set up for me, which is great! We are the redbird kindergarten class. Every class has an animal name. So everything in our room has to do with redbirds. It's really cute. Not much else is new...more posts to come later!

We're Here!

Well, as of Friday, we are official residents of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. We arrived late Friday afternoon and began the unpacking process. When we arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the paint color on all the walls was the exact same color as our house in Covington, so I knew that all of our things would match perfectly! The apartment is very small, but it works for us. It's really nice moving into a space that is brand new. I've never had all new appliances before which is wonderful! Stephen's family braved the long trip down to help get us settled. They were a HUGE help!! Thanks to them, we have our entire apartment set up. The only thing left for us to do is hang pictures and window treatments. They stayed the weekend with us and explored the city a little bit. It was nice to become acclimated with our new surroundings with a few familiar faces.

Homesickness has set in a little bit, at least for me anyway. Reality has began to sink in that we're not just on vacation and we're going to be here for a while. However, once school starts and life starts to get busy again, I'll have a lot to keep my mind occupied. Stephen urged me to attend a women's workout class tonight at the gym. It was a lot of fun getting to meet some new people and exercise at the same time. I hope to be able to do more things like that so I can get to know people here.

Stephen started his new job today, so while he was at work, I went to survey my classroom. I met my parapro, and she kind of showed the ropes of what they usually do at Memorial. I feel a little lost because Christian curriculum is a lot different than what I have been teaching, but I think I'll catch on. The curriculum tells you word by word what to say and what to do. After I talked with my parapro today, I made the drive back to the seminary. This was my first attempt driving around the city, so of course it was a little scary! I used the GPS to get to my school, but on the way back, I thought I didn't need it because I was just retracing my steps....WRONG! I missed my exit and ended up by the Super Dome. For those of you unfamiliar with the city of New Orleans, the Super Dome is not really anywhere near the seminary. It was quite scary, but as soon as I realized I was lost, I plugged the GPS back in and it took me where I needed to go. Needless to say, I will use the GPS from now on. At least until I get to know my way around here!

Thank you for all the prayers and support. We will need your continued prayers as we try to start our life here. It's going to be an adventure! I'm going to try to upload some pics. Please excuse the mess, we're still working on getting settled!!

We're Here!

Well, as of Friday, we are official residents of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. We arrived late Friday afternoon and began the unpacking process. When we arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the paint color on all the walls was the exact same color as our house in Covington, so I knew that all of our things would match perfectly! The apartment is very small, but it works for us. It's really nice moving into a space that is brand new. I've never had all new appliances before which is wonderful!

Stephen's family braved the long trip down to help get us settled. They were a HUGE help!! Thanks to them, we have our entire apartment set up. The only thing left for us to do is hang pictures and window treatments. They stayed the weekend with us and explored the city a little bit. It was nice to become acclimated with our new surroundings with a few familiar faces.

Homesickness has set in a little bit, at least for me anyway. Reality has began to sink in that we're not just on vacation and we're going to be here for a while. However, once school starts and life starts to get busy again, I'll have a lot to keep my mind occupied. Stephen urged me to attend a women's workout class tonight at the gym. It was a lot of fun getting to meet some new people and exercise at the same time. I hope to be able to do more things like that so I can get to know people here.

Stephen started his new job today, so while he was at work, I went to survey my classroom. I met my parapro, and she kind of showed the ropes of what they usually do at Memorial. I feel a little lost because Christian curriculum is a lot different than what I have been teaching, but I think I'll catch on. The curriculum tells you word by word what to say and what to do. After I talked with my parapro today, I made the drive back to the seminary.

This was my first attempt driving around the city, so of course it was a little scary! I used the GPS to get to my school, but on the way back, I thought I didn't need it because I was just retracing my steps....WRONG! I missed my exit and ended up by the Super Dome. For those of you unfamiliar with the city of New Orleans, the Super Dome is not really anywhere near the seminary. It was quite scary, but as soon as I realized I was lost, I plugged the GPS back in and it took me where I needed to go. Needless to say, I will use the GPS from now on. At least until I get to know my way around here!

Thank you for all the prayers and support. We will need your continued prayers as we try to start our life here. It's going to be an adventure!

Packing Time

So the packing has begun. It was hard finding a place to begin, but Angie, "the packing elf," was super helpful today. We packed up a whole lot today. Moma and I also worked on putting new linoleum on the downstairs hallway and laundryroom. It was a very productive day. We have been trying to take everything one box...ahem...step at a time. Little by little we will be ready by moving day.

Our move-in date has been moved up a week thanks to an unforeseen blessing. Stephen received a job offer from the department of facilities at NOBTS. We will be officially moving July 23rd in order for him to begin his first day of work July 26th. We will have a jam-packed couple of weeks getting settled and beginning our new jobs, but hopefully, everything will go smoothly as we pack up our lives and begin our travels to New Orleans.
Porthos wishes he could go to NOLA with us, so he's hoping to impress us with his mad driving skills in case we might need him as another driver! :) More posts to come soon...