Our Move

Well, we made it! We are officially residents of North Carolina, and after today, I will have a new state driver's license, which may be a little hard for me to swallow, but at least people won't inspect my ID like it's fake every time they ask to see it.

We have been here for about three weeks (minus a week for a family vacation we took), but I want to go back to pre-move to document some of our last days in Houston.

When we first decided on coming to NC, my mind already started worrying about how in the world we were going to get all of our stuff here. On the other hand, Matt's mind started planning the best roadtrip ever! After much persuasion, I talked him into NOT driving a 28-foot UHaul truck with our entire house in the back, our dog in the passenger seat, and my car being pulled behind by a trailer (making the entire ensemble about 40 feet long! Did I mention HE wanted to be driving the thing? Ya, all of that terrified me and gave me nightmares (and I am not exaggerating about the nightmares).

I knew that in order to ruin his "best roadtrip ever" plan, I had to come up with something good, so I did my research, and I found some companies, and one in particular that matched our budget, that would send our stuff across the country to let us meet it there. The company we used was called U-Pack, and it was exactly what it sounds like... YOU (us) PACK. Here's the deal: you pack everything you own in boxes, and then a driver comes to your house, drops off a trailer and then leaves. You then pack all of your boxes/stuff in that trailer as best you can (crossing your fingers that it makes the 1,200 mile journey without being completely destroyed). Then, for a small fee, you can actually choose the day your stuff is delivered to your new house. So, this is what we chose to do.

I wasn't aware at first, but I apparently married a master-packer, which is awesome. Single ladies, add that quality to your "Must Haves" for your future hubby. Seriously, he worked so hard to get all of our things packed and packed well. I owe our stuff not getting destroyed to him. Just check out some of our furniture items... #saranwrapisyourbestfriendwhenmoving <-- that hashtag should be trending.

Once we had everything pretty much packed, we took a quick trip to visit as much of our family as possible. Since my family all lives in Houston, the trip was really to see Matt's family. We got to visit both of his grandmothers, both of his parents, and his brother and our new sister-in-law. We also got to do two Texas-things that we hadn't done before. While we were in Waco visiting his brother, Sam and Sam's wife, Shannon, we went to Magnolia Market (the Texas "landmark" made famous by the hit show Fixer Upper. We also went to the Fort Worth Stockyards with Matt's mom while we were in Fort Worth.

We got back on a Saturday, and the trailer and movers came on Monday. We ended up hiring two men from a small moving company to help us load all of the boxes and furniture into the trailer. They were clutch, because they were speedy and knowledgeable about how best to pack everything in the truck. Here we are right before closing up the trailer. And below that, what our house looked like afterward. 

A very confused golden retriever and three tennis balls. Crazy, Since everything was now packed, we had planned to stay a couple of nights at my parents' house before going to the bayhouse for the Fourth of July. During our last couple of nights in Houston, some of our amazing friends threw us a Texas farewell party. We left some dear friends back in Texas and can't wait for them to come out to NC! 

After leaving Houston, we went to Galveston to stay for the Fourth of July holiday. We were there for five wonderful days, and got to spend some quality time with my family before leaving Texas. 

We came back to Houston Sunday evening, and here we are bright and early Monday morning to start our journey east. 

We drove all day on Monday, leaving at about 5:30am from Houston, stopping a few times for gas, bathroom breaks, and food, and we arrived in Atlanta, where we were staying for the night at about 8:00pm after the time change. We checked into our hotel, and immediately left to go get dinner. When we got back, we cleaned up and went to bed in an attempt to get some much-needed rest. The following morning, Tuesday, Matt woke up at about 3:30am to get on the road to meet our moving truck which got to our house at about 11am. My mom and I left at about 7:30am to make the 5 hour drive to our new home. After three days, we had every box unpacked and all pictures hung on the walls.

We left for a family vacation on that Saturday, so having everything mostly finished was a priority of mine. It felt great to be able to leave knowing that we wouldn't have a ton of work to do when we got back. We loved getting to spend eight days in Palm Springs playing golf and hanging out by the pool without any unpacking looming ahead. I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted, but here are a few from the golf course on the day of our family tournament and from the pool (with Matt's lifeproof-cased iPhone).

We got back to North Carolina on the 18th, and we hit the ground running. Matt is already in his second day of official orientation, but he has been working and studying for a couple of weeks now, and I have been working in my classroom for a couple of days, but mostly enjoying being in our new home with the dog, running errands, and exploring this new city.


Will update more soon! Happy Thursday, friends! I'm off to get my new driver's license! Fingers crossed they let me! ;)

2014 in Review

2014 was a big year. So many fun things happened this year, and I loved getting to look back and re-live many of these moments. So here's to bringing 2014 to a close...

January

On the 19th, my mom and I ran the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon. This was my third half-marathon and by far my favorite one I've ever run. I loved sharing this experience with my mom.

February

 Our Family Fitness Challenge ended with a bang and a Brennan's Dinner Celebration. 

Matt and I enjoyed a mini Texas road trip and vacation. We went to my favorite resort, The Hill Country Hyatt and celebrated Valentine's Day there and then in Austin.

March

On the 14th, we celebrated Pi Day at school. Being a 7th Grade math teacher definitely has its fun days! And this was one of them.

 For Spring Break, we took our first trip to the East Coast. We visited Thomas Jefferson's house, Monticello while we were there. 

March also brought Rodeo season! One of my closest friends joined our Mutton Bustin' committee this year which made it even more fun. 

April

We took a little weekend vacation to Boston to celebrate our 2nd Anniversary. It was Matt's first time there, so we did all things Boston tourist- Freedom Trail, cannolis, Red Sox game, etc.

May

Bayhouse trips galore! I feel like we were in Galveston pretty much every weekend in May. Mom's birthday, Mother's Day, Memorial Day...

June

Summer Softball. Matt and my brother, Chase, have been playing in a summer league for at least three years. Avery loves watching her daddy play ball.

July

 We spent the Fourth of July at the bayhouse in Galveston. Matt and I took on a little project to help celebrate the 4th!

We participated in Mission 1:8 with our Sunday School class. We helped put on a small Vacation Bible School for some refugees, most of which had never heard about Jesus before.

My roommates from college and I had a reunion weekend. It is so rare that we are all together, so we took advantage of the time we had together. 

August

 On the 1st, we celebrated the wedding of our friends, the Debayles, and we got to spend time with some of our favorite people.

The weekend before school started, we visited Matt's family in Fort Worth.

On the 26th, I started my third year of teaching middle school.

September

On the 24th, many of our students gathered for See You at the Pole. I will never forget listening to their sweet voices singing songs of praise to our Heavenly Father at the flag pole of our public middle school.

October

 The fall brought Aggie football season, so we traveled to College Station for tailgates quite a bit throughout October and November.

Since I can't post pictures of my sweet athletes, here's a selfie of me before our big volleyball tournament, in which my team won 1st place!

November

 On the 4th, we made our voices heard by voting in the midterm election.

In the week before Thanksgiving, we took advantage of my time off of school, and we traveled to Washington D. C. for the first time. We loved it!

December

 On the 21st, my grandparents got baptized in the same church I grew up in.

We spent Christmas traveling around Texas and visiting all of our family :)

It was such a great year. I cannot believe it is now over. We learned so many things this year, especially me. I am constantly working on trying to be the best wife I can be to Matt. I have learned to be patient with God, that things are perfect in His time. I have been continually reminded of how abundantly blessed we are. God is so good! I know He has really big plans for 2015. I can just feel it. I pray that we continue to keep Him at the center of our marriage and trust Him in all things, and I pray that we cherish time we get to spend with family and friends.

Here's to 2015!

The District

The weekend before Thanksgiving, hubs took me to D.C.! This was both of our first time to go to the national capital. We were there for a full five days and packed in as much as we possibly could. It was a blast!

We left the Friday before Thanksgiving after work and arrived late Friday night. So, we went straight to bed and were ready for a very full day on Saturday. We saw the Smithsonian--Natural History and American History museums.

Natural History Museum Rotunda

Matt's new friend

My favorite.

Another fave--Abigail's White House China Pattern

Those museums took us the whole morning, so after leaving, we went to our first recommended restaurant (and my personal favorite on the whole trip), Founding Farmers. It was delicious and a great atmosphere. There was a two hour wait, but after about 2 minutes of waiting, we scored two seats at the bar and ate there. Matt made friends with the bartender, of course, and we really enjoyed ourselves. After lunch, we made our way over to the Washington Monument and White House.

                

      


That last picture was taken by Matt, and to me, looks like what I like to call a "postcard pic." And then, there was the White House. I mean, wow. I don't care who you are--standing outside of the White House is powerful. So many incredible people have walked in that house. Pretty neat!

That night, we went to Georgetown for dinner at Clyde's. First of all, I LOVED Georgetown. I could have spent the whole five days hanging out there. After dinner, we thought it would be a genius idea to WALK back to the monuments to see them at night. Yes, brilliant idea!

        

     












But, I mean, WOW. Absolutely incredible and completely worth every blister step.
     
     















At the end of the day, just as you are feeling after getting to this point in the post, we were exhausted. So, needless to say, Sunday was a tiny bit lazy for us. We decided to sleep in a little and tackle only the Arlington Cemetery. We saw the changing of the guard, where JFK and Taft are buried, and many of our nation's heroes.

JFK's grave

Taft's grave

That night, we made our way back to Georgetown for dinner at Filomena. Holy moly, it was yummy. Homemade pasta right in the front window of the restaurant and to end the meal, Amaretto. I'll take it. And as if that wasn't enough, we HAD to get cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcakes. Also delicious.

               

The next day, we saw the National Archives, the Holocaust Museum, the Capital building, and the Supreme Court. We didn't spend a ton of time at the National Archives, but we got to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. You can hardly see the writing on the documents anymore, but it is still makes you very awestruck to think about their past--where they've been, who has touched them, etc. We didn't take any pictures at the Holocaust Museum, but enjoyed walking through it very much, seeing all of the pictures and reading all of the stories from that time. We also toured the Capital Building. I think that was Matt's favorite part of the trip. The top of it is undergoing a two-year reconstruction project, so we hope to get a better picture one day. I guess we will have to go back! And after taking the tour of the Capital, we walked across the street to see the Supreme Court, probably his second favorite part.

Supreme Court

On our last night in D.C., we went to Chinatown for dinner at Matchbox. It was such a fun restaurant for our last night. After dinner, we walked across town to get pie at Dangerously Delicious Pies.

We found out that they recently opened one in Austin, so if you are anywhere close to ATX, definitely worth a trip! On our way to get pie, we walked right by a group of people, about 1,000 in number, protesting the decision in the Michael Brown case. They were heading to the Supreme Court steps. It was crazy to see and to think about how often there are protests in D.C.

We had an incredible time on our trip, and we loved coming home to part of our family for Thanksgiving. We are now getting to enjoy this special season between Thanksgiving and Christmas with decorations, time together, and sweet smells of cinnamon--getting anxiously excited about all of our Christmas plans with family.