Home Sweet Home - Texas Style!

Well, here we are!  We made it to Texas about 10 days ago and have been BUSY getting settled.  The drive out was as fun as 5 days in the car can be.  We broke it up and had some treats along the way.  In Phoenix, we stopped at resort w/ a water park.  We spent a half day cruising in the lazy river and playing in the wave pool as a reward for finally being done w/ the packing and cleaning of our place on Woolsey Canyon.  It felt SO good do be done with that part, though all of that of course took longer and was more tiring than we wanted it to be.  In the last couple of days, we were still selling furniture, selling Luke's car, realizing we needed to haul a trailer, packing boxes, finishing finals, and saying goodbyes.  But, we made it and it felt so good to drive away having finished many months of preparing for the move.  Anyway, back to the trip.  After Phoenix, we spent an evening with Nanna and Poppa, which was a treat!  It was fun to eat dinner with them, let the kids show off their tricks, and just spend time with them.  The next day we drove to Artesia.  No fun adventures along the way other than our transmission acting up and a really pretty drive through part of New Mexico.  We ended the day w/ dinner w/ the Artesia Marrs clan.  It was fun to catch up with them and eat Mexican food at La Fonda.  The next day was Carlsbad Caverns (pics coming someday).  The kids loved the quiet, cool hike through the impressive caves.  We'd been there 8 years before and it was awesome to take the kids this time.  The next stop was Abilene.  We enjoyed dinner w/ Cliff and his kids.  It was fun to see the new Barbarick digs and spend time with them.  The final day was the 5 hour haul to Longview and it ended at OUR house with much fanfare.  Some friends of friends (whom we didn't even know!) had prepared the house w/ a welcome sign, flower, lots of food, and a card.  They'd cleaned it and left little toys/balloons for the kids.  It was amazing and such a sweet picture of Christian love!!  Then, the friends we did already know showed up to help unload our many boxes from the trailer and our 2 pods.  They brought food, water, hugs, and help.  It was awesome to be so warmly welcomed to Longview and to our own house.  Since then, things have been full and busy.  We're ready for some rhythm and routine and it's coming soon.  Luke's at his office for the first time today (6 minutes from our door to his office), the clothes are finally going into drawers, we did regular grocery shopping today, and we have some things on the calendar other than "unpack and get settled."  Here are a few observations, notes that come to mind.  Having done "culture shock" a few times, I realize that those things that are once shocking become totally normal, so we're trying to keep track while we are still shock-able.

-The flags are big.  I mean really big.  Just after Texas pride comes good ole patriotism.
- I was called "Sugar" by the woman at Panera.
- Walmart rules the roost around here.  It is THE place for just about anything.  We do have a Target and a few grocery stores, but Walmart is the main spot for shopping.
- Checking out at Walmart is definitely not the Trader Joe's carefully-bagged-in-paper-bags experience.  There is apparently no shortage of plastic grocery bags here.  They put like 2-3 things in each bag and start another.
- We thought Longview was small.  Apparently we are wrong.  We met a couple at church on Sunday who told us that they have a friend "across town" (20 minutes), whom they haven't seen in 3 years because neither party is up for that long of a drive.  In general, people talk of distance across town in terms of percentages of town coverage rather than time.  So, going half way across town seems kinda far (even though it's just 10 minutes) and going all the way across town is a really long way.
- The man that sold us our mattresses was pretty amazing.  I can't do him justice in writing (though I do a pretty good impression).  When we told him we were from L.A., he said, "Wowee!  That's a long way.  Los Angeles!  Well, we're not as modern as things out there in California.  But, we're gettin' kinda modern.  We're gettin' to be more like Dallas 'round here!  Things are changin'!  And, let me tell ya, we got a great police department here.  We don't have any of those gangs and stuff, like in other places."
- There is one billboard which changes from one sign to another.  It goes from "Jesus." to a bud light advertisement.  Another one has 2 billboard signs on the same billboard.  One is for a church with some catch phrase about peace.  The other is for a gun show.  Not that those are mutually exclusive - just another sign that we're not in California anymore!
- At Bed Bath and Beyond I found a wooden cross decoration with a horse head and horse shoe (where you'd normally find the crucified Lord).  Such a great decoration - Jesus, horses, and redemption in one.
- We've found some awesome fried okra, fried chicken, and red beans and rice.  We've also found that we cannot eat out much here and stay healthy-ish.
- There are some BIG flying bugs around here.  I'm not sure what all they are, but they hit the windows like little hummingbirds.  We're also adjusting to more flies and mosquitoes.  The kids are bitten and they're both getting the hang of the fly swatter.
- We had our first thunder storm.  The rain dumped on us for a couple of hours.  We sat in the kitchen and watched the lightening and rain for a while.  It was really nice to have a change of pace after days of 100 degree weather.  It was still hot - but it was cloudy!  Isaiah was a little nervous about the thunder and lightening.  He's hardly ever seen it.
- We've been working a lot in the house.  We realize that it was fairly ambitious to move into the house, re-paint 4 rooms, unpack, buy furniture, scout around on Craigslist, get ready for the semester, and keep 3 kiddos settled, fed, happy, and loved!  Thankfully, Roxanne was here to help for our first week.  It was awesome to have her help.  In addition to taking care of the kiddos and doing various tasks around the house, she stripped our only wall of wallpaper. What a gift!
- We're narrowing down our church options, which is a good thing.
- We had dinner w/ the 3 other St. Andrews families a few nights ago. We were all kind of shaking our heads in amazement that we really all live in Longview and are teaching at the same school.  SO cool.
- Also cool is our pepperdine friends within a 10 minute walk from our house.
- Also cool is the fact there there are at least 2 other LeTourneau families very close to us in the neighborhood.
- Luke just discovered 1/2 price milkshakes at Sonic after 8pm.  And the kids go down at 7:30.... Milkshake date nights!

That's all I can think of.  When we get the school room/office painted and set up (later this week, hopefully), I'll get back to posting some pics.  Thanks for keeping up with us, y'all!