Figured I should post something as no one posted anything last week. This last week was BUSY for me. Started the job search and after a few nibbles I landed a job-ending a two week search (awesome considering the economy!). I am the new administrative assistant for Bailey's General Store on Sanibel Island. It will be Mon-Fri 8:30-5 and no weekends and a little better pay than the last job! Looking forward to starting tomorrow. The down side is it is a 50 minute drive although it does not seem like that long of a drive. The scenery on the drive is awesome! I have to drive over a couple big bridges to get there. So tomorrow the whole family will be out of the house by 7:15am. Both schools offer before and after school care, so no need to look for child care.

The kids are both getting active in some of the church activities. Grace U.M. Church offers a childrens service during the duration of the comtemporary service. Amberlyn is making some new friends there. Cody being in middle school has to sit with us (terrible). He is learning to not fidget so much. He sits in a plush chair compaired to the wooden pews we grew up with. Every Wednesday night he is going to Octane and seems to be making some friends there.

Both kids have received mid-term grades and it looks like they are doing pretty well adjusting to all the changes we have thrown at them.

Saturday we started the Christmas shopping. Of course we got hungry and checked out a Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Yumm E!!!! It was great!

With the upcoming holiday I am guessing we will not be doing much site seeing. Depends on the weather. It is 55-75 down here. The weekend was warm but it has rained this afternoon. Tonight it is supposed to get windy and cool again. Tomorrow's high will be 55. Guess it is a good thing we brought the warm clothes down too!

Here is a closing thought to start the new week with-"we can grumble or we can be grateful-which will you chose?"

Have a good one and if you are an Ohioan-keep warm!

Jenny

Words from a Chicky-Butt

GUEST BLOGGER:

Florida is very neat. Last Saturday, we went to the beach. And at the beach we saw three or four dolphins. I wanted to have a slushie at Dairy Queen but she had a Blizzard instead. We found a lot of shells with pretty colors. The first day we got our new house we slept on the floor which was really fun. I was wearing summer clothes, like every day. I made 11 friends at school.

This Saturday we went to the Shell Factory. At the store, we saw lots of big shells and shell nightlights, fake shells. One shell had a face of a tree frog on it which was very cool. We saw wind chimes but they were wooden. We saw bamboo shades with pictures on them. There was a history part with some fossils. There was a Quartz rock with pretty shells. There was some food there but mostly shells. And we saw big and little fake turtles.

**Note, the above was a recap of our adventure so far from the journal of Amberlyn.**

Breaking Ground

And here we go....

Well, no surprise but it was a long drive.  It did not help that the Penske truck could not go over 2500 RPM!  Which, let me tell you was great fun in the mountains.  The drive in Georgia was absolutely beautiful!  Did not realize that the fall foliage would still be in full force, made the drive more pleasant.  We drove thru Atlanta at sunset on Saturday night.  The kids loved it!  The buildings had their outside lights on.  Pat and I were more focused on the traffic, though.  It was 6-8 lanes going in one direction.  Thank goodness that it was not too heavy!  

We finally arrived at the house at 6pm on Sunday.  All thankful that the trip was done.  Pat picked out a nice house.  There will be pictures once we get a little more settled in.  We were able to cram all we own in the truck but it will take weeks to unload it all from the garage to the house!

Pat went back to work on Wednesday and I took the kids to their new schools on Thursday.  Amberlyn is at Patriot Elementary and Cody is at Challenger Middle school.  The kids are used to getting up at 6:30 am and being on the bus by 7:10.  We leave the house at 9am and her school starts at 9:15 and his at 9:45.  It is a 2 hour delay all the time!

We decided to check out Fort Myers Beach on Saturday.  Know that you may not want to hear it but the weather here has been mid-80’s all week.  Gorgeous!  A little cool for swimming but felt good on the feet.  We were there at the right time and saw a few dolphins swimming close to the shore and boardwalk area.  Cody counted over hundred times that he saw them surface.  We also saw pelicans catching lunch.  We had a picnic at the shelter area and there was not one bug that invaded.  It was a great first adventure and no one got  sunburned!

Finally, here is the new digs.  Hopefully the kids find this a nice place to put up their feet and soak up the sun!