New Beginnings

Whew!  We sure have done a lot in the month between my last post and now!

A quick recap: 

*We traveled to Texas and got to spend some great quality time with Rock's side of the family and they all got to love on Abby G and she ADORED all the attention!

At Moody Gardens in Galveston, Texas

Meeting Grandma's tortoise, Buddy 

Abby LOVED playing with her cousin and held her hand the whole time

*When we got home to Georgia, we went to my parents' house to celebrate Thanksgiving.  

Abby G is READY for some Thanksgiving goodies!

Trying her first taste of Thanksgiving food...

...and she likes it! 

In her pretty outfit from Great Aunt Lisa 

*We then headed home to Columbus to get the last bit of our house in order for the move and I took Abby G and the dogs back up to my parents' house the day the movers came.

Last day in Columbus

*The last day we were in Columbus Abby had her 12 month checkup and she is still growing fantastically at 23 lbs 2 oz (75th percentile) and 31.5 inches (95th percentile). 

*We stayed at my parents' house for five days while our stuff was moved up to NC and much to our dismay, into storage.  

*On December 6th we drove up to our new home in NC and signed our lease.

At our new house in North Carolina

Rock and Abby hanging out on front porch

Our new backyard

Abby LOVES playing in the backyard!

*Our stuff came on December 8th and we found out very quickly that a lot of our things were damaged in the transition into storage and so we spent a great deal of our first week documenting with pictures and writing all the damage we found.  The damaged things include (but definitely aren't limited to): our mattress that has truck grease smeared across it, our box spring that has a huge tear in it, our bed frame with a missing wheel, a bookcase with a smashed in shelf, THREE dressers including a beautiful American Drew Colonial dresser with a smashed off leg, our HE frontloading washer and dryer and my elliptical.  

Abby was unfazed by all the stress and found ways to make Mommy and Daddy smile 

Needless to say, it was stressful seeing all our things damaged and even more annoying that if the movers had just done their jobs properly we wouldn't have to sleep on an air mattress and we'd have clean clothes.  Since that time, the moving company has reimbursed us for a king-sized, plush top, huge air mattress we bought to use and they sent a check for the exact total of our bed (I keep all the receipts for our large purchases and I am so glad I do because the reimbursement was very quick with this documentation).  We also go someone out to fix our washer and dryer so the basic necessities of a bed and clean clothes are covered, but we still have a lot of things left in the settlement that we'll have to wait for after the Holidays to get inspected so that we can get our reimbursement.  Again, I know it is just stuff and I am extremely happy that we all got here to NC safely because that's all that really matters, but it has just been something that has taken up a lot of our time and energy and I'd definitely like to avoid it in the future if at all possible!

Playing at the park with Daddy

Our house now is pretty much unpacked (aside from a few boxes of clothes and books that are waiting for new dressers and bookshelves) and it has been really nice to start settling in, hanging up pictures, and getting established in our new community.  We have ventured out a couple times to explore our new town and even found a nice BBQ place that isn't too far away.  We all went up to Chapel Hill to see my brother and sister for my birthday and I really enjoyed my day with my family!  

Stinkerdoodle and me on my birthday in Chapel Hill

I think it is safe to say we are all looking forward to Christmas with family so that we can relax before the new year kicks off.  I will post more pictures of the house once I get them loaded to my computer.

Also, I am going to be not very active on my Facebook account for a while.  I am not doing this in an attempt to be dramatic or attention-seeking, I just feel that it is becoming increasingly invasive and harder and harder to keep any semblance of privacy (and it will be even more difficult to keep your privacy come December 24th...), so, I will hopefully be keeping up with my blog a lot more in an attempt to keep family and friends updated while not using Facebook.  I am really looking forward to writing more often the way I did throughout my pregnancy.