A Good Beginning

We've finally arrived in Virginia! It's been a crazy couple of weeks...getting ready for Halloween, then the packing and cleaning in preparation for the move. Thank HEAVENS Brian's company finally decided they'd pay for packing and transporting our household furnishings (and not just our "personal effects", as they first said). Things were crazy enough as it was!

Anyway, it was very strange, saying goodbye to friends and leaving El Segundo, the place we've called home for the last 4 1/2 years. It was strange looking back at the empty, echoing house as we locked the front door for the last time. It was strange flying out of LAX knowing we wouldn't be coming back for a long time! It kind of felt like every other time we've left on vacation, except that this time we only had a one way ticket.

We've had some wretched airport experiences the last few times we've flown, so we were dreading the flight (though not nearly as much as we would have been dreading a cross country drive). We were very pleasantly surprised as every step of the trip went smooth as honey. There were no lines to check in at the airport (pretty sure that's NEVER happened to us at LAX), the airline folks were actually pleasant to deal with. We had debated whether or not to bring our double jogging stroller with us or have the movers take it in the truck, ultimately deciding to take it with us. Then we debated whether to check it with our luggage or take it to the gate. To the gate all the way, baby! Why haven't we ever thought of this before? It was so much easier pushing the stroller through the airport than holding/dragging small screaming children. I wondered how they'd handle it at security, but it was actually an asset. The security people pulled us to the front of the line and then took the stroller to another location, where they gave it a thorough screening. Easy as pie. We arrived at our gate an hour early (that's also without precedent in our family) and leisurely ate our breakfast from McDonalds. The flight itself, which was supposed to be 5 hours long, only took 4 1/2 hours. The kids were relatively good. I think the biggest miracle of all came when we got seated on the airplane and realized that the seat in front of Weston was empty. The kid always kicks the chair in front of him repeatedly, earning us dirty glares and sometimes lectures from the person seated in it. I can understand this, as I don't particularly enjoy it when someone kicks the back of my chair either...but it's an exhausting task to keep a two-year-old from doing it. What a blessing that we didn't have to worry about it! The relief was intense.

We had a minor glitch when we got lost trying to find our hotel. According to Brian, this is an essential feature of any trip to Virginia. What should have been an easy left hand turn became tricky because we couldn't find the street we were supposed to turn on. As it turns out, the street is named one thing on one side of the road and another thing on the other side of the road, and we kept looking at the other side of the road. Alas, we found the hotel and all was well. The hotel is great. Blackout curtains in the kids' rooms kept them asleep until 9 a.m. this morning (when we had to wake them up so I could take Brian to work). There is a DVD player in the room, a CD player in both bedrooms (very handy since Weston's become obsessed with listening to music when he goes to bed) and the lobby has a library equipped with kids' games. Nice! So it hasn't been as hard to keep the kids happy inside the hotel as I imagined--this afternoon after lunch Cole and I played Candyland while Weston watched Baby Einstein. Pretty nice.

This morning after dropping Brian off at work, we went to pick up the keys for our townhouse. I had never seen it before, so I was very curious what I'd think of it. I have to say Brian did a great job. It's in a really pretty location. You walk in the front door and can see out the sliding glass doors to the back, where there's a huge, gorgeous tree whose leaves have turned bright yellow. The kids ran out onto the patio and had a ball throwing the leaves off the deck. The kitchen is much nicer than the one in our El Segundo house, though I don't think it has as much cupboard space. More drawers though. There's a fireplace in the living room, and Cole can hardly wait to start a fire in it.

I'm actually glad we moved here in November. I have missed fall weather ever since we moved to California almost 5 years ago, and we are at the tail end of fall here, but it's still definitely fall. Some trees have lost all of their leaves, but many still have bright colors (like the one in our backyard!). I am loving the cold air and the change from the sameness of California weather. It will be pleasant to have a fire in the fireplace, and I'm sure Cole would insist on one even if we moved in July! I'm looking forward to a holiday season that FEELS like a holiday season--chilly air, impending snowfall, and all. Cole seems to like it too, he has said on a couple of different occasions today, "Momma, I want to stay in Virginia forever." This coming from the kid who has been telling anyone who will listen, "We'll be back in California in one year."

It doesn't feel like I'm on the other end of the country--I guess that's what air travel does for you! We're going to head into DC either tomorrow or Friday though, and maybe then it will sink in how far away we are from familiar territory. Maybe it's living in Los Angeles for so long, but the unfamiliarity doesn't bother me like it used to. I'm ready for this adventure!