Day 2

Today we departed early in the morning after just over 4 hours of sleep from Holbrook, AZ. We were on the road by 7am on our way to destination No. 1, Carlsbad Caverns! We stopped to take a better picture of the New Mexico state line, and the only other stops we made were fuel stops and one rest stop to make sandwiches. Traffic was subtle all the way up to Glen's (Megan's Dad) most looked-forward-to stop: Roswell NM. In fact, he was saying that traffic should be slim to none up to Roswell as long as the slow cars in front of us would get abducted at the right times. (Bless his heart). We stopped at a Conoco and Glen picked up a couple alien souvenirs from the extra-terrestrial hotspot. We topped off the tank, and were on our way to Carlsbad. We wanted to get to the Caverns visitors center by 5pm, being the time when they permit the last entrance into the caverns, and we burst through the front doors only to realize that it was 5:05, five minutes too late. BUMMER! SO we decided that we would stay the night in Carlsbad, to hit the Caverns in the morning. Day 2 is down and in the books; tomorrow, we plan to hit Little Rock, AK, which is going to be our longest day journey yet at around 700 miles. Woohoo!

Day 1

Well...our first day was a little different than we thought! The pick up had a transfer case issue and we had to be towed 160 miles (this was even before we got to Vegas). So we spent a lovely extra 8 hours in St. George with Sandra (Glen's sister) and Rand (Glen's nephew), his wife Jenie and kids Tracen, Hailey, Alexa and Cameron. We were glad we had family there we could spend time with and they could take us out to lunch and cart us around (Thanks Rand!). The pickup was ready at 4 pm, we got to Vegas at 6, loaded up and left by 8. We again were fortunate to have some extra help in loading, thanks to Benn's family (Deborah, Jamie and Tom) and Glen's nephew Rand and family) See attached picture. When we left Vegas the temperature was a balmy 108 degrees! We drove and began to decide how far we wanted to go. So we were standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine site to see (tribute to the Eagles) and decided to stop at Holbrook Arizona. We got here at 1am and slept like rocks for 5 hours, got up at 6am. Just getting ready to eat breakfast, then we just can't wait to get on the road again (tribute to Willie Nelson). We are headed to Carlsbad, New Mexico to see the caverns.
Day 1, complete

The Trek to Boston

For anybody interested, we will be posting the daily events of our trip to Boston. It will take us about a week and we are going to be stopping all sorts of fun places on the way. So hope you enjoy it! We are leaving on August 2nd so look for the post then! :) WHOOPIE!

Moving....

Ok, so school is out and I've got all day every day to look at my apartment and figure out how to pack things and what we should/should not take with us...ya know, all that fun stuff. And there are times when I am really not excited about this move. In fact, I would go as far to say that at times I am so scared I just want to put it off! I still don't have a job (although I have been asked for an interview from 2 different schools so keep those fingers crossed), we are still working on the whole "place to live" thing, and in a month or so we will be leaving behind all friends and family. Change can be such a scary thing. It's scary because you don't know what's going to happen. It's scary because it's new and different. BUT, it is also necessary for us to grow.

Benn and I have had the wonderful opportunity to feel the assurance that Boston is where we need to be. We have already been blessed in so many different ways to help make this new adventure for us possible. So yea, we may still not have a place to live and I still don't have a job, but everything's going to be all right. :) We have each other, faith, and amazing friends and family to help support us and that helps to make things not so scary anymore.

BOSTON!

So this last weekend Benn and I went to Boston to check things out. We were SOO busy! Seriously, we hardly slept which was probably due to difference in time zones. We checked out 3 different apartments, I had a job interview, and then I spent all day Saturday testing to get my teaching license for Massachusetts. And when I say all day....I mean ALL DAY. We got to the test site about 7 AM and left at 6 PM. I have never had my hand hurt so much from using a pencil.

We rode the subway into town Saturday night and ate at a little Italian place. After that we got some cannoli's at a place called Mike's Pastry's - which we were told was amazing. We would have to agree for two reasons - there were a million people there and they really did taste amazing.

The really great thing about the city was that most of the time it didn't even feel like some big huge city. In the middle of everything, there were beautiful trees and greenery. And not those little dinky trees that are only a few years old. Trees that are big and huge and give lots of shade.

Our only complaint about Boston was the roads. There is honestly no rhyme or reason to the dang things. Medians do not exist(the kind where you can pull into it and wait to turn left if there is oncoming traffic), no "left turn only" lanes, very few "right turn only" lanes, and intersections with 7 different streets! The GPS would say "turn left onto some weird named road" and we both thought "what left?! there are three different lefts!" That, and our rental car got pooped on by more birds in 3 days there than my entire 1 and half years here in Vegas.

But all in all, the trip was great and it really helped to alleviate our fears of moving. We are still super sad to be leaving Vegas and the many friends we have here, but are also so excited for the upcoming adventure!

Benn's Music

Just wanted to make a quick post about Benn's music. He just finished recording a full cd of hymn arrangements and we are very excited about it! We will be getting cd's made and what not and just wanted to let anybody who looks at our blog know that we have made a blog for him and his music. So if you would like to follow it, we would love to have you! It's thebenncolemusic.blogspot.com. Thanks guys!

EXCITING NEWS!!!

Well, for those of you who see this....we have some exciting news. Sorry...we aren't pregnant. BUT, Benn got accepted to Berklee School of Music in Boston. He will be starting this fall and we are very excited. This has been a dream of his for many years and we love that dreams come true! It's like our own little Disney Movie. :) So we will be moving to Boston in August and will spend the next 3 years there.