Part of what had been stressing me out for so long was that I knew that we would be arriving in a new city with no home to go to. Having a home, a place of our own, is important to me. Hotels are okay, but they aren't the same as my home where my couch is. So the first thing we did after we checked into our hotel, got our animals comfortable and our car unloaded, was tour a handful of houses that we had researched online in the area that we knew we wanted to live in. And then we applied for, were approved, and signed a lease for the PERFECT house just two days after rolling into town! Which was such a relief, because now that we had an official address, everything else could fall into place!
We did run into a little bit of a snag when trying to enroll Isabelle into school though. But to save y'all from a long story that has a happy ending, I'll just go ahead and skip to the happy ending part.... Isabelle got accepted into the school we were hoping to enroll her into, thanks to an incredibly understanding school district and a stellar interview by an extra special 14 year old!!
So then, the rest of our settling into a new city truly fell into place, and we just sort of sat back and let it all fall.
Our things were delivered 10 days after we arrived in El Paso, and we spent the next few weeks cleaning, unpacking, and setting up our very own house (it's a rental, but it is so perfect for us, like it's been our house for forever), and since then, we've been soaking up all the laziness we could because we were finally settled into our very own house in a city that we don't have to move from for the foreseeable future.
I didn't even feel guilty for one single second that I didn't step foot beyond our driveway for a week after our things were delivered. But then I started to feel that familiar itch... that itch that is only annoying when you're enjoying your laziness... you know, that itch that I have that tells me it's time to go do something.
It was that itch that told me that there was an Ice Cream Festival going on downtown, and then I was all like.... wait, what....? Hold on a second... do I... do I actually live in a place where an Ice Cream Festival exists...?!?
I do! I do live in a place where an Ice Cream Festival exists!
Shut the front door! A donut ice cream sandwich?!
Get. in. my. tummy!
hahahahahahaha!!
Eric swears there is nothing better than a beer festival in Germany, and I have to be honest, I wasn't sure that there was anything better than a Wine Festival in Germany too, but this little Ice Cream Festival was so much fun!
They had any sort of ice cream that you could ever want! Eric and I have been on a low carb/no sugar diet for a couple of weeks and are seeing some nice results because of it, so we weren't able to eat until our hearts content, but we did indulge in a donut ice cream sandwich (yesssss, it is as amazing as it sounds!!) and chocolate habanero ice cream before our tummies started to hurt and we were ready to go home and be lazy again.
But thankfully, it sounds like there is a lot to do around our new home city. I've heard that there are concerts and music festivals all the time, and this Fall they'll have a Balloon Fiesta at the White Sands National Monument not far from El Paso, so I'm excited to know that I'll have at least a little to blog about still. All the more reason to not feel guilty about leaving an Ice Cream Festival to go home and be lazy.
So far, El Paso has been really good to us. The people here are so nice! I dare say that the people here give us Midwesterners a run for our money in the nice department. The city is easy to navigate and we've been able to find our way around exceptionally fast. So now that we had a good feel for this new city, there was no excuse to not go up to a couple of look-out points in the Franklin Mountains for a romantic view of El Paso and Mexico.
This part of the world is beautiful in it's own unique way. We are definitely not in Europe anymore, and definitely not on the East coast, but there is beauty here too, and I am slowly falling in love with the scenery.
Eric and I are aching to start hiking again, but with the temperatures consistently above 100°, it's just not possible for us amateurs at this point. But I have been researching trails for when the temps cool down in the Fall and we'll be ready to get out there when they do.
Eric has started at work and there have been a lot of changes since we got here. That's the Army though, there are always changes and we have learned over the years to just roll with whatever they throw at us. For now, Eric is not deploying, which I can't say that I'm disappointed about, but he is.
I haven't decided yet if I am going to go back to work or not. I need to get my dental hygiene license for Texas, which I'm pretty sure I'm going to get just in case I need it, but whether I'll use it, I just don't know. The school that Isabelle is enrolled into will be an intense program without the ability for her to ride the bus, so it's going to be a commitment for me as well as her to ensure that she gets to and from school, and I like being home when she gets home at the end of her day. So we will see.
But for now, I am LOVING being settled. I feel at home here, and know that we will be happy here. I mean, I actually live in a place where an Ice Cream Festival with donut ice cream sandwiches exist!!! I can't imagine anything cooler than that! {Get it? "Cooler," you know, because ice cream is cold. Hahahahahaha, I crack myself up!}
I missed the ice cream festival, now I wish I hadn't! 😒
ReplyDeleteCan I come visit you next year during the ice cream festival??
ReplyDelete