Turkey Day

Well it was definitely an untraditional Thanksgiving for us this year.  For starters it was our first big holiday ever without our families, and honestly being here alone was a little sad.  But it was also fun because it made this move seem like a bit more of an adventure.

I started off the morning watching the sunrise, which amazingly I do most mornings these days. I'm hoping to get a nicer camera and maybe take some photography classes after I have a job, because these pictures just don't do it justice.






We headed down to Cocoa Beach for their annual Turkey Trot just after 7 am.  I know, it's hard for me to believe I watch sunrises and leave the house at 7 am by choice too!  After having such a blast cheering on Shelby at the DC Marathon last month with my girlfriends, I had high expectations, and so the Turkey Trot 
was a bit of a let down.  Only a few people dressed up, and maybe 
half a dozen carried turkeys, but Jimmy is talking about running it 
next year, so maybe that will add to the excitement.  There were some pretty interesting turkey carrying strategies:










From the race we walked over to one of our favorite new restaurants, a little Cuban place called Roberto's and had breakfast.  We realized it was the first time either of us had ever been out to eat for any meal on Thanksgiving.



After sharing a half pitcher of sangria we headed home to watch the Macy's Day Parade and enjoy a sangria inspired siesta.  I'm pretty sure the pilgrims would have been proud!  I then got to work preparing our Thanksgiving Day feast.  From here our day got even more untraditional.  I realized my turkey was absorbing a lot of juice and had already sucked up 2 cans of chicken broth.  To be safe, Jimmy and I decided to run out to the store to pick up another can.  We got in the elevator, the doors closed, and I pushed the button for the 1st floor.  Only nothing happened.  After pushing the door open button several times, and every other button for that matter, we finally had to push the "call for help" button.  Fortunately that one did work.  We were told help was on the way and proceeded to wait...and wait.  We were able to get the attention of one of our neighbors who was kind enough to offer to wait on the other side of the door with us.  I told him we were fine, but did ask that he check back with us in 30 minutes so I could have him break into the house to baste my turkey if we were still trapped.   He was very sweet and kept checking back with us, letting us know he had called and was giving us updates on how much longer we had to wait.  And after 40 minutes we were finally freed.  I was a little disappointed we were not rescued by the fire department because I thought having a picture of us with a firefighter would be really cool for the blog, but instead have this picture of us with our maintenance man.



After being cooped up in the elevator, we finally got our turkey basted and headed down to the beach.  It was a little chilly with the wind blowing, but still very cool the weather was nice enough for us to be hanging out on the beach.




And finally it was time to eat.  I wasn't willing to miss out on any of our favorites, so we ended up with a ridiculous amount of food for 2 people.    And thankfully, according to Jimmy, his mom's 
stuffing recipe came out just like she makes it.








The thing I probably missed the most was our annual post-Thanksgiving party with our friends.  We did head down the street to one of the bars at the port and had a good time, but it just wasn't the same.  By next year we should have some new friends and hopefully we can resume our party tradition.  But for now, we are extremely thankful that our wish to move and start a new adventure together came together this year!




As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Late Birthday Update

Well I'm late posting this, but I was hoping I would have some of the pictures from last weekend to post (hint, hint Mike, I'm still waiting).  My birthday was fantastic!  Lydia and Mike flew down on Thursday night and we met up with Mike's brother Matt, and Matt's wife Kelly for lunch on Friday.  Later on we watched the launch preparations on tv and headed down to the beach with our cooler of drinks and champagne about 45 minutes before the launch.  It was truly one of the coolest things I've ever seen!  The beach in front of our house is about 15 miles from the launch site, but we could easily tell where it was because of how bright the sky was from the launch 
pad being illuminated.  We kept watching in that direction, and right on time (7:55) the entire sky lit up like it was daylight.  About 10 seconds later a huge fireball came up over the buildings and we watched as it went up in the sky, leaving an incredible cloud of smoke in its wake. Because of our distance we could never see the outline of the shuttle, it only ever looked like a fireball, but it gave me chills to watch it.  The sky was clear and beautiful and we were able to see it for a long time, until it looked like a tiny star in the sky and then disappeared.  It was so amazing to be looking up at the sky knowing you were watching people travel to space.  I've seen launches before on tv, but it is nothing like standing watching it.  The only disappointing thing was that we never heard or felt it.  According to some of Jimmy's co-workers at KSC, it is really unusual not to be able to hear or feel it and they suspected it had to do with the direction of the wind.  Even still, how cool is it to say the last night launch of the shuttle happened on your birthday, right after you move down, and you're able to watch it from your backyard???   We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out and consuming to many alcoholic beverages, but we had a great time!  

Hopefully I can come back and add some pictures we took over the weekend, but for the time 
being these are a couple I snagged from NASA's website.


This one actually looks pretty similar to what we saw only from further away.



And this one give you a good idea of how beautiful the moon was that night.



Jimmy is planning to get us on center to watch the next launch, so hopefully this is what we'll actually see the next time.




"I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul... we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream."  ~Neil Armstrong

How Quickly Life Changes

Hello from sunny Florida!  The weather is amazing here and despite missing my friends and family very much, I am amazed how quickly I am becoming comfortable in this new life.  Jimmy and I have been working hard getting things unpacked and have made amazing progress.   Some of us work harder than others.



Just kidding.  I just wanted an excuse to sneak this picture in because I love it so much.  

One of the most shocking changes to this new life is that I have somehow become a morning person.  I haven't been asleep past 7:30 am in over a week and I'm not even setting an alarm.  The verdict is still out on how I actually feel about this.  On one hand it's nice to have accomplished so much by 9 am, and it's nice this time of year to have more hours of sunshine.  But on the other hand, it's me, and I'm not a morning person.

The best change is how relaxed I feel and how active we've already become.  Sunday we took a long walk on the beach and this evening we went for a bike ride around the neighborhood next to us.  We also went to the American Police Hall of Fame & Museum this afternoon which was pretty cool.  We were bummed to find out they are no longer offering helicopter rides, and we were even more disappointed when we found out they'd only been charging $35 a person for the helicopter rides when they were still doing them.  But we had the place to ourselves and got to 
see some cool stuff.  




The first thing when you walk in is a car of an officer who died in the line of duty.  While is car was on display after the tragedy people from his  community signed his car.   The car is literally 
signed from bumper to bumper.  It was very moving to see.



The Fallen Officers Memorial



Not moving, but very funny was when I walked around a corner to find Jimmy having a puppet show with the McGruff's dogs.



Jimmy and I trying out the electric chair.





Jimmy checking out the forensic evidence display.  I was thinking about my friend Detective Jordan while we were looking at this.  Jordan, if you're reading this, I hope your first homicide investigation is going well!



Jimmy and I playing dress up with some of the uniforms they had.







I thought this was pretty cool.  Before towns had jails built they used to keep people overnight in "Tramp Chairs".  Prisoners were normally undressed and left out in the elements while neighborhood children would poke them with sticks.





And a really cool old police car.



So that's what we've been up to so far.  I'll be spending the next two days continuing to get our place organized before our first guests arrive and will be job hunting in full force come Monday.



"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives."  ~A. Sachs

Look Mom, No Tears!

Amazingly it has been over a week since the last time I cried and I managed to get to our new home without crying once!  We got in safe last night, just got internet this afternoon and have the moving truck showing up tomorrow morning.  We have had some issues, most notably the fact that we went to the community office this afternoon to be informed no trucks over 24' are allowed on the property.  Our truck, which is WELL over 24', was supposed to be here at 8 am tomorrow.  Luckily the government transfer office is taking good care of us and 
have made arrangements to have our stuff unloaded onto a smaller truck so they can get to us.  It'll be later in the day, but our stuff should still be here tomorrow.  What a pain!  

And my plan was to go get our new FL licenses and tags this afternoon only I realized we carefully packed our lockbox with our birth certificates, social security cards, and other important documents in the car with us, but the key is packed on the truck and some of those documents we need for our new licenses.  So much for best laid plans!  

Anyway, I wanted to check in with those of you who I haven't talked 
to and let you know we got here safe.  We slept with our bedroom door open last night and woke up to the sounds of the ocean, so I have nothing really to complain about!  We will be very busy the next few days unpacking, but are excited to have Mike and Lydia coming down to watch NASA graciously launch the shuttle to celebrate my birthday!  I will update soon!