Welcome to Texas!

"Welcome to Texas!" This is the first thing everyone says as soon as they find out we aren't from here. I swear Texans are the nicest people. Its made me realize that I really need to work on my eye contact. I am so accustomed to just shuffling along doing my own thing, people bumping into me and not saying excuse me, that people here must question my shocked expression with all the eye contact and "how y'all doing?" Its refreshing.
So, we are here in Waxahachie, Texas (pronounced WUH-xahachie) a LONG way from home and I think we are settling in okay. Its definitely different. For one, we are in corporate housing for the time being (a furnished apartment) and all of our stuff is in storage while we search for a home. Daniel will be working in Corsicana which is about 35 minutes south of here and Dallas is about 25 minutes north. Its a town of about 29,000 people and for the most part its pretty country compared to what we are used to. Everything you need is on one stretch of road or in the downtown area and everything else is just open land and small subdivisions of homes. Most of the homes are on acre lots or more which is so much land compared to our 9,000 sqft. lot we had in CA.
The downtown area is really cool! The buildings are beautiful and there are a lot of old victorian homes surrounding it. On Friday nights everyone goes to the enormous high school football stadium for the game a la "Friday Night Lights" and we hear there are tons of traditions and markets and parades that go on that everyone is apart of. Its definitely different than anywhere we thought we would ever live but are so excited that we have ended up here. It definitely seems like the perfect place to raise our family not to mention the schools are awesome here!
Really, getting here was the hardest part of the move. We had all of our stuff packed up and on the truck a whole week before our actual move date. We needed time to have the house and carpets cleaned to prep for our renters to move in and we had the wedding of our good friends Vinny and Jenn in beautiful Santa Margarita the weekend before. So, we literally were living out of suitcases and homeless for a week but between the hotels and my parents house we tried to make it as comfortable and normal as possible for the kids. Daniel left in the car with the dogs on Monday and made the long trek to Texas by himself while I tied up some loose ends and flew out with the kids Wednesday. There were a lot of sad good byes, stress and making sure we had everything before we left that had me a little frazzled but I think we all did pretty good and made it out here in one piece.
The kids did great on the flight over here and Daniel did awesome and made sure to be here by Wednesday just in time to pick us up from the airport. My good friend Liz who lives in Dallas was sweet enough to take time off from work to come help us out too. It's SO awesome that we will be able to see more of her now!
When we got to our apartment we were relieved to see that it was decorated nice and we had pretty much everything we needed except of course food and toiletries. We pretty much bought the entire Walmart our first night here. We had to buy everything from salt to soap and everything in between. Our apartment is in a nice area off the one street that has everything which makes it pretty convenient. Gianna loves it and calls it our "hotel house". She has her own room and bed but Jensen has a little pack n play in a corner of it where he sleeps for the time being. She is not a fan of him sleeping in her room but it's temporary and a good lesson in sharing. While its a much better living situation than we anticipated, I am anxious to get a house and get out of here. We could only pack so much stuff with us in a few suitcases.
I think Gianna is doing pretty well adjusting although she still hasn't fully grasped how far away Texas is from California. She has asked to go to her grandma's a few times and when I said she is in CA she said she could just get on the plane and come here. Tonight was great because Daniel's brother and our sister in law, Derrick and Nikki, were actually in Dallas to go to the Monday night football game tomorrow (a trip planned before our move) so they came down and had dinner and saw our place. Gigi was super excited but I think she was a little confused at how they could stop by after I just explained that people won't be able to just stop by. lol. She will get it. Its an adjustment for all of us.
I really do think we are going to like it here once we get settled. It is definitely a nice change of pace. I will say that I am for sure not in a hurry to go through a cross country move again. It was definitely one of the most stressful things I have ever done and I must say I am more than relieved that it is over. Fingers crossed we find a home soon and can get back to normal. Well...a new normal....