We Made It

HIM: Jacksonville Travel and Arrival Log

Sunday, August 12
Vanessa and I finally had our stuff packed and loaded into our two cars. We took to the road mid-afternoon. Several hours later, my parents took Vanessa's to the airport for their return flight to Peru (they had been visiting...). We drove through Chattenooga and right into Georgia until we couldn't truck along anymore.

Monday, August 13
I crept out of bed early to call the Financial Aid office at Florida Coastal School of Law (FCSL) and our residence hopeful, Bay Pointe Apartments. For anyone keeping score, these two businesses are incredibly well-run. Despite my best efforts to unnerve the staff with questions and requesting assurances (having not yet secured either with 100% certainty), they were extremely polite, helpful and tolerant of my incessant phoning. THANK YOU!

Having "checked in" (read: "met annoyance quota") with the Jacksonville peeps, we got up, got ready and got going. I won't trouble you with a drawn-out poem of our mythical journey to the new home, but I do have some statistics on the number of thumbs-up, honks and waves (or innumerable nods and smiles...) you can get while making an multi-state convertible ride wearing a Burger King crown. *notes the clear tan line on my forehead where most got sun, but royal shade covered the rest* Thanks Sebastian. =)

We eventually made it into Jacksonville in the evening. The main strip (Baymeadows Road) has EVERYTHING. It's like all the best parts of Indianapolis and Louisville (and everything inbetween) crammed into an 8 mile developer's dream. Scouting out the area, we found that FCSL was only 4 miles from our apartment (later, we discovered that Sebastian's pre-school was only 6 miles from the apartment and 2 from law school!). It was getting late. We were getting hungry.

Having just received a generous gift card from Carol at SOAR! for Bob Evans, we made that our first meal in Florida. Checking into a nearby La Quinta, we then rested the best we could in light of still not signing our apartment documents.

Tuesday, August 14
Everything came together! I got my financial aid documents from the school and traded them with the apartment for a lease. We checked out the place, signed on the line, and moved into our new home! After unloading most of the cars in 90+ degree heat, we took a swim in our new pool. It was fun and refreshing. Sebastian was happy to finally get to play. We worked on some swimming and safety practices, then went back into our apartment with more things from our car. We got our beds set up and prepared for the day ahead.

Wednesday, August 15
Law and pre-school orientation! We got up at 9:00am to get ready for the coming activities. I left for FCSL and Vanessa went off to look for pre-schools...

(More to come! Stay tuned for updates! - We don't have internet at the apartment yet and the fam is waiting for me to get home so we can do dinner.)