We Made It!

Wow, where to begin? It has been a crazy few weeks, but we are alive and doing well! I am SO SO glad to be here and be done packing! Haha. Of course, we're busy unpacking, but I much prefer that to packing. So, we worked like mad to get everything ready to go, and somehow we got it all done! Note to self - don't let your husband work right up until the day you move. Bad idea! Yeah, so Jeremy's last day of work was July 20 and that evening we loaded up the truck. Many thanks go out to those of our friends who came to help! We could not have done it without them.

So we finished about 10 pm that night, went over to my Aunt & Uncle's house that night, and then left about 7:00 the next morning to fly to California for a quick reunion with my siblings and parents. We had a great time and it was soooo nice to just relax for a few days! (Pictures and post coming later). Then we flew back at 6 am Monday morning (eww) and went to my Aunt & Uncle's again. They were so wonderful to us and fed us and helped watch kids so we could take naps and go to the grocery store to get ready for our long trek!

The drive went better than anticipated (post coming later) and we made it! We thought we might die from the heat and humidity, especially since we don't have central ac (!!!) but our moving truck finally came about 4 hours after we arrived, we got everything in the house (thanks to a ton of people who showed up from our new ward!), and we got our window and portable ac units plugged in. We were all dripping from sweat, but after a cold shower and a couple hours of the ac units running, we cooled down! Luckily we have ceiling fans in every room, because boy is it hot and sticky.

We've come a long way in the unpacking and we're starting to get settled. The first few days we got SO lost going anywhere, even when we did have directions, but we're starting to get the hang of this crazy city. As our landlord said, Pittsburgh was laid out by a drunken Indian, so it's easy to get lost. Ha! :) Here are some of our first impressions after living here for a week and a half:

• It is extremely hilly - as in lots of hills (pictures to come later)
• There are a lot of one-way streets and no-left-turn streets (not annoying at all! haha)
• They are filming the new Batman near where church is so we need to plan accordingly
• Nobody shops at Costco - we went on a Friday and it was so quiet - much different from Utah! I felt like we were in the library and I kept telling Eli to be quiet because he was the only one making any noise. The Costco is also very different - there are huge Kosher sections (Pittsburgh has a very large Jewish community) and the milk jugs look really weird (see below)
• It is VERY green. One minute you're in the crowded city and the next you feel like you're in the jungle. Crazy! But very pretty.
• There are bridges everywhere! Eli loves it. Pretty much anywhere you go you have to cross at least one bridge. We cross 2 on the way to the school and it's only about a 5 minute drive. (*There are 446 bridges in Pittsburgh - more than in Venice!)
• Our neighbors are so super nice and pretty much all over 70. :) We live in a little neighborhood called Greenfield at the top of a hill and everyone who lives here has been here forever. They sit out on their porches and chat to each other and are very cute. It's fun and they love that we are here with young kids.
• Everyone is very friendly to little children because there aren't that many around! We always get comments at the store and wherever we go. Again, very different from Utah! Haha. But we love it.
• There are a ton of people in our ward who are students - Medical students, Dental students, PhD students, MBAs, etc. It makes it fun for us!
• Our stake is huge - covering parts of Ohio and West Virginia. (Glad our stake center is close!)
• Much of the city could use a good power washing. :) Pittsburgh used to be a big steel city. During World War II, it produced more steel than Germany and Japan combined. Our landlord said when he was a kid (during that time), he thought everyone woke up with layers of soot everywhere. The streetlights would come on at noon because it was so black with carbon in the air. Gross! It's cleaned up a lot since then, but you can definitely see the effects on all the old houses and buildings. Our landlord also owns the house next door and he's fixing it up right now and he just power-washed it and I could not believe the difference! What was once dark brown is now light tan. I told Jeremy - I think the whole city could really benefit from a good power washing!

Anyway, so there's lots more to tell, but I'll try and split it up so this isn't the longest post in history. Short version - we are enjoying it here, we're getting used to it, and everyone we've met has been really nice. Jeremy is really enjoying school already too. He hasn't started classes yet, but they have a 4 week "Base Camp" where they give an overview of the different aspects of business, help prepare them for everything and get to know the other students and faculty. He's enjoying easing into school since it's been awhile!

That's all for now, but thanks for checking on us! I'm going to try to post a lot in the next little while to get caught up.