The calm before the storm

So tomorrow is the big day. We finally get to walk for graduation. Krista and I have been working on our degrees for almost 5 years and the end is here. It's a sad time and an exciting time for us as we prepare to move. For the last week or so we have been preparing the house for the move ahead. We will be moving in two stages. The first stage is just the essentials and anything else we want to bring to our temporary apartment. We will be in temp housing for two months. Our apartment will be a fancy furnished 1 bedroom apartment in a complex called Atkins Circle. Our rent and all of our utilities (power, water, cable, and high-speed internet) are covered by Allvac (my new employer). As a result, we will not need to take much up with us the first time. We leave for the first move on Tuesday, May 6th.

Shortly after we get settled in we will be actively searching for a home to buy. We hope to find a place in time to set up a mid-to-late June closing date. If all goes according to plan, I will come back for a day or two in late June to meet the moving truck. At this point everything else that we left the first time will be moved. To prepare for these two moves, we have been cleaning and organizing and getting rid of stuff that seems to have accumulated everywhere. The most important thing, though, was to make preparations for the animals. As you may know, we have several. Unfortunately, we had to find new homes for all of our fish. So Jay took all of our Brichardis and Whitney took our male Damasoni (as well as a mystery baby that was still alive, at the time anyway). All of the rest of our fish we had to take back to the fish store. Today we transported the last fishtank to Whitney's place. Earlier in the week, I took the bird cage off the wall so that I could repair the hole in the wall that I cut so the birds can fly between the living room and the bedroom. All of our birds are now in the big aviary in the back room. I mention all this as a way to say that our house is so QUIET now! We walk out and there are no water sounds, no bird sounds, and with the living room now rearranged the house looks empty as well.

Tomorrow we get to graduate. We have fancy black robes with velvet on the chest and sleeves and a black mortar-board with a black tassel. During the ceremony we will have our hoods put on by our faculty escort. Our hoods are black with the inside lined with orange bearing a blue chevron inside. The trim on the hood will have a color that corresponds with our colleges (engineering and pharmacy).

After graduation we have our last church service at Christ Community before we move. I've kind of been dreading this event because we will have to say good-bye to a lot of very dear friends. We have a large church family that really cares for us throughout the week and when we move, we will have to form those connections again. Sunday will be a sad day. After church, we will have a day and a half left to clean and pack and load up the truck for our trip on Tuesday. We have a lot to do and very little time to do it. I will try to add a few more posts over the next couple of weeks, but we may be too busy to do much blogging. After we arrive in Charlotte on Tuesday we will have most of a week to get settled, find a house, find a doctor, and find the hospitals before I have to report to work the following Monday. I will keep you posted as much as I can. I also want to thank everyone that prayed for us and helped us through the last several years of grad school. It means a lot to us to have everyone there for us. Thanks so much.