new house, for now

In the last post I imagined I'd write again once we knew where we were moving. That didn't happen. We are moved.
John received his wings on September 13, and we were completely unpacked in the new house by October 12. In between there we packed up our Florida house, moved ourselves 29 hours, found a house to live in, and unloaded the moving truck. Our plan had always been to have the military move us this time around (we have way too much stuff). But that didn't work out and we had another successful do-it-yourself move (minus a break-in ... our moving truck had some visitors one night who needed a microwave, toaster oven, air mattress, drill, motorcycle helmet, and dog bowls).
We are almost entirely settled at the new place now. We have a few more frames to hang, but we can happily call it home (for now). "It" is Camp Pendleton (located in Oceanside, California). The base is huge (even has horse stables!) and the weather is gorgeous (we had our first beach visit this weekend).
Our house is exactly what we needed. We prayed for a house on base with a fenced in yard and that is exactly what we were blessed with. It was the only available house on base when we came looking and it has everything we were looking for (a big yard for Belleau, a two-car garage, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, "wood" floors).
What I love about it: everything listed above + the three huge sliding doors to the backyard, the playground out back, the closet space, the neighbors (three different sets stopped by the weekend we moved in, and two of those three brought cookies!), the gas stove/oven, the water pressure.

livingroom/kitchen/dining room/extra space

Mankato's room

our bathroom/bedroom + John and Bells

backyard aka Bellea's domain

messy office/soon-to-be guest room

Sadly, we will only be in this house for six(-ish) months. John is learning to fly the Huey here (one more school...) and then we will be (happily) stationed in North Carolina. Hopefully I will update before we are out of this house and into another. I can truthfully blame my lack of updates on my very busy 10 month old. He's a blast. A busy blast.

In the midst of getting settled, we went "home" to the midwest for 10 days to celebrate my baby brother getting married. As always, it was great being home. And even better to welcome Jamie to the Vandament clan!