Settled in Upstate South Carolina

Wow, this past month has gone by in a blur of excitement and adventure! I don't know where to begin. I suppose I will just give a "brief" overview of what happened since we moved down here and give you some pictures of our place as well...

Week One:
*We moved down here and stayed in an extended-stay hotel. Paul had his interview in Columbia for an online teaching job (the DREAM JOB!). After that, the plan was to find an RV and RV campground to live in for at least a year. However, after visiting RV campground after RV campground, we quickly became depressed and stressed. You see, I assumed RV campgrounds were like normal campgrounds but with permanent RV's in them. However, every place we visited was so cramped that I knew I could never live in them. Some were so cramped that you could open a window of one RV and very very easily touch the neighboring one. There was no yards, barely even places to park vehicles, and it just was not what we wanted. We didn't know what to do anymore. I got to the point where all I wanted to do was break down and cry and run back to our old lives.

*However, God rocks! He really does. Here's what happened: we couldn't take it anymore and had no clue what to do. We decided to look on craigslist 'one more time' and found a new posting of a RV for sale in a RV campground that we hadn't seen before (and you can't find it on google maps!). We went to see it and fell IN LOVE with the campground. There is grass! There are yards! There is decent space between trailers! It was surrounded by mountains and Lake Keowee! However, the RV camper itself was not really what we wanted: it did not have a slide-out, so it felt extremely cozy. They took out the mattress, so we would have to buy one right away in order to live in it. The porch was nice, but not enclosed, so we wouldn't have extra room. Some things were falling apart and needed to be fixed. It was still a bit pricey. We left the place feeling confused: should we live in the RV and deal with its' shortcomings because of the location? We went to Subway for lunch in the area to talk it over. We prayed about it together while eating our not-very-delicious-subs, and decided to go back and talk to the campground owners to learn more about the location. If the campground owners were nice and helpful, maybe we would deal with an uncomfortable RV trailer. So we went back and went right to the office. Anyone who knows me and Paul already knows that this was completely out of our comfort zone. We aren't good talking to strangers. We went to the office and buzzed for entrance. No answer. Paul buzzed again. No answer. We looked at each other and really wanted to get out of there, we were so uncomfortably awkward. "Should I try again?" Paul asked me nervously. "Yes, one more time." I said with just as much nervousness. He buzzed again. This time, the owner-lady answered! Huzzah! We went in and told her about the place we were interested in and how we wanted to know more about the campground. She immediately informed us about a NEW place for sale in the campground: it was bigger, it had a slide-out, it had an enclosed porch, and it was CHEAPER than the place we were looking at before! My jaw actually dropped like on cartoons. Seriously, it was like God was guiding us to this exact point and everything was just coming together. We looked the place over and fell in love! We started the contract and buying proceedings and started the drive back to our hotel with happy hearts. Just when we thought that things couldn't get better: the phone rang and Paul pulled over off the road to answer. It was soon evident from the look on Paul's face and the questions he was answering that HE GOT THE ONLINE TEACHING JOB! It was seriously the best day ever. We found a place to live and Paul got a job in one day. Like I said before: God rocks!

Our trailer/home (notice the grassy lawn!)

Week Two:
*Paul's parents visited
*We experienced some heartache when a loved one passed away
*We went swimming in Lake Hartwell, Lake Jocassee, and Lake Keowee
*We saw many waterfalls
*We tried to settle in and move a house's amount of belongings into a trailer

Week Three:

Another view of our new home! 

*Paul studied his brains out for his Master's test. If he passed, he got a Master's degree in mathematics. If he did not, he would have to try again (not good)
*Paul took his test
*Paul PASSED his test!
*I organized things and cleaned things and applied to jobs

Week Four:
*Misc. stuff to make our trailer a home
*Officially moved everything out of storage and squeezed it all into every available nook and cranny at our trailer

Where we plan to eat our dinners

*Lots of hikes! Lots of waterfalls! Lots of fishing! Lots of swimming!

Week Five:
*Rick and Kyle came to visit: lots of hikes, waterfalls, fishing, and swimming!

Our enclosed porch (a bit messy still)

The inside: our living room and kitchen

Paul made this counter so I have more kitchen space.

We fit our TV in here! 

An extra bedroom serves as Paul's office

Our cozy bedroom

So here we are now, finally settled down a bit and we have time (and internet access finally!) to post pictures of our place. I promise to take more pictures of the yards and landscape and area and post them at some point. Also, God willing, there will be a fun post soon about some exciting news!