Stars Hollow

Today, I had a revelation. I live in Stars Hollow. I was in the post office and slowly realized that the postal worker lady knew the name of everyone who walked through the door. She knew all the right small talk questions to ask..."How's your daughter? When are you going to Maine?" And the customers knew her as well. She was excited to tell about her new car since the guy she was talking to had worked on her old one. Fascinating. I mean, it's not that living in a small town is unheard of, I just didn't realize that I was moving to one. With it's town hall, quaint homes, and beautiful horse farms, small town New England is quite charming.

Now if I could only find the town troubadour...

If you have no idea where Stars Hollow is, tune into the WB (or the CW in late Sept.) on Tuesdays at 8.

New website!

http://justinlewis78.googlepages.com/

It's free and simple, so of course I would spend a whole day making a site for us.

Where in the world are we?

Yep, that's it. That tiny red spot is Essex County, Mass. It's our new little corner of the world. We're slowly learning the roads, landmarks, and neighboring towns. It's going to take awhile considering the roads aren't adequately marked sometimes and they all have five different names. But we'll get there. Justin's looking at our newly purchased North Shore map as I type. Can't wait for y'all to visit so we can show you around.
(Check out our Flickr photo page - for pics of our trip into the city with Kevin and Haley, our gracious helpers)

GPS & Cell Phones

Things are progressing well. Most of the boxes are gone. The rooms are in place. The dogs are resting comfortably in their bed. It’s quite a lovely sight. And thanks to an amazing offer from Holly’s dad, we have successfully been able to navigate the roads around the North Shore. Friends, GPS is amazing. We have even nicknamed it “Maggie” because it is a Magellan RoadMate. Get it? Maggie…Magellan. Maggie’s sweet little voice tells us to go right…then left. All with a smile on her face.

On related note, we have new cell phones. (They even have GPS on them.) Unfortunately, we cannot get signals most places in the apartment. Awesome. We’d love to put the new numbers here, but due to the psycho-blog-stalkers, we’re not doing that. Use the email contact on the right to reach us and we’ll let you know our new numbers. (That’s your right, my left.)

Welcome to Massachusetts

Well, after many hours on the road, a few stops at Wendy's, and lots of wishing we could only go faster, we have arrived. We've been able to set up the apartment enough to wind our way around half-empty boxes to find our computer and get the updates out to our beloved family and friends. I will update more later, but for now, a video for your viewing pleasure...

9 hours til we hit the road

It's 2 AM. We're very tired...and a bit overwhelmed at the grace (more like mercy) from our beloved friends who stayed with us from 8:30 until 1:00 helping us load the truck. We cannot thank you guys enough. You're amazing!

Overall it was a rough day that started with my lost license and two-hour visit to the DMV. (Bless their hearts!) We also spent some brief time with our family in Archdale. Sad goodbyes, but we're grateful for their love and support. I can truly say that our family has been pretty great about this. Now, if we can just convince them to take a trip up north...

And now, Holly and I are going to collapse for a "nap". We have breakfast with Greg and Emily and some more folks to say goodbye to. Good-bye Winston-Salem. Thank you for 5 great years and for being our first home together. See you in December!

Next post should be from Hamilton, Massachusetts!!!!

Five years...and two days

Today, ladies and gentlemen, is our fifth wedding anniversary. Can you believe it? I must say, it's been five years of wedded bliss. :-) Seriously, we've learned so much about ourselves and each other through our marriage. God has truly blessed our lives with family, friends, church, workplaces, and a community that are irreplaceable.

In honor of our fifth, we will "giving" each other the traditional gift of wood (in the form of our wood furniture that we'll be loading onto the Budget truck) and the modern gift of silverware (found in the Oneida Juilliard pattern that we so love and use daily). Ha - actually, no gifts except the gift of love. It's okay, you can say it, "Awwww."

And yes, two days until we're on the road beginning the Lewises to Boston tour. We've reserved the truck, purchased the plane tickets (for our helpers, Kevin and Haley), and arranged the packing time. The countdown is on. Be praying.

3 Days until the move

The truck is rented. Boxes are being packed. Storage building has been sifted through. Three days remain.

We'll pack the truck Friday night at 7:30 pm and leave from the Greenes on Saturday morning. All are welcome to come to the sending.

The New Drakes

After four days of sunny Orlando, we are now back in Winston-Salem. We will tell you that Elliott and Lindsay's wedding was absolutely the best wedding we've attended, much less participated in (except, of course, our own). Not to offend any of you who might be reading this and are thinking, "Hey, what about my wedding?"

The pre-wedding events, ceremony, and reception were each amazing and fun. We enjoyed getting to know E and L's family members and friends. We also had one last party with our W-S friends who were able to attend. While the social aspect was great, the wedding was absolutely stunning. We worshiped God wholeheartedly for what He has done in Elliott & Lindsay's lives.

Thank you E & L for sharing such a special moment with us.

P.S. Sorry for the picture fuzziness. I (Holly) am really not that horrible at picture taking. I was trying to be polite and not use the flash which makes our camera do funny things.