After driving about 1,200 miles in a bumpy annoying-to-drive U-Haul truck, Dana and I have finally arrived here in Minnesota. Here’s the chain of events:

Sunday, February 11: It was our last church service at our old church. The youth group put a little desert reception together for us after church where we took plenty of pictures and said our final goodbyes. Dana and I then went out to lunch with some church friends, turned in our apartment keys and drove three hours to Oklahoma City where we spent the night at her grandparent’s house.

Monday, February 12: We hit the road around 9:30 AM and drove through heavy rain the entire 10 hours to De Moines. Unfortunately the U-Haul only got about 8 MPG, so we had to stop every 200 miles to fill up the thirsty tank.

Tuesday, February 13: A big snow storm came through while we spent the night at a hotel in De Moines and kinda messed up the city by morning time. Schools were closed and people were advised not to go out except for emergencies. Traveling the final leg of our trip to Minnesota wasn’t really an emergency, but we left anyway, choosing the risk of the road over the boredom of a hotel room. It was slow at first since the roads were cluttered with accidents and cars stranded in ditches, but once we drove a couple hours and got outside of Iowa the going was pretty smooth.

We arrived at our house at 3:30 PM and were greeted by about 15 youth group members and several adults who helped unload our stuff into the house. We set up the essentials, like the bed and bathroom, ate dinner at our neighbor’s house (who are also our landlords and youth group volunteers), and went to sleep.

Wednesday, February 14: Dana and I spent all morning unpacking, but then left in the afternoon to enjoy Valentines Day plans together. First we returned the U-Haul and then took a ride in a little private plane to check out the area from an aerial view. We took lots of pictures, including ones of our own house on the lake. After the plane ride, we went to a local resort where we checked into a very nice room, enjoyed a great dinner and soaked in a hot whirlpool. Unfortunately, we ended up with some loud neighbors and couldn’t sleep that night. After some complaints and then listening to our hotel neighbors try to get into our room through the adjoining door, Dana and I just packed up and went home at about 3:30 AM. Fortunately, the resort was very sympathetic, didn’t charge us for our stay and also offered to give us another free night.

Thursday, February 15: From here on out we’re just unpacking and settling into the area. So far we’ve made good progress. We’d like to be mostly finished by this Sunday, my first day at the church, so we’ll see how that works out.

Thanks again for all your prayers and encouragement while we were on the road making this transition!

P.S. I haven’t had time to go through my RSS reader for almost a month now, so I knew I’d be very far behind with many of the blogs and sites I read, but 1,442 new posts?! Whew, it’ll take a while to catch up on that.

More pictures of our move from TX to MN
More pictures of our Valentines Day plane ride and resort stay

A nice shot of me loading the U-Haul

Saying goodbye to our old church

Our U-Haul towing my car

Dana and me going out for a ride around town in MN

The indoor water park at the resort we stayed at for Valentines Day

1. And away we go!
2. House hunt in Minnesota: Mission complete!
3. Honeymoon pictures posted
4. Fun weekend in Minnesota
5. NYWC 2007 St. Louis: Back home again