Which was the whole idea, of course!  We weren’t sure if the huge tractor-trailer was going to make it into the complex, but there is a back entrance and it worked out just fine.  They unloaded in less time than it took to load the truck, so it was quite nice for it to be done in under three hours.  Of course now we are surrounded by boxes; but we are able to find what we need by referring to our list.  What a time saver that has been!  The movers commented on how well packed the boxes were, and were a little surprised at how little furniture we brought with us.

Looking back I believe we’re both regretting the decision to not move our bed.  We chose to do this because the mattress was not comfortable anymore, and it made financial sense to buy new mattresses when we arrived.  The airbed was a practical solution.  However, the airbed did not hold up its end of the bargain, and it blew a hole Wednesday night; repeated efforts to fix it with duct tape only made the hole bigger.  So we’ve been sleeping on the floor for right now, as our expected expenses were much larger than we anticipated (details in blog post coming),  and we are unable to return the airbed as it was purchased in a store that exists only in the Midwest.  We were able to unearth Ben and Catie’s body pillows, in the hope that laying on them will prove to be a little more comfier than the floor. We both feel, however, that the temporary discomfort of sleeping on the floor is just a minor blip.  We love living in Florida; we have found most people to be very friendly and nice and willing to help out.

So today we’ve been slowly unpacking boxes and trying to make our apartment our home. Catie has done an awesome job with her room, though we’ve discovered that Brighthouse will need to come back, because the cable outlet in her room is not functional.   The kitchen, although small, has some very roomy cabinets, so we’re confident that everything will fit. We’re thankful there are recyclable dumpsters in the back, which allows us to easily dispose of our cardboard boxes and packing paper.  It seems a little “un-green” to not Freecycle them, but with the gated entrance it’s not a viable option.

We also drove around the city of Clermont to sightsee and locate the public library and the middle school.  It was too late in the afternoon to go to the library, but we will do that during the week to check it out.  We took what we thought were pictures of the area, but they ended up being videos instead, so we will go around again later and take pictures and post to the blog.

We discovered our local Winn-Dixie grocery store, and we were quite impressed by it. Winn-Dixie does have a saver card (the only one of the three main grocery stores to have one), and we probably will frequent this store quite a lot.  We were originally put off by Winn-Dixie because we had visited one in the Kissimmee area two years ago while on vacation and were not impressed.  The store in Clermont, however, is fairly nice and the prices are not unreasonable.

After dinner we took time to swim in the pool, which is so nice to be able to do that.  Ben is turning into a regular little fish, and I”m sure it will not be long before Catie is as well. Tomorrow morning we will visit a church that is one of our top choices, and are really looking forward to getting settled into a church close to home.