The New Doescher Residence

After a LOT of box unpacking, we've got very few boxes left--most of them in the art room, which has become the secondary storage for things we probably won't use. The dining room, family room, office and master bedroom have been painted yellow, yellow, light olive green and light grey-blue respectively. The towels my grandmother embroidered are awesome, and are the highlight of the master bathroom since they match. Here are a few pictures of what the house looks like now.

At one point, we decided to unpack our second comforter and try a new master bedroom arrangement. Unfortunately, the magnetic ink-exploder safety tag was still attached...through the zipper AND the comforter. We then remembered that we had beeped going through the doors at BB&B when we bought it, but the clerk waved us through because she saw us bag everything. So, we decided well....we've got to get it off SOMEhow. And me in all my wisdom tried a refrigerator magnet. Of course, that didn't work, so we tried to purposely explode the tag in the sink.

Yep...that didn't work either. We ended up cutting the bag open manually and tearing a little bit of the comforter. Luckily, it was only a few threads and it was on the underside! Here are the two variations of our master bedroom--the second one is the one we decided on.

Painting & Our First (Experimental) Meal

Before the movers came on 29 June, were painting the entire house. We had a great time fixing up the place--lots of sweat (and blood and tears? ;) Just kidding!). Here's Dave washing up the walls before we painted the master bedroom.

Dave and I decided to stay our first night in the house on Monday. Unfortunately, we didn't think it through, and by the time we checked out of the hotel we realized we had no bedding to sleep on. Thus, our makeshift mattress with dirty clothes and a mattress pad was born.

Our first official meal with our actual kitchen equipment was spaghetti, but we didn't get pictures of that. However, we DID get pictures of our first "fancy" meal attempted. We wanted to make roasted chicken with honey mustard glaze and garlic & olive oil vermicelli, but we made a couple crucial mistakes.

Mistake #1: We forgot to buy honey.

Mistake #2: We left the chicken in the freezer....and proceeded to put it in the frying pan frozen.

Mistake #3: We put too much water in the pot for the sauce to thicken for the vermicelli pasta.

Solution #1: Forget the glaze. Make a breaded crust for the chicken and fry in olive oil & orange juice squeezed fresh from our kitchen.

Solution #2: Bake the chicken.

Solution #3: Add a little flour to thicken the sauce and make a soup when that doesn't work, either!

It turned out to be a great meal anyway--fried orange chicken and American "ramen". ;)

Video Tour

I've discovered that the equivalent of Burger King in Florida is Whataburger. They are everywhere and sponsor EVERYTHING, including the local high school baseball team.

We decided to give everyone a taste of what the house REALLY looks like, so here's a video tour of our new house!

Our New House

So, after eighteen hours on the road, two family pit stops and innumerable potty breaks and gas fillups, Dave and I made it to Eglin AFB in the wonderfully oil-splashed panhandle of Florida. (No, we didn't actually see any oil, but you should check out the spill on Google Maps.)

Checkin: ran into Capt Plourde from my old detachment in Charlottesville--he was teaching at a PDT (Professional Development Training) course.

TLF (Temporary Lodging Facility): Tiny, but two bedrooms. What in the WORLD would I do with two bunkbeds? (Answer: put our suitcases on them.)

After two days in the TLF we got booted because the room was no longer available, but we shored up in the Days Inn at Fort Walton Beach across from a massive hotel that was being built across the street. My first day of inprocessing on Monday was a bunch of briefings and lectures, and was both exhausting and boring but my Captain, Kathy Williams, helped me get through the brunt of all the info with a few hints and explanations. I also got through some of my inprocessing checklist.

After looking & researching a LOT, by a total fluke we drove by a sign that had the militarybyowner.com designation on it. After looking at a few more absolutely terrible properties, we drove by this particular house again and decided to call. We found out that the landlord lived next door, he was prior Air Force and had JUST put up the sign that morning. He happened to own his own lawn service business so he drove back from one of his customers and showed us around the house. After a little more mulling and a couple more properties later, we decided that this was the house for us! We signed the lease today and started our electric and water, so we're definitely well on our way to having (well.....renting) our first house. We put the STUFF that we've been toting around in our cars into the house because it was much safer than in the heat & windowed vehicles, and started taking pictures of our new home!

the view from the front gate

the living room

the dining room

the (beautiful) kitchen

the master bedroom

(with the ceramic tile--notice the difference

between this and the rest of the house!)

the view out the front door, with my

darlin talking to my mom over the phone

The grass is a bit sparse because apparently the previous tenants absolutely TRASHED the place, but the landlord has fixed up a few things and he's putting in new grass & a sprinkler system. Hallelujah. :)

Tomorrow starts more inprocessing, so Dave will have to update you more!