As of today, I am no officially allowed to rent a car and my insurance rates will drop. So there you, I'm 25!! That's the last big birthday before 30, right?

Who am I kidding, every birthday is huge for me!

Plans for tonight: dinner with my parents and just generally enjoying my new surroundings.

I'm loving life right now!

So we made it and seriously, with views like above, can you blame us?

Steve and I are no longer Pennsylvanians. Well, according to our driver's licenses and license plates, we are. But other than that, we're South Carolinians. And we're living together! And who would've thought that? But we're doing well and yes, it's the first few days but I think we'll be good.

We left Thursday night, late and it took us FOUR hours to get to Washington D.C., which is typically a TWO hour trip. The night we decide to travel in a caravan with my car, my parents car and the moving truck towing the Jeep behind it an accident happens closing ALL lanes of I-95 coming out of D.C. We tried to avoid it but ended up sitting in traffic on the side roads. I had been moving and packing and cleaning all day and I was close to tears by the time we got out of the traffic. I needed sleep but we had a deadline so we stopped outside of Richmond and slept for about four hours then got up before the sun came up and finished the drive the next morning. LONGEST. TRIP. EVER!

We saw the new place and got acclimated. Waited five hours for the cable to show up and he never did. They called and apologized and said they'd send someone out on Saturday. So we showered and ate and relaxed. And I was so exhausted and so sick and gross from sitting in the car that the shower I took had to be one of, if not the best, shower I've ever taken in my life.

Saturday morning we got up early and headed over to the place. We had the truck unpacked before 2pm or so but we also discovered that the air conditioning was broken. We made some phone calls and were told that someone would be out. No one ever showed so we called the realty company and they made some phone calls. We decided that we had sat around long enough so we went for a drive in the Jeep with top off and walked on the beach. Just to actually see the area after being in town for two days and being stuck in the apartment was fabulous! The realty company called us and said someone would be over to fix the A/C so we booked it back to the place and the guy was here for two hours before he finally got it right. In the interim, I find out that the house phone isn't working so at this point, I just want to sit down and give up.

Sunday was Easter but it was low key. We did some more exploring and just ignored the boxes. We went to dinner at my parents and that was nice because I realized that I missed having them around. We came home to find out that the A/C had broken again and that it was 80 degrees in the apartment. I email the realty company and spend the evening looking over the website for my new job.

And I started work today. Love it!! The office is gorgeous, the people are incredibly nice, the department is extremely high-tech and gadgety, the benefits are awesome (I don't pay for health insurance, woohoo!!). The job is ONE minute from work, less than half a mile and I came home to have lunch with Steve and to find out that the air conditioning had finally been fixed the way it should be.

I survivied my first day of work. The air conditioning was fixed. The cable was finally hooked up and the internet was cake to set up. There's a repair request out for the phone to work. And I can come home from work and go to the beach anytime I want.

Moving isn't easy. And up until we actually left, things were going to well. And I tell myself that if we can get through these little things, then there's nothing we can't handle. I just need to have the patience to wait it out and understand that there's a transition period and that things WILL get better.

I just can't believer we're here, together and creating such a wonderful life. One of the best things is waking up next to him every day.

Things are the best they've ever been!!

EDIT: MY BIRTHDAY IS ON SUNDAY!! 25 BABY!! (I've been so busy I almost forgot about it - almost!)

This may very well be the last post I make as a Pennsylvanian. Tomorrow is the day! Tomorrow, we pack our SEPARATE lives up into a 16" Budget truck and begin our JOINED life together in South Carolina. There's so many emotions going through me right now - excitement, fear, nervousness, all wrapped into one big ball of stress.

My apartment here is tiny. And it looks even tinier with boxes stacked as high as the ceiling, covering every available aspect of wall space that's not being taken up by the furniture. This puts me into my confused mode. I don't function well when things aren't so clear cut. When I started packing, I knew what things went together and what needed to be done. Now, amongst the chaos, my mind is having a hard time deciphering what's done and what still needs to be done. Add cleaning into that mix and well, as I told my mom, I need her here so there can be a fresh eye on the situation.

I haven't even looked in the storage unit yet. Thankfully, I have a decent idea of what's down there.

My last day at work was yesterday. It was bittersweet, to say the least. It started off feeling like any other day and even towards the end it didn't feel off. But I didn't pack my desk up until well after 5pm and truthfully, I didn't want to start doing it because that would mean I was leaving. For good. Leaving my first real, grown up job. Leaving my amazing boss. Leaving the relationships I had fostered over the past five years. And while I was excited to start my new life, it was hard letting go of the old one.

There's something to be said for stability and well, Pennsylvania has offered me that stability for the past eleven years of my life. As a Navy brat, you miss out on a lot of the things that envelop what we think of as a childhood - you don't have "lifetime" friends (you're lucky if you keep them longer than a year), you don't have familiar places, you don't even have memories of what places USED to be like before the Dairy Queen or the grocery store was there. You rarely have an extended family network around. You don't ever get enough time to establish yourself and your family in the community.

My dad got out of the Navy when I began high school so while I missed a lot of those things when I was young, I was kind of able to make up for them when I was bit older. Now I know back roads, now I know the best stores to shop at, the best restaurants to eat and the best bars. I have friends I've known since high school and still love and will miss terribly. I had a job where I made a good name for myself based on my performance and my professionalism.

This is not to say that I won't have that down there, not at all. It's just hard to leave that behind. Despite everything, despite all the excitement, it still takes awhile to realize that hey, things are different. And whether they're better or worse, it's the decision we made. And it still hasn't sunk in and truthfully, I don't think it will until we've been down there a month and I start thinking 'God, I've been on vacation a long time!'

But we'll have new opportunities. I got a very good job at a bank about the same size as the one I was working at. We got a GORGEOUS two bedroom, two bathroom condo that's about two minutes from the beach and four minutes to downtown. Steve has a few very positive job opportunities (in his line of work, most employers want to meet him face to face before hiring). Things are working out!

The times, they are-a changing ...

But we will definitely miss this place. We will miss our friends and our families. We will miss the food (don't tell me you can get a good cheese steak down South) and the cappucino (nothing compares to Wawa). I'll miss the Eagles. We'll miss the bars and the parties and the good times and everything else that made this place home (or, on my end, what I came to think of a home!)

And on the same note, we will be creating new memories. We'll make new friends that will join us (never replace our old ones). We'll find new places to hang out and to eat. We'll still be Eagles fans, we'll just have to check the score online. We'll be creating OUR life together in the place we want to be.

So wish us luck! We have a truck to pack and an apartment to empty. We have a twelve-hour drive to our new home and a bigger apartment to fill. We have new places to explore and new things to see. And we have a new life to build.

And I've never been so scared or so excited in my life!!

Our cable will be hooked up on Friday so hopefully, we'll have the Internet by then. Check in for updates. Until then, I signed up for Odeo and thought I could use that to update from the road. So check in for voice posts that will probably entail me screaming at some jerk motorist because no one will be in the car with me and I won't have anyone else to yell at!

Until then, to all of you people out there, wherever you are - remember: the light at the end of the tunnel may be you - goodnight.

The actual effort of moving and every little task it involved absolutely STINKS!

But as of next week, it will ALL be worth it! :-)