List

Top Things we Learned About Georgia after Moving Here

1. There is no such thing as a delicious block of cheese, everything is cheese sauce. You can buy an over priced not tasty small block of cheese in some grocery stores. So have the Tillamook ready when we come home!

2. The Jetta leaks in the heavy rain storms here. Austin removed all the seats and removed the carpet to let it dry. We had a thunderstorm last night and the metal floor is wet again. We will have to figure out where it is coming from. It could handle day in day out rain in Oregon, but apparently the rain here is more advanced at getting into cars.

3. Coffee has not taken over the people here, they are still drug less happy people. There are 2 cafes in town that serve lattes etc but they are both closed on Sunday. There is actually no where in town to get a mocha or latte on Sunday's. Brock perhaps you should move here and start the addiction.

4. It feels really good to take an evening walk in December in shorts and a t-shirt.

5. They have cherry taffy and pecan candies, Cherry taffy is DELICIOUS so is the pecan candy.

6. We have not once gone out to a restaurant and had the check come, then give our card to pay. The people are fairly slow paced so we end up handing our card to the waiter and asking them to run the bill. Odd.

7. People really do like fried Chicken, it is the coffee of the South.

8. Sweet tea is good, and slightly addictive.

9. If you went to the DMV to get a driver's license you would be incorrect. You have to go to the county DMV to get your car tags, but go to the DDS (department of driver services) to get a license, don't ask how we know.

10. Watching military jets practice doesn't get old.

We're Back

A lot has happened since we last wrote and I don't intend to update you on everything. The summary is that we moved into our house, unpacked and went to a few holiday parties with people from the mill and from Austin's work. In mid-December the weather cooled off. It has been pants weather for a couple weeks, but nothing freezing yet. We also had our first rain storm, it rained 6 inches in one night. I wish it would have been during the day so I could have seen more of it, but it was nice to listen to while sleeping.

As of today I am officially a Georgia resident with a license to drive. Tomorrow I'll work on getting "my application made" to have garbage service for next year and registering the vehicles at the county office.

By request here is a picture of the house, if you open it you can see the pathetic attempt at Christmas decorations, some red lights a wreath and the tree in the window.

So after waiting 3 weeks to get our address in the system to set up an appointment, the comcast guy came out last week and hooked up our cable Internet and TV. Notice the attractive orange cable running across our front lawn and driveway? We are not happy with comcast, we also didn't get the service we were told we would.

We do not have a fence up yet so even though we have a nice big yard Bo has to look at it from inside day after day. Poor puppy. Here is a shot of Austin and him out for a walk.

Merry Christmas! Here is the family in front of the tree. I turned off the flash to see if the lights would show up better. It didn't work out and I forgot to turn it back on so the pictures are all a little yellow and blurry.

Rajah showing off her new PINK collar given to her by Austin, not me.

Me getting ready for the traditional Mangini family Christmas Eve dinner of Hoagie sandwiches, fruit and veggies.

Enjoying our Christmas Eve dinner while doing a Christmas puzzle and watching a Christmas movie.

Rajah's candy cane made of pipe cleaners, she gets pipe cleaners every year and she is always so pleased.

Dr. Pepper candy, Dr. Pepper in a wine glass, mmmm Dr. Pepper.

Christmas morning stocking on the fire place.

Austin enjoying his stocking candy.

We spent Christmas day at our friend's house. They have a 3 and 5 year old girls, it was fun to watch them open presents. There was a lot of traditional relaxing, puzzle completion, game playing, etc. We had a Mexican Christmas supper ("Dinner" in the South is served between the hours of 11 am and 1 pm; "Supper" is served between 5 pm and 8 pm). Hens, enchiladas, Spanish rice and flan. It was delicious.

We took an evening walk on a path around a local lake so the girls could try out their new scooters Santa brought. Notice the slippers I am wearing, I love it! (they are slippers not flip flops!!!) Eric you will appreciate Austin sporting the puffy, it was not cold enough, but he felt it was needed on Christmas day.

I got Austin a GPS system for Christmas. Austin has never been the best at knowing his way around, especially in the new area. Also, it is very helpful for finding local stores restaurants, etc. He was VERY excited when he opened it and had to test it out on the 2.3 mile drive to our friends house.

Back to the Old times

We are packing up the last few things in the apartment, Rajah and some food out of the fridge today so we will not be back. The house does not have internet or TV and won't for a week or two. Apparently they have to first go through a process to get our address into their system and at that point we can call to get an appointment for someone to come out and hook us up. Luckily we have a lot of Christmas movies to watch to get us in the mood of Christmas time so aside from the college football games it is a good time to be without TV.
We'll post again when we have internet hooked up at the house. In the mean time our work e-mail or cell phones is the best way to reach us.