Unpacking!!

How blessed am I.  I get to see this from my porch every day!

Our things arrived yesterday and we are in the process of unpacking still.  We managed quite well without our things, but it is really nice to be able to start getting everything situated.  It definitely helps to make the house feel more like home and less like a condo we're visiting for vacation.  It also gives a sense of security knowing our year's worth of toilet paper is here where we can use it and not sitting in the trailer in Homer.  While unpacking is time consuming it's relatively easy.  Getting our stuff here, however, was much more difficult than I imagined.  Not only does the barge have to work around wind, it also has to plan departure and arrival around the tide.  Boats cannot enter or exit the lagoon during low tide, so Mike had to leave at 5:00 in the morning when the tide was highest.  Since they didn't want to waste time waiting for high tide to return, we had to scramble to get our things off the beach while the water level rose steadily.  You really can stand and watch the water level rise in front of you when the tide is rising.  This meant we loaded everything up on the beach and dumped it on higher ground, then loaded it again to bring to the house.  We accomplished that task, but probably would not have without the help of our principal and his wife.  They have been so good to us since we got here and we are so very thankful.

The weather controls life much differently here than back home.  Back home it interferes mostly with the optional activities like going to the river or Six Flags, but the necessary in life continues regardless (unless of course you're trying the get your hay in).  We may grumble about it, but we continue with our to-do list nonetheless.  Here weather controls the necessary.  Someone compared the tide tables book (has the schedule for high and low tides) to the Bible with good reason.  The tides control much of life here and the winds also control as much.  If winds are above 10 or 12 miles an hour, the waves on the ocean are too rough for the barge and if they hit 30 miles an hour, the planes stop.  This could be more than a little inconvenient since they are the main source of transportation and supplies.  Being the control nut that I am, this will take some getting used to.  While I have said I am giving up on planning, I still have a tendency to get an attack plan in order then execute my schedule rigidly.  I suppose this is still a part of God's lesson on handing over control of my life to Him.  I seriously thought packing up and moving 4,000 miles away would gain me enough points to pass that test, but I guess not.

Mike also got to see his first black bear this morning so we're super excited.  I'm anxious to get a picture of one - from a good comfortable distance of course.  We wouldn't want to waste a perfectly good zoom lens by not using it.