The Bennett Family

Joey started work on 21 July. When he first reported, they had him go to the Visitors' Center. There he got his temporary ID card (after waiting in an insanely long line for 0730 on a Monday) and met with his mentor, a nice man by the name of Jacob. (I think the mentors are there to help them learn the ropes and find a place to stay locally, or at least things like that.) From there, he was able to go enjoy orientation, where he didn't learn much that was new.

That same day, he went and got the ultimate phone package. Seriously, the package seems to have every accessory imaginable, except that the phone isn't a camera phone (because camera phones aren't allowed on the base). He spent the rest of the day playing with the phone.

The rest of the first week was fairly mundane; Joey got the pleasure of filling out his 10 year background check for his security clearance several times, because apparently it is impossible to be careful enough when filling out that form (I understand completely; I've filled one out before). Other than that, he spent the week with no computer and no email because he was waiting for access to those things so he could actually do his job. Good thing that week was the week with Friday off!

This week has been a lot better. Joey has been able to get his CAC (or Common Access Card) to be allowed to use the base computers, as well as an email account. He's been able to sign up for employee benefits and start asking questions about different areas of work on the base. As an ESDP (or a person in the Engineers and Scientists Development Program), he gets to do tours (or rotations) in different work areas of his choosing to find the best fit. He's almost got his first tour set up; he's got a meeting for that tomorrow. Other than that, he's met people in a lot of different areas on the base, many of whom are LDS. There are four wards in Ridgecrest, and he's met quite a few people from each of them (except the third ward).

Overall, he enjoys his job so far and is looking forward to being able to get more into his work soon.

The last few days have been a little rough, but not because of anything Lorelei's done. Yesterday, we got the joy of another 2 inch sun spider. Joey says this one decided to come right up to our front door to die. All this paranoia has made me wonder... why am I so afraid of spiders? It's driving me crazy to think of all the places that they could be hiding, basically ready to pounce. Joey admitting to seeing one yesterday makes the second one in less than two weeks. Marilyn says that at least they aren't more common than that (for which I am grateful), but I was trying to think that the one we saw earlier was just a fluke. Apparently not.

The other difficult thing has been sorting through Lorelei's clothes. When the movers packed everything, they put all of Lorelei's carefully sorted clothes into a couple of boxes, and managed to unsort them all in the process. That coupled with the fact that we now have a lot less storage space has made for an interesting time setting up her room. Her clothes are definitely the worst of it, so we'll be done relatively soon, but that means seeing some of the really cute outfits she's outgrown. I keep thinking that I would have enjoyed seeing her in certain outfits just one more time and remembering all the fun times we've had with some of those clothes. It's making it really hard to get her room done, which makes me especially glad that she needed a nap so Mommy got a break.

At least we've got plenty of cute outfits that we can use to make new memories... and in a week and a half, when another sun spider is due for a visit, I'll be in Reno.

This last week was mostly full of adjusting to the major changes in our lives. With Joey at work, I finally got to actually be a stay-at-home mom; until then, it really just felt like being on vacation. It's amazing to me how different it is, even though I knew it would be different. I suppose the biggest difficultly I'm having is not knowing how to really use the extra time to my advantage because I'm used to being so busy that the necessary things can't be put off; that is definitely not the case right now. So I think I need to get myself in gear and get a little bit more done around the house. This will be especially nice because Joey and I have agreed to buy paint as soon as the rest of the house is in order, so I need to get moving! (I think most people can tell I'm the one who really wants to paint.)

Lorelei is doing well. She's currently playing in the Exersaucer that my friend Meg bought us. She loves being able to stand up and chew on things, because as we all know, chewing on things is the highlight of life, right? She enjoys it for quite awhile as long as she can still interact with Mom every so often. We're thinking she might be getting to that age where Mom is the favorite person and possibly into separation anxiety. She still seems to do pretty well when she's alone with Joey though.

As soon as I find all the cables I need, I've got a camera full of pictures to upload. Another reason to get moving, I guess.

Our house is finally actually our house! It feels so weird to think that I own the place in which I live. I had a hard time even realizing what it meant when our agent called to tell me. Joey had the same reaction; all he could say was "Cool." We're both pretty ecstatic about that (and about not having to deal with realty issues anymore).

In other news, my grade for my last college class posted tonight. Surprise, surprise, it was an A! So it turns out that I earned perfect grades in my last two classes, both of which I was dreading. College is really over! My degree should post to the system soon, and then the university should be sending it in the mail sometime in September (summer school technically ends in August, and the degrees mail a month after that).

Congrats to us! This is a day that we can really celebrate.

We have now spent our first week in Ridgecrest, and what a fun time it has been. We spent the first few days indoor camping while we waited for our things to show up. We went to our new church ward and were very well welcomed there. Monday night we had dinner with a couple from the ward; afterward, the Relief Society president visited us at home. Tuesday, the truck with our things finally came. The bishopric also visited us, which was fun.

On Wednesday, Marilyn drove my car down and Steve followed Thursday. They were able to help out quite a bit as we worked on the big task of setting up our home. We also signed the paperwork for the house on Wednesday. Things should be official today, but we'll have to wait and see.

We're writing a blog here.... testing, 1, 2, 3... can anybody hear me? This is a test of the blog feature. It seems to be working, at the very least, better than pictures. Sometime soon I'll have to try to add a picture on here, but since I can't download pictures from Photobucket, I'll have to see what else I can do.