More Pictures

 

The Dining area.

The Living Room

 

 A Great Place to explore, about 20 minutes from our new place.

 

 

The Watchung Reservation is a nature preserve encompasses 2000 acres straddling portions of the 1st and 2nd Watchung Mountains to the south and west of the Milburn near Scotch Plains, New Jersey.  There is a small creek  running through the preserve and hiking trails and picnic areas.  We went here yesterday and ran with Banjo.  We may go back today and have a barbeque at the picnic area.  Somewhere in the area are diasaur prints.  Anyway~more later.  Thank you everyone for praying for us.  We have peace today, finally.  We are feeling a lot more refreshed and less stressed!

 

We have home!

Finally!  We have a home.  It is a little humble but leaves with a lot more breathing room in our finances than a bigger, fancier home.  Our new landlord is a very nice, widowed, Filipino man who choose us over another couple who offered to pay more because he "liked us."  I have spent the morning getting phone numbers from the internet to switch utilities to our name.  We probably will not have our things until later in the week as the moving company was closed for the weekend.  Now that we know where we will be we can look for a good church.

This area of New Jersey has little towns all over.  Each little town has a town center.  The little downtown areas are so cute. There is actually life there and not all the abandoned buildings you see in so many cities.  They have left the downtowns to spread out and make bigger mega marts.  Anyway we are excited to start exploring our little area.  The parks around here are also very nice and well kept. 

I am posting pictures for you to enjoy of our new little place.  I'll keep you posted as we fix up and make it our own.  (Fixing the nest!)  I'll also e-mail all of you to let you know our contact info.  (that may be next week after I get my own computer set up!)

FRONT

BACK

KITCHEN

MAIN BATHROOM

HALF BATH, LOWER FLOOR

 

FAMILY ROOM, LOWER FLOOR

Tired Out

 

We've driven by about 50 rental listings in 5 New Jersey counties and two in Stamford, Connecticut.  We've purchased 5 tanks of gas and drove around about 8 hours each day.  We've toured the inside a few of those many houses and last night thought we'd narrowed it down to one that was $200 above our housing allowance.  It is a beautifully remodeled home with 5+ bedrooms and 3+ full bedrooms, stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, wood floors new carpet, big yard with a pool and hot tub.  My manly man didn't have peace about it.  This morning I did another search on the internet and found one last one to drive by.  While on the phone with our realestate agent, she found out that one of the others we drove by would accept pets now we had two to drive by again. 

So anyway we think we found one to rent that is a lot more humble than the newly remodeled one.  We have an appointment this afternoon to work up a lease.  Most of the homeowners in this area hire realestate companies to publishes listings and take clients to view the properties.  Our agent has found us about 10 listings and given us a tour of one.  The fee for this service (for the realtor) is equal to one month rent. Then you pay 1 1/2 months security to the landlord.  A lot of money if the house your looking at is $2800 a month rent.  I have been very proactive at finding a house looking at about 15 listings a day and calling agents to get address for properties I've seen on the internet.  I feel like I need the commission!

I am posting the pictures of the remodeled house and the more humble one.  I didn't get pictures of the outside of the remodeled house.

HUMBLE HOUSE

Fanwood, NJ

Fanwood
Date Posted: 07/19/08

	Listing Information Property ID 2550371 Price $1,800 Bdrm(s) 4 Type Rental Baths 2 Amenities & Features Fireplace  GardenPatio No Pets  Listing Tools E-Mail to a Friend Send to Mobile NEW Print this listing Save this Listing		GREAT LOCATION, MOVED IN CONDITION, LOTS OF ROOMS, NICE SIZE YARD, HARDWOOD FLOORS, FINISHED BASEMENT,CENTRAL AIR

REMODELED HOUSE

 

 

 

AHH ....big sigh.

I gotta run, I'll try to post more later.

 

 

Finding a Home

I may be forced to be 'Jersey Girl', but my heart will be in Connecticut.  We drove the miles (not sure how many exactly) to Stamford today to drive by two listings for rent.  Oh my...again my words can not describe the beauty of the neighborhoods we passed through today.  I did take pictures but will have to post another time as the camera is not handy.  I think we decided that Stamford would be just too far away for manly man to drive to work if he must.  We spent about 6 hours on the road in what felt like Saturday rush hour traffic.  We saw a  fine example of road rage and all the driving mistakes folks were making on purpose. 

Pray for us as tomorrow we are meeting with an agent to start looking at rentals.  I have a list of about 30 (seriously!!)  That we are going to print up and then sort through and eliminate to get about 10 or so we really want to see.  We have been in this hotel only two days, seems like forever.  If your ever in the area, don't stay here, it is the pits!

I Forgot My Camera

 I spent a very busy day with my man.  We slept in and then decided I would go with him to where the bosses work to meet and greet and see about getting paperwork started.  I did not want to go as the heat here was going to be awful today. ( 98 degrees in Manhattan today.  I spotted one area that said 100 degrees on our way back to the hotel.)  But I went with him and had a wonderful time on a "date"  We drove over to Staten Island to take a ferry over to Manhattan.  We paid an $8.00 toll to go to the island and $7.00 to park by the ferry terminal.  The ferry was free.  After checking in with one of the new bosses, we walked about 1/2 mile or so to eat a place that was recommended to us.  We lunched at a small chinese restaurant across the street from where the world trade centers were.  The scenery was fantastic.  The tall buildings on either side, famous Wall street, Statue of Liberty, two lighthouses in the harbor.  I saw so many 'pictures' and realized on the ferry that I left the camera in the hotel room.

With house hunting news, one of the properties that I adored in pictures, does not take pets.  AHHH, big sigh...  We have address for two more in the Stamford, CT area.  We may drive up there tomorrow to pass by them, and have a picnic lunch.  I am going to call another agent tomorrow.  We did get groceries for the week and bypassed the papers.  I still need to get a paper. 

More Later~

Day 18

 

We are finally here.  We arrived to our hotel about 4:00 p.m. local time.  We drove about 400 miles today.  Not sure of the gas milage the last couple days.  Upon arrival we found the tempreture to be about 89 degrees.  We have already enjoyed a thunder storm in the last half an hour.  It is very humid here and the sky is overcast.  We keep looking for the skyline in the picture, but can't find it yet.

I think the plan for tomorrow is for my manly man to go and get some check in paperwork done.  He is missing his Toyota and wants to go get it.  (It has been here since last Friday.) ( I don't want him to park it where we are staying though.  It looks kinda seedy in this neighborhood.)  I want to drive up to Fort Lee to go to the commissary to get groceries for our temporary living quarters.  We'll ask a few questions and maybe get a couple papers for house hunting this weekend.

 

Books on Tape

Gotta love them, they are great.  We have "read" 6 books, so far, on this trip together.

Day 17

16 days on the road, maybe they are starting to feel the love for each other?  Shadow the cat and Banjo the dog enjoying the early morning sun in the confines of our van this morning.

 

This picture is the beautiful scenery of Wheeling, West Virginia.  Today we drove mainly through Indiana and Illinois.  Tomorrow most of the day will be the drive through Pennsylvania.  We'll be in New Jersey tomorrow night.  We are all excited to have the 5,000 mile trip over with.  We will still have lots of time spent in the car as we will start the house hunting search.  We may spend the weekend doing area familiarization and paper buying for rental listing in the classifieds.  My manly man will be checking in with his people to get the paperwork started for housing allowance and other things.

 We had dinner tonight at Cracker Barrel.  I love those restaurants.  I love the little stores they have and the curious items you find there.  For dinner I had country fried chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy, baked apples, turnip greens, corn bread muffin and ice tea.

Saw this little sign on the way to eat that we investigated on the way back to the hotel.  Some beautiful country roads led us to a couple little lakes stocked with geese, duck and fish.  We did see bluegill swimming around in there.  In this picture are the geese.

I'll try to make a quick post tomorrow evening to let you all know we arrived.  Thank you for praying for us this trip.  We have been abundantly blesssed with safety along the way.  I am thankful for all my prayer warriors who have been praying for us.  Keep it up as we search for my barbie doll house!

Day 16

 

 

No, I did not take these pictures.  We hardly stopped at all today.  We are getting past the point of enjoying the pretty scenery.  For a week we have been thinking about ways of shaving some days from our drive.  I worked on my travel plan yesterday and we are shaving about 2 1/2 hours off the drive on Thursday.  We'll arrive in New Jersey around 6 or 7 p.m. on Thursday instead of Friday.   Anyway... these barns and scenery represent what I have been looking at for the past few days.  I love farms and all the warm fuzzy feelings I get when I think about them.  I love thier smells, the gardens the acreage, the animals, the farmhouse, the outbuildings and all things associated with farms.

Tonight we have stopped in Terre Haute, Indiana.  We traveled over 300 miles today.  It is about 88 degrees and that temperature seemed to follow us all day.  Gas milage is about 23 miles to the gallon.  The cheapest we have seen gas was in Colorado and Missouri,  it was $3.89 a gallon at its lowest.  We stopped to eat at a truck stop for a late lunch and had a buffet.  I think tomorrow the plan is to drive as far as Wheeling, Ohio and press through Pennsylvania on Thursday, arriving in Woodbridge, New Jersey late Thursday evening.

 

Day 15

  Yesterday and today were day 14 and 15 of our trip.  We spent the time with my husbands sister and her family.  We went to Watkins Lake yesterday, had  a picnic and went swimming with all the children (8 including mine.)  We went to a neat restaurant this morning for breakfast.  I bought a souvenir tee shirt. (I'll take a picture tomorrow if it.)  This afternoon we drove to Sedalia, Missouri to visit with my husbands grandma and her husband.  She tells me she is 87, can it be?  She is still pretty sharp.  I enjoy being around her.  I wish we could spend more time with all the family.  It has been about 4 years since we have spent time with them all.  My children really love seeing their cousins.

"Great" Grandma and some of her great grandchildren

Grandma and grandchildren

Fellowship around the meal table.

Tomorrow will be day 16.  We are planning on driving about 310 miles, following interstate 70 East.  I think we will be in Terre Haute, Indianna tomorrow night.  Tonight we went for a quick swim before coming back to our room.  I'll also try to post s a picture of a farm.  They have some beautiful farms with rock barns or red barns and old farmhouses that I love.  They are especially pretty against the green of the pastures or fields of corn.  Ahhh!