06 July 2010

The Best Army Installation in the World !!

So I stole my title from the sign that greets you at one of the entrance gates at Ft. Benning. It exclaims that Ft. Benning is "The Best Army Installation in the World !!"; and yes, with two exclamation points and an inaccurate spacing job...but other than that minor grammatical error, I love it here! We've met some of our neighbors, all who are very nice, and we even made some friends last night! Hooray for friends!

Before I get into Ft. Benning life though I'll update you on the last fews days in Starkville. I managed to fill my last few days in beloved Starkville with all my favorite people at all my favorite places! I got to hang out a lot with the girls, my youth group, and Joey, Kate and the boys. Joseph and I managed to have a lot of fun on our last play date--the good news is, I've found him a reason to come visit-there's a very cute two year old girl who lives below us...maybe she can be his girlfriend :) ha!

The girls helped me visit all of my favorite places before I left town. On my last night, we headed to Bop's for ice cream, and that morning they saw me off after a delicious breakfast at City Bagel! I already miss them so much.


After breakfast with the girls last Thursday, I packed up the rest of the Starkville house and headed home! Here's a picture of the empty living room--it feels weird to know that we'll never go back to this house! The boys lived in it for 3 years before Brian and I got married and it's strange to think it won't always be there for us to come crash in!



The Starkville house--one last time!


My dad and Mr. Page both were in packing industries at one time; Dad worked for U-haul back in his younger days and Mr. Page put in 20 years in the freight industry. Needless to say, I just hauled the boxes...they packed them.

Our living room in Madison-an aerial view. We had furniture/boxes going into the dining room and they were stacked taller than me! No picture can really do it justice!



Packing away! The Pages came over Friday to help us pack up the U-Haul. Thank goodness for parents!




Some how I managed to not take any pictures of us unloading the truck. Probably because it was done in record time! Mom, Dad, Emily, Mr. Page, Mrs. Page, Brian Sells, and two MSU ROTC cadets who are at Ft. Benning in Airborne school came to help unload, so we pretty much had the massive U-haul empty in about an hour! It was awesome. Mom and Mrs. Cindy set up most of the kitchen and dining room while Emily and I worked on the bedrooms/bathrooms/linen closet. By the close of Saturday night, our house was functional!
Here's me and Em on our front porch-306 D!



Brian and I out front of our 1/4 of the building. I think the housing office at Benning must've read my mind...I've been in love with these houses/apartments ever since I saw them at Brian's Airborne graduation back in 2007. They're called the "White Elephants", and are white stucco with Mexican tile roofs. Hello, I fell in love at first sight! I can't believe we actually live here!


This is us--go in the bottom right door, up the stairs, and we inhabit the upper right hand side of the building! Three other families live in this building with us.






The whole 306 building. It's impossible to get into one picture--it's huge!



My neighborhood! We have this fun little half-circle in front of our house where we can park our cars.



There are also tons of tall trees and the landscaping here is also pretty good! There's some sparse-looking areas around, but for the most part the residential areas are full of old trees and crepe myrtles! The weather has been great here too--it's hot (90's and up) but the humidity has been about 0%...praying that sticks around! Another thing I love is that while we're now in Eastern time (still trying to get used to that...), we get sunlight for longer during the day! For example, it's 8:32 PM and we've still got almost an hour of sunlight left! It's awesome. You should visit. :)


Now I can't take you inside yet...still have a lot of cleaning left to do! I have about 3 boxes left to unpack and then I'm off to Swiffering and sweeping the floors! I should have another post up soon about the interior of the house--Brian has some really long days ahead so I'll be looking for something to do! He left this morning around 4 AM and just got back around 7 PM...looong day. But he says it was a good one and not too much happened!
One last note that doesn't really pertain to me...Clay got a dog. A super, duper, duper cute dog that I already miss and that needs to see Aunt Becca as soon as possible. His name is Eli, and he's half lab, half Rottweiler. And he's precious. Blue eyes, all black coat. I think I need one. And as it turns out, the weight limit on dogs for on-post is 100 lbs! That is super great news, considering I love big dogs! But that won't be happening for some time, so meanwhile, enjoy Clay's bundle of cuteness.



Miss you all already--it's weird having to figure out a new town again, but it's been fun so far! If you're bored during the day, feel free to call! I have my first official Army social gathering tomorrow morning--"Newcomers Orientation". Should be exciting. We're pretty sure they're putting us on a bus and giving us a driving tour. A herald back to RoadRunner days...I'll let you know how it goes!

3 comments:

S. said...

I'm so happy for you guys! I'm glad it's all coming together :-)

Krystina said...

This is so exciting! The house is SO cute bec!!

thedailyrika said...

Hi! I know that this is totally random.. Ive been looking for pictures online of the on post housing in Benning, and I came up with your blog - it has been by far the most informative out of all the sites Ive read and seen. thanks for posting pics of your home in Benning. MY DF just got Battalion Command and we will be moving to Benning next year. Ive never been in the area, and was looking at how the houses look like inside... If you dont mind - if there is anything you could tell me about the area - it would be a lot of help! Im getting excited as how its a new environment and it seems like the surrounding is pretty great! Thanks again and any info would be very very very much appreciated!

Rika