Settling In

This week I find myself somewhere I never thought I'd be...living in Arkansas! After a 12 hour drive on Monday, we arrived at our new house in the dark (also it was cold and rainy) but the driveway was FULL of people who had come to help us move in and we were unloaded in about 35 minutes! It was amazing.
We have spent the week painting and unpacking. Our landlords agreed to let us pick the paint colors if we did the week ourselves, so we went for it. After 4 days of painting, we've got a blue bedroom, yellow hallways, a brown and orange "study", a seafoamy guest room, and a combination red/gold/yellow and diamond living room and kitchen! Looking back, I can't believe we got it all done so fast, but it feels so much more homey now. All we lack are the bathrooms, and we haven't decided how to do those yet. All that's left is yellow paint, and I'm afraid of a yellow bathroom!
Meanwhile, we've found and put away just about all of the essentials. We've yet to find our shower curtain and bathroom rugs, our pillow shams, and our silverware organizer, but they'll turn up eventually and probably in a weird place.
Amidst all the craziness we've had an overwhelmingly warm welcome from our new church family. They've brought food and snacks (even some appliances!), come by to check on us, and had us over. The teens decorated Rusty's office with posters and cards.
Today is Rusty's first "work thing". He's meeting with the youth staff and I'm going to tag along to meet everyone. Tonight one of the small groups has invited us to their Thanksgiving celebration, so we'll be going to that too. Tomorrow Pastor Mark is going to introduce us to the congregation. I'm really nervous to stand on the stage, but it must be done!
Overall, it's been a crazy but really good week, and I'm looking forward to what's ahead.