And so it begins...

Well, hello!!! My first blog post has arrived and well, I feel a little silly considering that most of you reading this have been getting my "morning update" emails and/or seeing my Facebook posts. So a lot of this will seem redundant.  But at this point, I'm not only blogging to keep friends and family back home updated on our life out here in the swamp land, but also to have a nice record of our journey here together.  I plan to be quite candid in many posts. Not all will be about annoying emotional stuff, some will be JUST fun! But this is also a diary of sorts. And we all know, I'm hardly a private person! So be prepared for some raw Kimmy-ness :)

When we decided to make this move last year, I knew it was going to be difficult for me. I have lived in New York, away from my family, but it was a different time of my life. It was that time, after high school, when you WANT to go off on your own. You want to go live your OWN experiences, independent of your family.  (Not that I wasn't still home nearly every month!) But now, at this stage in my life, I feel quite the opposite. Being away from home feels completely unnatural. Like the rug has been pulled out from under me. Like I'm on vacation only I know I'm not going back to reality in a week. This IS reality. This is my NEW reality. And I'm still very much wrapping my head around that. It's been made very clear to me in all of my years of struggles which led to many years of therapy, that in our family, us kids are probably a little TOO attached to home.  Don't get me wrong, I would SO much rather be in that predicament than the alternative.  But I think we have all struggled to find ourselves outside of our family "unit". Now that I'm, um, 26, I knew it was probably time that I begin to find myself. Figure out who I am as an individual, and figure out who I am with Bart.  I can't speak for Bart (by the way, don't expect any posts from him on this blog. He's a man of few words!), but I think for both of us this was a very scary decision, but a very necessary one.  Following Pat McGowan's death last year, everything changed. It was as though our world was turned upside down. And in the following months as more accidents happened, particularly Nick's, it became more clear than ever that we didn't know exactly where we wanted to be, but we knew we needed to be out of our current situation. The negativity surrounding that place became crippling. Somehow Florida got tossed around in conversation and being that climate wise, it's the closest we can get to California, and swooping wise, well, it's the best, we decided that sounded like a great idea! Fast forward to a year later and here we are!  Our road trip to Florida was definitely an adventure. We saw Hoover Dam which was INCREDIBLE. Took the dam tour and everything.  That was definitely a highlight of the trip. We also stopped in Denver to visit my cousin Courtney and it was so much fun to make dinner for them, talk skydiving (Courtney is ALSO a skydiver!), talk relationships, the future, etc. Thanks so much for having us Courtney and Jason! After we left Denver we made the LOOOONNNNGGGG drive through Kansas and Missouri (wow, that was ROUGH) and made it to Nashville! We only stayed for a night, but we had the pleasure of catching up with old friends! Jane and Craig Lackey and their son and daughter in law, Daniel and Erica. It was wonderful to catch up. I hadn't seen Jane and Craig in YEARS, and hadn't seen Daniel and Erica since they moved last year. So it was great to get to go to the bar where they work, have a few drinks, and see a bit of Nashville nightlife :) After we left Nashville we made the final stretch into Deland, where we arrived at 2am! We were happy to get here, but tired! And we only had 2 days at home before taking off on another 8 hour drive to Georgia for 5 days for a swoop comp. It was quite a couple of weeks!

It's definitely not been the easiest transition. It's only been a few weeks and we are being hit left and right with the struggles that come with uprooting your life (and two businesses) and shlepping it all across the country.  We've had some awesome times, aaaannnnddddd some not so awesome times.  But we're pulling together. And we're doing our best to remain supportive of one another and continue to have FUN!!! Plus, we've been working pretty hard on our warehouse trying to get that situation under control (blog post about that soon!).  It's been a fun project - and it's going to be SO nice when it's done! Operating the businesses out of a little room in Menifee was rough, but now operating out of a corner of the garage with limited inventory is REALLY rough! So I can't wait for our new space to be ready :)

Ok, ok. Enough talking. I promise not all blog posts will be this long, but I had to do some backtracking! I have some pictures from the last few weeks. Most of you have probably seen the majority of them. But again, I want them on "record" so I can make a nice blog book at the end of the year. :) So, enjoy, and keep positive thoughts and prayers headed our direction. We could definitely use it in our house hunting process!

Oh and by the way, these pictures are just from our road trip and the comp in Georgia. A big THANK YOU to Kristy for helping me figure out how to insert these pictures into the blog! And also, for helping keep me sane throughout this process by helping with the fulfillment part of our business. Thanks Kriuh, love you!!!!

Hoover Dam

In Green River, Utah

In Parachute, Colorado. 
How cool is that?!

 Some of the BEAUTIFUL scenery on our drive

Eatin' at Chile's....
somewhere in the United States

Cooking for Courtney and 

Jason in Denver :) 

Thanks for having us guys!

 Working on the road!

 Playing with Courtney and Jason's doggies!

Welcome to Florida!

 

Our Easter breakfast at iHop :)

Relaxing during a weather hold

 Bart and fellow swooper, 

Greg Windmiller

setting up the pond courses

Bart swooping the 

accuracy course!

We stayed with some friends 

in Georgia who have an

ADORABLE daughter. 

She seemed to 

like Bart :)