The Move to Emerald Isle

When we got back to North Carolina, after our Arizona/Utah adventure, we had two weeks to pack up our entire house (that we had just moved into a year earlier) and move. We were renting that house and the owner decided to sell it. We asked them if they would be willing to let us sign a two year lease, so they'd be guaranteed to have renters, but they never even gave us an answer. So our choices were to stay in that house month-to-month and have to show it to prospective buyers (no one ever came to look at it!) and then have to scramble to find a house if it sold, OR we could just go ahead and move. We decided that we would move to the beach. We went to dinner with one of the doctors from Richard's work who lives on Emerald Isle. After talking to him and another resident who lives here, we decided it would be a great place to live. It takes Richard about 40 minutes to drive to work on base, but he spent the same amount of time getting to work from our old house in Jacksonville, it was just 40 minutes of traffic.

We found a house to rent here that is a five minute walk from the beach. The island is long and skinny, so there's not a whole lot to it. There are little shops and restaurants and in the summer, LOTS of tourists. Most of the houses around us are vacation rentals, so I think we only have one actual neighbor on our street.

Our actual move was a nightmare! Since it wasn't a PCS, the military did not move us this time. We decided to pack the house up ourselves and hire a moving company to load and unload everything. The guy who came out to do the estimate was really nice and I felt like we made a good choice. Boy were we wrong! First, they showed up with the tiniest moving truck I've ever seen. They started loading stuff in it and said they were waiting for another truck to get here that was coming from Buffalo (!). The two guys that came first were actually really nice and fast workers. They promised they'd be done and out of there at 1:00, since I had scheduled the carpet cleaners to come at 2. We had to be out of the house that day by 5, or our property managers were going to charge us an extra $200 to keep the house over the 4th of July weekend, since they wouldn't be in the office to take the keys. The truck from Buffalo finally showed up, so now there were 4 workers. I was hopeful that they'd be done on schedule. Around 11:30, Richard went to pick up pizzas for them and that's pretty much when the work came to a grinding halt. They sat around while he went to get lunch, then ate, then smoked for another hour. The two original workers mysteriously disappeared after they ate, so we were left with the two guys who had unloaded someone's stuff in Buffalo, drove all night, and were now dead tired. The work went slooooow after that. The carpet cleaner came and said he couldn't do the carpets because his van had to be in the driveway, but the moving truck was still there, only half loaded. He was nice enough to volunteer to come on Saturday morning and just leave the key in the house when he finished. The movers didn't get out of there until 5:30, then I stayed to finish cleaning. To make a long story short, they finished unloading our stuff in the new house at 11 pm. They refused to move our couch up the stairs, so Richard and I had to do it a couple days later. They left lots of boxes downstairs that were clearly marked to go to upstairs rooms. I can't really blame those workers. They were already exhausted before they started and our new house has three flights of stirs, with the main living area on the third floor. I just think their company is terrible! That main guy who came in the morning, left these two poor guys to do a really hard job. By the end, they could hardly stand up. And they still had to drive both trucks back to Raleigh that night, which is a 3 hour drive!

Anyway, now we're in this house and we are loving where we live. This is a cute little town and it's so fun to head to the beach whenever we want. Like I said, the house is a little different than normal. The main living area is up on the third floor, since that's where the views are. We can see the ocean from one side of the room and the sound from the other side. The stairs aren't really that bad, it just makes it kind of inconvenient with three kids. The only real complaints I have are that there's no storage in this house and it's surrounded by trees, so we get lots of bugs.

Here's the bridge we have to cross to get to the island:

And here's our taaaaaalllll house. :

Here's the view of the ocean from one of our decks upstairs:

Here's the third floor. It's a giant, open room with the kitchen, living room, dining room, and office all together. I know the "office" is hideous, but we haven't gotten around to building a desk and finding an armoire for all the office/crafts supplies. It's that no storage thing!


I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I can't really decorate this house. There are no shelves, all the walls are windows, and I just don't have the right furniture for all the empty space. But I know that this house isn't permanent, so I figured I'd rather not waste the time and money to decorate it. Maybe someday when we own a house again and I can paint!


Here's the view of the sound from the other deck. We come out here almost every night to watch the sunset.
The best part about living here, besides the beach, is that the ward we go to is amazing! I feel so at home there and everyone is genuinely friendly. I have met some fantastic friends and love teaching the 12 year olds Sunday School.

One of the biggest bummers about moving from our old house is that two weeks before we moved, a family moved in next door that has three little girls, exactly the same ages as mine!!!!! What are the odds?! It was really hard to leave after that. Fortunately, we have play dates with them and have gotten to know them and love them. And guess what...our house still sits empty next door!