The Initial Reaction!

Uneventful was good in moving from the airport to River Gardens.  Escorted from the gate through security, Immigration and Customs, aided with our ten bags and other trappings of a family of five in travel, then loaded into a van and delivered to the front door of our new home; uneventful was good!

Joanne and I looked at each other with giddy surprise. "Seriously," she said, scanning the hardwoods and dark furniture as we clicked our key out of the front door lock standing in the wide foyer.  "We have a fireplace, a real fireplace!  Seriously, Paul, can you believe this is our home - NO SHOES IN THE HOUSE, BOYS!"

"Daddy, I found my room," said Devon wide eyed, spinning with excitement.  "I have my own desk and  two dressers."

"Me too daddy, I have my own room, and Parker's has two beds in case a friend wants to sleep over."

"Um, Dad..."

"Yesss, SON..."

(A few months back, to the dismay of his brothers, Parker stopped using the words "daddy" and "mommy" in his vocabulary.   Instead he addresses me in an overly formal, "Um, Dad..." to which I am forced to respond in a deep formality of my own, "Yesss, SON"...I find it difficult not to be a smart alec)

"Yesss, SON," I said as Parks emerged from his new room, appearing too grown up - he is 10 now and stands to do quite a bit more growing up in this house:(  He asked me about his room, and if we have wifi in the house, and if he can get a new bike soon, and where the bus stop is, and a litany of other questions that indicated to me that he was just fine with the fact that we had moved here.  For months we've been concerned about his reaction to this huge move; the other two were fine, but Parker, well we were not so sure about Parker.  At that moment the concern, the real questions, the interest that he showed about his new surroundings and new community indicated that he was going to be just fine and it felt really good.

We love the house.  We set up the Wii, watched American Idol the first night we arrived, took the 5 minute walk to the clubhouse equipped with pool, work out facility, restaurants, coffee shop and Jenny's, a convenience store where you can buy anything- some items far cheaper than in the states and some items more expensive.   

Bottle of Stoli 49 Yuan(7 bucks) > Bottle of wine 175 Yuan(25 bucks) ;)

We bought all kinds of things that we thought we would never see again when we left the USA.  Here they were, just with different writing on the labels:

Coke and Coke Light, Gatorade, Budweiser, Land O Lakes, McDonalds, Subway and Starbucks...

Initial Reaction = No Biggie!

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Paul Koch (@pkoch9999)

(703) 608-2556

1-511-692-2787