Dinner, Dancing, And The Movies

On Friday we decided to go country western dancing. There was a free 2 step and line dance class at a local country western night club. Our friend that transferred here with us came too. It was a lot of fun and the guys were running into each other and me during the line dance. There were a couple of younger women our friend got to dance with during the 2 step. We’re trying to get him out more. The bf and I have not danced together in such a long time and we kept stepping on each others boots. Afterwards we went to a very chaotic Applebee’s, but our movie wasn’t starting for a couple of hours so we decided to just camp out and wait. I talked our friend into buying me a beer at the very busy bar in hopes he would strike up conversation with someone there, but he’s kinda shy, although I did get my beer. The movie we saw was Act of Valor. It was very intense, I don’t even think I ate my candy. I have never been in a theatre so quiet and my boyfriend has never gone to bed so quickly when we got home. I don’t think he slept much.

Finally Getting Out Of The House

My first trip out was to a running club I found online. It met at someone’s house, which is different from the breweries I was used to in Pensacola. It was a small group, and I think I was the youngest one there. The gentleman whose house we met at has ran all over the world and was even on a poster for a 100 mile run in France. The neighborhood we ran through was beautiful, full of gorgeous homes and expansive parks. Green parks full of trees. They invited me to their weekly after run dinner at Jason’s Deli. Yesterday morning I went to a Zumba class within walking distance from my apartment and realized how out of shape I am. And this morning I finally got to Yoga! It was on the other side of town, so it took all of 15 minutes to get there. Of course, I was still 5 minutes late, I couldn’t help it, it was 6:30am. But I was welcomed in and had an awesome class that was a mix of Iyengar and Baptiste, my two favorite styles of yoga. I think people in Texas might actually be the friendliest people I’ve ever met. Whether it was running, dancing, or yoga, people are more than happy to tell me all about everything there is to do here, from restaurants to job opportunities. It’s been really great getting out of the house, I look forward to meeting more people, making new friends, and seeing what our life here is going to be.

Almost Unpacked

So I've been pretty productive these last couple of weeks

I still spent most of my time at home, still unpacking and discovering we have 0 storage space. We decided to rent a washer and dryer because the ones on property are always taken and are ancient. But that took the only storage space we had in the apartment. We can't leave anything in either of the TWO walk in closets in the barracks at the base because of inspections. So I did a lot of organizing, spent more money than I would have liked on cute storage bins, shelves, and racks at target, and fit both big huge moving bins and oversized suitcase in our one closet with all of our stuff. Every time I thought, "look how great it all fits" my boyfriend would bring another box that was being stored at the barracks. I think my stuff is multiplying. We have shoe racks everywhere, even by the front door, which is bf's favorite place to leave his shoes. Everything is organized and stacked on top of everything else, but it all fits. I need to make it all fit. No one needs this much stuff.

Our First Navy Social Outing

Today one of the guys from my bf's work crew invited us out to lunch and a movie. We met at PF Chang's for lunch and there were 9 of us total. 2 other girls besides myself. One was a wife and the other a new date to one of the guys and local. Which could be really cool if they stay hanging out, because she knows where stuff is. Got to talk to everybody a lot during lunch and get all the first names, which I don't remember. First names is something we kinda started in Chicago, it just feels more personal and the guys seem to appreciate it. Learned where everyone is from and what they did before the Navy. There are always so many interesting backgrounds in the Navy, something I really like about it. The married couple is from the LA area, but she is originally from San Antonio, also cool, because she knows a lot about San Antonio, which is only about an hour and a half away. The guy who invited us is also from California, from Orange County, so I'll probably refer to him as OC since he seems to be the social ringleader of the group with quite an entertaining personality and will probably be appearing in here from time to time. He smuggled chocolate cake from the restaurant into the movie, and even brought a fork. His roommate is actually from Washington, like us, but I didn't get a chance to talk to him as much. I can't remember where the guy who brought the date was from but I do remember he worked construction before the Navy because him and my sailor have that in common. And of course, the only member of our previous Navy family who transferred here with us was there. He's from Annapolis, Maryland and I have yet to get a nickname for him, because Annapolis is kind of long and doesn't really work as a name. I'll have to work on that. Everyone else has been here for a while, at least 6 months, which is a long time in Navy time, or a year or two. We're kind of the new kids. At the end of the day OC invited us back to Kingsville, we're the only ones that live in Corpus. They were all going back to their place to hang out and play games. It almost sounded like our usual back in Pcola, they even had Catch Phrase. But, we opted to stay home. I like everybody, but I miss my old friends, it all feels so different. It's gonna take some getting used to, but it was a good start.

Our Apartment

Our apartment, as said earlier is very cute. It's very inexpensive so it's not the most quality construction I've ever seen, but it's not the shabbiest either. It has a fireplace, which seems highly unnecessary when it's 80 degrees in january, but it looks cute. It's just the right size for us and has all the amenities I was really looking for, dishwasher, garbage disposal and the ceiling fan in the bedroom is a bonus. The water pressure in the shower is merely a dribble on good days, but the counter, sink, and mirror are outside of the bathroom and are gigantic. Our furniture is all new, half Rooms To Go, solid wood, great mattress, fancy sheets, and then half Wal-Mart put it together yourself furniture. It works. Our entertainment center is half on the fireplace tile and half on the carpet. As cute as the fireplace is, I'm not sure how fung shui it makes our furniture arrangement. We rotate through many household items to level it out. We started with books, but then I was worried about them getting permanently damaged, so we switched them out for decks of cards. Then we wanted to play cards, so now our entertainment center is sitting on two boxes of Dove soap. Seems to be working out pretty well, and might continue to, until we need the soap. Our neighborhood is very built up, there are businesses on top of businesses and there is constant traffic, on every street, at every intersection, in every parking lot. Great for shopping, there's everything you could need or want here, but exhausting to drive in. We haven't met any neighbors really. The balcony across from ours always has plenty of conversation on a Friday night, and we met a colorful character in the park behind our complex. She didn't have many good things to say about our new home, but she did have a very cute dog. We're definitely not in Pensacola anymore Toto.

Intro Post

Howdy y'all! I am brand new to Texas, in a way. It's my first week here and as is customary I am making an intro post to introduce myself before I get started. I keep my blogs anonymous, mostly to protect the identities of those who may not want to be a part of my story, namely my boyfriend, without whom I would not be here ironically. To keep with OPSEC rules and for his sake and those who would rather not be named I only use nicknames, leave out personal information and anything actually pertaining to his job in the navy. This is not his story anyway, it is mine. If you would like to know more about how I ended up in Corpus Christi, check out my last blog Adventures and Misadventures of a Navy Girlfriend or misadventuresofanavygirlfriend.blogspot.com. Otherwise, I thought I would continue the story, and write about my adventures in Texas. A little bit more than usual about me. I was born in Louisiana and was raised in New Mexico. In case you didn't know, both of these states border Texas, but all I've ever known of the state is that it takes two days to drive across it, and you better keep your gas tank full because you never know when you'll hit a lonely stretch of highway. So this is all very brand new to me. So far, we have a cute little apartment, we've filled full of stuff we've done without for a while, furniture, a tv, cable, so exciting. I have not accomplished much, nor done anything blog worthy yet, unpacked and spent 2 days deathly ill on the couch, reacquainting myself with day time television. I don't have many leads for work, but have so far kept myself from panicking. I have not one single clue how this is all going to turn out. So, here we go.