Settled. But it wasn’t easy!

No pictures.  Sorry.  After the weekend we’ve had, I hope you’ll forgive me…

We arrived safely in Huntington Beach Wednesday evening.  Checking in to our hotel brought some ‘interesting’ news—the garage at the hotel was too small to fit the Suburban/U-Haul combination so we’d have to leave it parked on Pacific Coast Highway.  Umm…okay.  Sort of.  But, we survived, and headed over to the condo Thursday morning to meet with the agent and do the pre-move walk through and condition report.  Done.  Then the fun began.  Nothing like trying to unload a 12’ trailer with 2 adults (one with a seriously bruised hand) and two 10 year olds.  We managed quite nicely.  The boys were excellent help!  After finishing the unload, we made a Costco run while we still had the trailer, since we didn’t move a bed here for Jim and me.  Lunch at Costco?  Check.  Shopping?  Check.  (Too much money?  Double check!)  Home Depot stop?  Check.  Run back to the condo, unload the new bed and the other stuff, then head out to a) return the U-Haul; b) pick up Jim's rental car (provided by Boeing until his car arrives here); and c) visit the Time Warner Cable store to pick up the cable box and modem.  Such fun.  :\ 

What we didn’t know is that those were the easy things.  Jim headed to work on Friday, and the boys and I set to work to finish the unpacking.  We also ran a few errands—to Target and Costco (again).  Came back with no problem and put a pot on the stove to simmer.  That’s when the fun REALLY began.

The cooktop circuit popped.  No big deal—I knew where the circuit breaker was.  Went in and switched it back, then headed back to the kitchen to turn the stove back on.  Bad idea.  That choice resulted in blown circuits throughout the house.  After a couple phone calls and some texts back and forth with Jim, we loaded up to run a couple more errands and charge my cell phone.  When we got home, the power was still out.  The property manager wasn’t any help.  I finally asked Jim to come home.  (Nice.  First day on the new job, and he has to leave early to ‘rescue’ his wife.)  He figured out how to reset the house, which was great.  Only problem came when he switched the circuit for the cooktop.  A loud boom, some orange sparks, and a bunch of smoke confirmed a serious issue.  Another call to the property manager yielded a promise to send an electrician on Saturday.  After a dinner of oven-or-microwave only food, we prepped for both a handyman (to install a new smoke alarm) and an electrician to stop by this morning.

The handyman arrived first.  He needed to do some work on the hot water heater and the gas fireplace, and needed to install a carbon monoxide detector and a new smoke detector.  No problem.  He got started.  Then the electrician arrived.  He looked over the cooktop and pronounced it completely dead.  Duh.  Knew that.  The orange sparks and the smoke pretty much convinced me.  He collected all the necessary information and said he’d have the property manager process an order for replacement on Monday.  Who knows how long I”ll be without a cooktop??  Oh well.  Life’s an adventure, right?  Yup.  Today proved that.  The electrician left, and the handyman returned with some supplies he’d had to go pick up.  Lucky guy—I greeted him with a new problem.  The garbage disposal had turned into a geyser.  In the midst of all this, Jim is climbing the walls.  He has the skill to fix all the issues but doesn’t have the right tools with him.

Eventually things settled down.  The sink and garbage disposal work.  The cooktop is no longer dangerous (the breaker is switched off).   The boxes are all emptied and everything is put away.  The desks are assembled.  We enjoyed a walk to the beach, and discovered that it takes all of 5 minutes to walk there!  We watched some surfers enjoy the big swells.  We picked up tonight’s oven-baked dinner.  We finally got the cable and internet working!!  (4 calls to the provider later…)  Tomorrow is Sunday, so we have another new adventure before us…visiting a new church.  That should be interesting.  We shall see…