Hello Birmingham

It was a long drive, but after living on our small island for 3 years we were definitely up or a road trip. After leaving Oklahoma we spent the night in Memphis, Tennessee and then we reached our final destination. Birmingham.  

Trees, trees and more trees. That was our first impression of Alabama. 

Before we found our hotel Tyson needed to stop by and talk to some people at UAB to finalize his upcoming semester. This is the reason we are here by the way. Tyson is starting a PhD program at the University of Alabama. 

This kiddo was such a good traveler and super patient with this entire move. 

We started house hunting fairly soon with our exceptional realtor Matthew Lepore. 

This darling home is where we stayed for our first week. It was our first time using an Airbnb. What did we like about it? We liked that it was a home, with a kitchen, piano room, living room, back yard and safe neighborhood to go walking. What was slightly awkward about the experience? We paid for the use of two rooms and lived with the couple who owns the home. They both worked full time but none the less we still saw them here and then. It felt strange living in someone else's home at first but we got used to it.  

Tyson spent countless hours working on home buying loans and he succeeded. He did his research and his hours paid off. While we worked I mostly read or played the piano. Lydia watched a lot of Cosby show, played outside and in the evenings we played Monopoly Deal. 

The Airbnb was next to lots of shopping centers and a Cabellas. 

One afternoon we took Lydia to a Rock Climbing facility and she was in heaven. She's pretty good at it too. She's loved to climb ever since her early days of climbing in and out of her crib and on and off the kitchen table. 

She has decided that when she is in High School she wants to work at a place like this so she can climb anytime she wants to. 

This is my favorite part of Alabama so far. We have a temple NEXT to our church building. We definitely wanted to live near a temple so we house hunted in this area. 

This made us laugh one day when we were stuck in traffic. We are big Toy Story fans. 

However, we are not big fans of traffic. 

We jumped at the chance to go buy groceries at our all time favorite grocery store, Aldi. 

Why do we love Aldi so much?
Low, low, low prices. 

Yummy food. 

Low prices. 

It is small. Only 3 isles. 

And low prices. 

I watched a documentary about Aldi and how they can afford to keep their prices so low. One, they charge for cart use so they don't have to pay employees to clean up the parking lot. Two, they don't shelve the items. They stock them in boxes. Three, they don't bag groceries, so again they pay for less employees. They typically only have 2 or 3 workers in the store. Anyways.....blah blah blah. We like it. 

It was a good first week.