New Surroundings

Recently, my family and I have moved. This isn't the first move, nor will it be the last move that we make. However, this move was a little different. We move nearly 120 miles from our last home. This obviously creates many additional hardships.
Unlike in other previous moves, my children now have to attend new schools. My teenage daughter is not quite sure at this point how to handle this. "Should I be sad, cause I'm losing all my friends, or should I be happy cause I'm gonna make new ones?" I guess that is kind of a "half full/half empty scenario. Personally, I am very pessimistic. However, for the sake of my family, I like to present a more optimistic approach to everything. Regardless of how I feel about something, I want them to come to their own conclusions and draw their own opinions, without much more than facts from me.
The move in and of itself was a real pain in the neck. Although we had several weeks to complete the move, and I have really great friends, and a full size pickup of my own, it still came down to the wire. Sometimes I think the gods were laughing at us all the way. With more than one incident of items being thrust off of my truck by the wind, and apparently my inability to correctly secure them. A flood in the old house, that forced haste, and then the waste of losing items, that we still haven't found. Then there is always the inconvenience of moving. I hate living out of boxes, and bad Chinese take-out.
Well, enough negativity. Our new pad is very nice. Two level ranch style home. Three bedroom, three bath, and over sized 2 car attached garage. It's nice getting into a warm car on a cold morning. This is the first time in three years, that my bedroom is warmer than 55 degrees at night. There is some good to come from a forced air furnace. The first gas bill was not very nice, but only needing one blanket at night was.
There is much to get used to here. The weather patterns here are much different. The local coal, oil, and Amtrack trains go through here several times a day, early morning, and late evening. We went from a small city of 30,000 to 50,000 people to a small town of about 10,000 people. 20 roaming police cars, to 2. All in all, I think that I will like it here. There is so much new exploring to be done this coming spring.