Garden City

  On the second Sunday we were here, the 15th, we started our search for a church home.  We did a super judgmental drive by of a church close to the apartment, but didn't even go in.  Then we looked up the list The Village had given us of Acts 29 churches (I think that's the network) and found the closest one which met at 4pm.  That's not a great time for us, but wanted to check it out anyway.  The kids didn't want to go to their classes, but we walked by the kids part just so they could see it and then headed around to the front.  We weren't even all the way to the top of the steps before someone had come out to greet us.  It's a small church plant so I think they have a pretty easy time telling who's new. As soon as they heard we were from Texas they said we had to meet Matt and Faith which we did about 3 minutes later.  They transplanted from Austin 3 years ago, although Matt is Cali born.  We stayed after the service to have a picnic on the front lawn with everyone.  By Tuesday I was at the beach with Faith and three other girls (I use the term girl very lightly, they're all grown women) from the church.  By Wednesday we were at our new home group, at Matt and Faith's house, where most of the faces were familiar which is crazy cause we have been here 3 weeks!

   Tonight was our 2nd home group and we combined with another group for "Fun Wednesday." No Bible Study, just hangout time. I know no one believes when I say I'm not outgoing, but I don't love to do the whole big group get to know you thing.  I must say though, it is an absolute answer to prayer that finding people who will eventually be our Cali family has come so easily.   Faith and I get along smashingly.  She understands the hole in my heart for a Sonic beverage and Blue Bell ice cream.  We've been meeting at Rio Del Mar beach on Tuesdays (well twice we've done that).  But I love her for not going in the ocean and for it being important that you don't have to carry all your junk down stairs and that there's a functional bathroom in her beach requirements.  

   The other thing is the amount of kids that are the same age as our kids is splendid.  Even better than that, there are all these newly weds or young singles that adore all the kids.  We were all hanging out and there are just relative strangers absolutely loving on our kids like they were their own.  It's ridiculous.  The second time we were meeting everyone they were offering to babysit which is yet another huge prayer request answered!  Our kids have really only stayed with family or those that we consider family so moving out here we were very curious how the babysitting side of things would go. You know mommy and daddy need their date nights.  Here we are 10 days in and God has answered that request.  I love when He answers requests you haven't technically asked for, they've just been a concern in the back of your mind.  

   So we've found our people, hopefully they feel the same way about us, and we're gonna be ok.  We might even be great.  A girl could get used to 80 degree weather and a beach nearby.  

Hello

For the past 10 days we haven't been doing much of anything.  We've been finding a place for everything in the apartment.  Gone to the beach a couple days.  The last time there was a giant dead seal washed up on the beach.  As you might imagine it wasn't a great smell so I think this week we'll be trying out a new beach.  I'm trying to find a decent salsa at the grocery store.  Also, I have learned that Blue Bell isn't sold in California, meaning, there are dark days ahead, my friends.   Caleb is working really hard now that he's in the office all day.  I think he had forgotten what it was like to have to go to work every day.  We're all adjusting.  I actually really like the apartment.  As soon as I get things hung on the wall I'll take some pictures.  The last room is the guest room which ended up being where we put everything that didn't immediately have a place to go.  So hopefully this week I'll get it ready for an actual guest bed because we've got our first visitor coming August 1st!  We're extremely excited to have Mama J come see us.  We still need to get dining room chairs and another bed and we'll pretty much be ready for company!
I have officially commandeered the new car we bought to replace Caleb's truck.  They delivered it the first Monday that we were here and that night we put the baby seats in it to take a family test drive.  That ended up being a dire mistake on Caleb's part as the baby seats have never been taken back out of it.   It's cute and smallish and white, much like me, and I'm pretty sure he's not getting it back.

Not Much News

  It's our last day in the hotel, and I think I speak for all of us when I say we are extremely excited to move into our new apartment and get settled.  The kids and I have gotten into a little bit of routine over the past couple days.  We've been checking out parks in the morning, grabbing some lunch, taking naps, and then swimming until Caleb gets back from work.  
  We did go check out a school for Blythe which wasn't anything spectacular, but it's the only place I can find that has a 2 day a week option.  The people were friendly and sweet, just no one seemed very excited to be there.  I don't think we'll really know how it is until she's actually going there, so we're gonna go with it and we can always change our minds later.
  Our apartment looks out over the complex playground and the kids mostly just want to play there.  Yesterday we met a mom and daughter who don't live in the apartments, but her son is being tutored by a teacher who lives there.  The little girl was about Blythe's age, and the woman and I talked for almost an hour pretty easily so that's exciting.  They said they are there twice a week for the rest of the summer and they would come knock on our door the next time they were out there.
   That's about all we've been doing.  Hopefully, once we actually move in I'll have more to report.

We're Heeeeere!

We arrived in Santa Clara around 6 last night after what was my favorite day of the trip!  Yesterday we woke up in Mammoth Lake, had some breakfast and took the gondola to the top of the mountain.  I think this face explains how Blythe felt about the gondola ride...

 Here's everyone checking out the view...

 We rode back down and stopped in town to pick up some lunch for the road when along came this guy...

      He very carefully looked both ways before crossing the road and heading up some stairs towards an Italian restaurant.  I assume he was going for pizza.   Everyone acted like this was perfectly normal.  They just stopped where they were and let him go by.  

      Then we hit the road which just so happened to run straight through Yosemite National Park.  I will admit I've never given it much thought, but it is truly incredible.  This was just one of at least 50 lakes we drove by that all looked like this.

 We stopped to play for a bit.  Joe could've stayed there all day just splashing and throwing rocks.

We are all very glad to be done with the driving portion of our adventure.  Today we are heading over to the apartment to see our new home for the first time.  We've got some errands to run to get a little more settled before Caleb goes to work in the morning.   Now on to the actual living in California part!!

Californ-I-A

     I don't have much to report, nor do I have any pictures.  We've spent the last 2 days driving across the desert.  It was hot and barren... it felt just like home :) Sometime yesterday we crossed the border into California, but the sign wasn't really accessible or very fun.  No "Welcome to California" or any such greeting.  Just a "You are now entering California" and then a border station where they ask you if you have any fruits, vegetables, plants or animals like you're coming from a foreign country and they don't want your germs coming into their desert wasteland.  So my first impression of California wasn't great.
     However, tonight we are in Mammoth Lakes.  I wore jeans and a sweater to dinner and loved every minute of it.  It's a beautiful little ski mountain town and hopefully tomorrow we will take a gondola ride up to the top and get a better view of where we are.  After dinner tonight we took a dip in the hot tub and met a sweet couple from New Zealand who are on a 10 week holiday from what turns out to be a lenticular bookmark empire.  We spent the evening talking business and parenting.  I think we might have all been starved for a little outside interaction cause the longer we talked the closer they got to us.  By the time we said goodnight I could've easily given her a kiss.
    Tomorrow we make the final 6 hour drive through Yosemite to our new home.  I thought I would have more to add after that statement, but I don't really.  It's been a good week of vacation and I still don't think it's hit me yet that we are actually moving.  I'll let you know when it does.

A Large Hole in the Ground and the Grand Canyon

Good morning,

     Turns out we were only about 15 miles from the Arizona border yesterday.  

 At our first stop we checked out the Painted Desert Visitor Center, but didn't actually go to the Painted Desert or the Petrified Forest.  Caleb said we would save that for the trip back, and Hayley said the Petrified Forest was pretty boring anyway.
  So then we headed to Meteor Crater which is a seriously large hole in the ground where a meteor hit the Earth.  Pretty amazing to see, but caused mass confusion for the kids.  Where is the rock?  Why was it on fire?  I want to see the rock, let's find it.

 Here are the kids at the bottom of the crater mural...

 After the crater we headed to the Grand Canyon.  As we got close we saw this elk out the window.  I got the camera out of the glove box, turned it on, lens cap off, window down, and picture taken in, I kid you not, less than 10 seconds.  I have mad fast elk photography skills.

 Here we are at Mater Point, I think....

 The Grand Canyon with Joe is pretty stressful.  There aren't rails for the most part, and the ones they do have he can walk under.  So we spent a lot of time saying, "not so close Joe, stop jumping, please don't swing on the rails, etc..." Caleb ended up just holding on to the back of his shirt the whole time.  If ever there was a reason to have one of those kid leashes it would be Joe at the Grand Canyon.

We spent about 3 hours walking and riding the buses (I think the kids were more excited about the bus rides) and then headed back to Flagstaff to see Mama J and Papa Tim who are spending the week in Sedona.  By the end of today we should officially be in California!!

The Roadtrip

Hello from Gallup, New Mexico!  

     Bright and early Monday morning, 4am to be exact, Caleb awoke with a start worried about the 18 wheeler parking on Austin St and went out to block off the street.  Sure enough, sometime between 1 and 4 someone had parked directly in front of our house.   We had talked to the driver on Sunday about how busy the street gets, so he said he planned on being there by 6:30 to beat the rush.   Starting at 6 Caleb began guarding the street in front of the neighbors house, our last vestige of hope that the truck could park somewhere.  If any of you have seen Austin St you know an 18 wheeler was gonna have trouble no matter how many parking spots we blocked off.   Anyhoo, around 8:30 they showed up, there was no way they were fitting anywhere, so Ray just parked in the middle of the street.  You could still squeeze around him on one side if you had a tiny car, but it wasn't great.  Ray was probably 70ish, long white beard, and a beer belly.  Tim and Tony were the heavy lifters.  All 3 guys were super nice, sweet to the kids, and had our whole house packed and ready to go in 3 hours.  I joked to Tim that it had taken me 3 years to get everything just where I wanted it, and 3 hours for them to completely take it apart.  Amazingly, our entire house fit into the very front of the truck where there's that little raised loft portion.  Ray was heading to Houston to pack up a house and then driving to California, making stops in Bakersfield and LA, putting him to Santa Clara no earlier than the 4th.  I was told they wouldn't deliver on the holiday, so let's call that the 5th.  Putting us in California 6 days before our belongings.  Sweet.

     We were loaded up and pulling out of the driveway about 30 minutes after the truck.  Joe looked like this about 10 minutes down the road...

     You know when kids fall asleep in the car and their neck falls over and they look super uncomfortable?  Well, we bought these pillows to help combat that, but Joe's pushes his head too far forward if you put it behind his neck, so after he falls asleep we've been putting it on this way so that it resembles a demented monkey neck brace.  Also, it gives him amazing pouty lips.
     We headed South (I know that's the wrong direction, let me get there) to Carrollton to sign papers on selling Caleb's truck and buying a Jetta that they are shipping to California for us which somehow saves on sales tax, or something.  I start hearing buzzing sounds when Caleb brings up a percentage of any kind, so the basic thing I heard was that we saved money that way.
     We headed back up 35 to our starting point and then headed west to Amarillo.  Yesterday's drive was more about getting there than anything else and we made it to our destination around 8, took baths, and fell asleep.
     Today we woke up, had some breakfast, made a Target stop so I could buy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and hit the road!

     We made it to Santa Rosa, New Mexico around noon grabbed some lunch at a Route 66 Diner (that was the name of it, but Caleb said he had eaten at another one in Vegas hence the use of the word "a" instead of "the") and then headed over to the Blue Hole.

     It's a spring fed sink hole just sitting in the middle of nowhere, so we stopped to play for a bit.  I will tell you that is not Caleb screaming in this video.  Someone highjacked the video which I think is hilarious.

   The overflow goes in this little creek part that was more kid friendly.  Daddy splashing the babies was not super kid friendly.

     Our last random stop of the day was at the Continental Divide.  Caleb complained that I hadn't been in a picture all day, but this is the exact reason I don't let him take pictures.  He gets you when you are talking to him and your hair is in your face so you look ridiculous.  Neither one of us knew what the Continental Divide actually was so when we read the sign we both made that, "Huh." sound.  You can't read that sign very well, but it says, "Rainfall divides at this point.  To the west it drains into the Pacific Ocean, to the east, into the Atlantic."  Huh.

   We finished out the drive to Gallup, grabbed some dinner, hit the pool and now we're watching American Ninja Warrior.  Aren't I being good about updating the blog?!?!?