We Made It!!

Yes, we are still alive. We have been busy since we got into Ut. We arrived on the 24th. I flew with the kids (yes by myself, woke up at 430, flight at 7) they did great. Avery slept and Trey colored while eating 5 little bags of peanuts. We had a great Thanksgiving with my family. I FINALLY got to go see New Moon with my family, it was KILLING me to have to wait. All I can say is I have to keep my thoughts to myself when I think about 17 year old Taylor Lautner aka Jacob, because otherwise I will be put in prison. It's so great to be back here around all the familiar things. I missed the cold, the mountains, and my dog. Trey is loving having someone to play with almost everyday. His cousins are around all the time and he is loving it. Jeremy comes in the 17th and I can't wait!! I forgot how hard it is to be with 2 kids alone 27/7, he helps me out more than I think. We are here til Jan 10th, so that gives us enough time to catch up with everyone. I forgot my camera cord, so I will have to post pics when Jeremy brings it. Anyways, that is my update, sorry it wasn't exciting.

Sight Seeing!

We were able to go to San Francisco this last weekend and enjoy all the great sights. We started off with the Golden Gate Park. So much fun!! It's the biggest playground I have ever seen. Trey was in sand heaven. He sat and dug in that sand for about an hour. Then finally went and played on one of the 4 massive slide/climbing/swing sets. Avery only cared about the pigeons. She chased them around, yelled at them when they would run away, and threw sand at them. They finally took a liking to her when she kept dropping her cheetoes. We stayed for about 2 hours then went on the merry-go-round right before we left. After, we headed to the Golden Gate Bridge....SO AMAZING!! We kind of went at a bad time. The sun wasn't on our side for pictures. Sorry, you really can't see our faces in these. Good times though!

Things I'm Thankful For.

Since I moved out here to California I've learned to be grateful for so many things I greedily took for granted back home. It's been quite the cultural shock to be honest, and it's been a challenge from day to day whenever I step outside and have any interaction with people. It takes everything out of me NOT to start crying. I'm not used to the "say what you want, be as blunt as you can" kind of attitude. I guess people in Ut are just more friendly. We have however managed to meet a lot of really nice people in our ward. It's so great to be able to go once a week and know that everyone there is happy, friendly, and ready to help you with whatever. And I have such a great husband who listens to all my drama. Here are a few things I'm most grateful for:

-My husband. He is such a hard worker. As much as he loves school, this has been the most challenging for him, but I haven't heard him complain yet. This has been his dream since he was about 12. I'm so proud of him. Although we don't see him as much as we would like to, I know he is doing this for our family.
-Health insurance. We had AWESOME insurance back in Ut. Jeremy had a great job that provided our family with wonderful benefits. Since we've been out here we've got the kids on Medi-CAL (Cali's Medicaid) and it's been a little rough. The lady we were working with when applying for it pretty much shook her finger at us and told us we were stupid for VOLUNTARILY leaving a job in UT to come here and have no income. She even chuckled to herself and kept shaking her head. And trying to find a doctor to take Medi-CAL is so hard. We finally did and had to take them both in for fevers and it was a joke!! I miss Mckay. I miss Dr. Hom....oh and I've cracked a tooth, so we'll see how that pans out.
-My family. I loved having them around all the time. It's weird because I talk to them more now than I did back home. I guess knowing that we could always see each other made it easier to not. I miss all my nieces. Their little laughs.
-Walmart and Macey's. Okay, I know this sounds stupid but you would not believe how expensive it is out here. One box of Kraft Mac and Cheese is $1.29...I KNOW!! I could buy 2 for a $1 at Walmart. I seriously had heart palpitations as I was checking out. People in grocery stores are also not very nice. One lady kept talking really fast and I couldn't understand her and then I proceeded to swipe my card and she waved her arms in the air and said "no not yet, now listen up ma'am"...I almost did 2 things. First I was sweating to death from the whole thing, and I just about told her where she could go, second, I just wanted to start bawling. And when I went to Costco, some lady tried to steal my spot but I managed to get it first. She ended up parking 2 spots down from me. As we were getting out of the car, Trey tripped jumping out of the car and got nervous about the cars driving by him in the parking lot, so he started to "almost cry" Well as I was telling him "you're okay, you're a big boy, let's think about something else" the lady that tried to steal my spot came walking by and she says out loud "man, what a whiny little kid"....OH NO SHE DIDN'T!! I was LIVID!!! You can say nasty things to me all you want, but picking on my 3 year old is NOT an option. OK, I'm not as tough as I'd like to be yet, plus she had two friends with her, I didn't stand a chance, but I did shoot her the ugliest scuz EVER! Her friend got the clue and told her to stop. People here can be so mean! I'm getting a little emotional thinking about it, I better stop.
Anyways, I'm grateful to be out here to experience all this. It's making me stronger and more independent. Me and Jeremy talk so much more and we are getting closer as a family. Whenever I'm having my bad days I just vent to Jer and drown my sorrows in chocolate.

For the Family

This a post mostly for the family that has been wanting to see updated pics of my kids. Sorry for those of you who really could care less.

At the Oakland Zoo. That is a kamodo dragon.


Avery outing my secret...a push up bra. Well it's really her fault that I need one.


Going for a hike. There is a lot of hidden trails around us.


The little lake we stumbled upon.


A ravine that will probably end your life just one slip to the left. I was really nervous to walk on it but of course Jeremy just had to.


Pretending to talk on the phone.



Dad trying out the new camera.


Mom not caring for it.


Popsicles...


and a deer in the headlights.


I'll try and keep you updated with the kids as much as I can. I've never been the mom who just sits around and snaps pictures of my kids all day long. We are doing really good. Jeremy is still loving school. He is staying busy with all the reading. I've met some really nice girls in our ward. I've forced myself to step out of my comfort zone and go to different play groups. So far so good! We will be in Ut on the Nov 24th and staying until Jan 10th. I'm counting down the days!!

Halloween/House Pics

We had a fun Halloween. Although I would've liked to be home in Ut with family, we still had a good time here. We went to our ward party and did trunk-or-treat. Then Saturday we headed out to trick-or-treat. Now correct me if I'm wrong but normally in Ut we would start around 4:30 5ish. Maybe because we wanted to beat the cold or the dark but we always went at this time. So naturally we did the same here. However, this is not the norm. You don't start trick-or-treating UNTIL it gets dark. Needless to say every house told us this and we were the first ones each time. Still had fun.

My Transformer aka Bumble Bee, and my naughty little witch.


And for all the people who have been sending me death threats because I have yet to post pictures of the apartment, here ya go!

view from the kitchen to the family room


kitchen


kitchen and dining


dining


family room


kids bathroom


kids room...no I did not clean it for the picture


hallway to our bathroom (notice the 2, yes 2 closets...love that!!


our bathroom. I didn't get the shower because it's one of those old school sliding glass door kind. Can't say I really love it.


Well there you go for now people. I have a ton of pictures of the kids for family but it would've been a terribly long post so I will spare ya 'til next time...oh ya, and congrats to my sis in law Cherie and Tyler, they are expecting a baby in March. We are so happy for them. We are hoping it's a boy:) Yah!!

A Few Things

Just a quick update on some things. My camera broke so that explains the blog slacking. Avery turned 1 on the 17th. (This being the day my camera died) so I have no pics to show for it. She's doing great though. Very healthy, walking everywhere. She's very naughty since she started walking though, but she loves her new found independence. Jeremy turned the big 31 on the 22nd. He is loving school so far. It's been very busy with lots of reading but has been great to manage family time with school. He started his internship in San Fransisco at a clinic that deals with drug and alcohol abuse and has had a lot of fun so far. We have been missing our dog Halo. Well mostly me because every time I go running I wish she was with me, for safety and company. Trey still talks about her and calls Avery Halo and tries to make her crawl on her hands. She usually just turns around and walks the other way hoping to avoid the game. They have learned to play together and it's been great. He will try and get her to play something with him but she usually just wants to destroy whatever he's done. We finally got our car back. For those of you who don't know, about a week before we moved out here I was rear ended. We had just bought the 4runner, so we hadn't even had it for a month and the back end was totaled! So we had to deal with all that as well as moving. But we just got it back and it's been great! The weather has been so nice down here. It was 85 yesterday, can't complain about that. (although, I can't remember the last time I got a sunburn in October). The kids seem to have adjusted well so far. We've met some really nice people in our ward. Trey has loved going to nursery. There is a TON of little boys out here for him to play with. I've been figuring out ways to save us money on little things that we took for granted back home. Gym memberships out here are insane. We haven't found anything under $50 yet, and it doesn't even include the daycare. I've just been running around the complex, and doing weights in the house. It seems to be working just fine. Getting your hair done out here is also crazy expensive. It's like 100 dollars for a cut and color. So I resorted to the school of Paul Mitchell Hair. It's down the street and they will cut my hair for 10 bucks and color it for 25...i know, kind of scary, but they have to be supervised.(Sorry Ashley, I can hear you cussing me) I've learned to cut Trey's hair. We don't eat out anymore either. Maybe like once a week is all. It's been a lot of fun though. We have so much around us. There is a Jelly Belly factory about 30 min away. The big national Redwood forest is about an hour away. San Fransisco is about 25 minutes away and it doesn't get old, we always see something new (and sometimes inappropriate) every time we go. Legoland is about an hour and 1/2 away too. Anyways, it's been a great experience so far. I will try and get a camera this week for Halloween pictures. Stay tuned...

Santa Cruz

We took the kids down to Santa Cruz on Saturday. It's about a 2 hour drive. It's the closest beach to us. It was gorgeous! I've never seen the beach like that before. It was overcast and cloudy and the waves were crashing hard up against the rocks. The seals were barking and there were pelicans catching fish. It was awesome.

There were surfers out there trying to catch some waves


This is as close as I could get to the cliffs. They had a sign that said there were so many deaths a year so we couldn't go any further.


Trey was laughing so hard. He thought is was the funniest thing that the water would come up really fast and get us wet.


He kept squealing. When the water did get him he kept saying "Mom, where are we going?" (You know that feeling you get when you're standing in the wave and it feels like you're moving sideways?") too funny!



These are gorgeous homes. How would it be to wake up and have that view everyday?!


And this is the wharf. It was interesting. There were homeless people that would sleep right on the boardwalk, on the sand, on the benches....They had roller coasters, merry go rounds, lot's of fun things to do!


So far it's been pretty fun. There is a TON of stuff to do here. We are thinking about taking the kids to Legoland next. Stay tuned...

catching up!

So I've been in California for about a week now. I flew in on Saturday the 26th. My in-laws were here with us settling us in, and they were a HUGE help. We are so lucky and thankful to have such wonderful families. The town is small. It's about 7 miles total. I'm still trying to figure it out. In Ogden, the streets are numbers...24th, 36th, 12th etc...and here it's all names...long names. Luckily Jill, aka GPS, has been a great help. We have a exclusive relationship and she understands me, even when I swear at her. We've got our apartment almost all the way set up and I'm not going to put pics of it up until it's all the way done. Here are some pics of the outside of the apartments. The whole complex sits on 37 acres, so there is LOT'S of places to walk around. Sorry, the slide show website was being sooooo slow, so you'll have to just look at the many, many pictures :)

We found a pumpkin patch with Gma, and Pa Chambers before they left.


Mt Diablo, the closest I'll get to a mountain.


Ponds outside the complex.


More ponds.


This is our street. I love it how it's covered with trees. I'll just imagine in winter time all the snow that would tunnel the trees.


Big cheese and more ponds....and those of you who know Trey, know that this is right up his alley. Our days are spent walking around looking for the biggest most awesomist pond!


You can't really see it, but Jeremy's school is just behind the waterfall through the trees.


The ducks or geese?? that walk around the apartments...and yes, I have almost broke my neck slipping in bird crap because it's everywhere in the grass!!


And before we left we had a farewell party up at my parents. It was good. Im going to miss everyone. Especially these ladies...I love them!! We had alot of good play-dates and dinners, and fun times with eachother. Even our hubby's did great when they were thrown into a forced friendship with one another. These girls are my very best friends and I will miss them so very much.


All of us one more time :(


And of coarse these cute people. I will miss her too! This is my gym partner. We had some fun times with our families. Addy and Trey loved playing in the day care together. And little peyton. He is so fun. He loved Trey. I loved hearing him say his name...so cute! Thanks Ash for being such a great friend. Can't wait to see you guys in Dec.


We also celebrated Avery's birthday. It's really not until Oct 17th, but we wanted our family to be there.


She really didn't love the cake, probably because it wasn't a new thing. She eats it all the time. (hee hee)


So far it's been okay. Not great, but okay. It's been wonderful having Jeremy around all the time. It feels like a vacation. The reality hasn't really set in yet. I'm betting it will, come monday when he starts school. We'll see.