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.