Little late posting

Here is a photo that I took in the car during the long drive to tx. I
had to post it so everyone could see how full our car was. All that
stuff in the back plus go in my/Blake's lap the whole way. I've never
felt so close to my boys.

On the road again...

We decided to go ahead and leave tonight. At 9:15 pm we pulled out of our parking lot. I think we were both tired of sleeping on an air mattress. Our destination for the evening? Motel 6 in Coalina, CA. Why motel 6? We found out on our way to CA that they are pet friendly (at no extra charge), plentiful, and overall inexpensive. Not fancy, but usually handy. Anyway, the air conditioner didn't work in our first room and so Blake was nice enough to take care of his whining wife and handle it. We are now nice and cool.
Here's the funny story if the evening... When we finally got in the car, Blake looks over at me and says, "ok, where do we go from here?". I laughed and pulled out the iPhone for help. Pretty funny. We've done all this planning and have completed the packing of the car, and don't know how to get out of here. Speaking of our packing... Our car is packed to the brim. We couldn't fit one more bag or anything. We can't see out the back window at all. Should be a fun, tight trip. Stay tuned for more posts from the road.

steamy...

Alright, sorry for another lame camera phone picture, but check this out...

Yes, you read that right... 105 degrees. I know what you are thinking... I guess they made it to TX already. You'd be wrong. I took that picture from the apple parking lot in CA. We're in northern California where it is supposed to be 60-80s in the summer. Wrong. Today it is 105. I guess it is time for us to head to TX so we can cool off.

Craig's list 2

Here's an update from the last post. We did end up selling our dresser. Awesome. It happened to be to a cute couple that just got married 3 weeks ago. She said that after moving into his apartment, she realized that he didn't have any drawers and it has been driving her crazy. (I can understand that.) Needless to say, she was really excited to get our drawers.
Next up for sale here in CA... our chairs, tv, tv stand, and microwave. I'll wait to list those till next week. I don't want to be in an empty apartment for another week with nowhere to sit, sleep (because we already sold our mattress), put my clothes, entertain myself, or cook. That doesn't sound like much fun at all.
We also have a few things to get rid of in NYC... our air conditioner, armoire, and tv stand (because it is too wide to fit in our new apartment). Blake will get those sold next week when he's in NYC. Speaking of... friends in NYC, Blake will be there late monday night through wednesday afternoon/evening. I'm sure he'd love to see you!

A bit of a different direction...

As some of you know, and many of you don't, we are currently in California so I can work for Apple for the summer. It is a program that is set up so that retail employees who are good at what they do have the opportunity to advance in the company into the corporate environment. Things have been going really well here, and we have loved the experience. The weather is great, there are so many things we haven't seen, there is so much more space than New York, there are less homeless people chasing you on the street for money. Overall, we like it a lot here, and couldn't picture ourselves going back to New York after this.

This is probably why we are not going back to New York at the end of this month. (That isn't entirely true, I will be going back for a few days to get all of our stuff together and coordinate movers in getting our stuff out of storage, out of our apartment, and selling the rest online.) The funny thing is, we won't be staying in California either. About the same time I applied for the position here with Apple, maybe the month before, I had spoken with a guy at a pretty cool church in Dallas about working there to help on their technical team. I have been practicing my sound skills, technical skills and nun-chuck skills at the church we went to in New York, and felt like it was something I wanted to pursue as a career. A couple of weeks ago they offered me a position to work there full time, helping with sound, lights, technical aspects of the church, and training others in "the way of the tech".

Whitney and I prayed a lot about it, because we did not want to rush into anything just because there was something we wanted to do. We did not want to stay in California just because it was the financially smart thing to do. (I don't know if you know this, but Apple makes some pretty awesome stuff, and is a really good company to work for.) We also did not want to run into something where it wouldn't be a good fit, where we didn't believe that we were doing the right thing, and where we didn't feel like we were doing something that would help us grow in Christ. We like the church, we like the people, we feel that the church and my role there will meet us where we are, so we have decided to take things in a different direction than we had originally planned at the start of the summer.

We are super excited to be moving to Dallas. There is so much that needs to be done, but we are confident that everything will go as smoothly as it normally does. Thank you all for any prayers and support you can give us. We definitely appreciate them.

smells like Pine Sol

Blake and I went out to Muir Woods National Park today for a quick trip. It was BEAUTIFUL! It is about 12 miles north of San Francisco, so it is pretty easy to get out there (coming from the person that didn't have to drive on the extremely curvy mountain roads with no guardrail). We ended up having to park .8 miles away from the front gate of the park. We know it's .8 miles because we measured it. Anyway, once we got into the park, we walked about 2.5 miles around the trees... up and down hills and over tree roots. It was fun. I took a lot of pictures and we enjoyed a nice time with nature.
Check out all of the pictures here.

arrrrrrrrr matey and carnivorous plants

Yesterday we went to San Francisco to see my cousin, Travis. He took us to some fun/interesting stores near his apartment, and I thought they warranted a piece of our blog. The first store specialized in random stuffed animals... no not cuddly teddy bears.... remember we are in San Francisco... These were animals of the taxidermy sort. They also had random teeth and other animal oddities. (see what I mean, fun/interesting?) In the back of the store there was a huge selection of exotic plants. My favorite was a venus fly trap. I've always wanted one. I didn't buy one though, because I don't think my thumb is that "green". (PS- if you just clicked on the words "venus fly trap" and spent 2 minutes of your life watching a plant eat a fly, you are a strange as I am.) So, that was the first store. Next on our venture down the street was called "The Pirate Store". I didn't take any pictures, but here's a funny one from their site...
They have these signs EVERYWHERE in the store. All very funny... in a pirate sort of way. On one wall were lots of drawers with random things in them. Things like plastic eyeballs, buttons, never ending scarfs... all sorts of good stuff.
Anyway, fun was had, we got to see some family and an interesting part of a crazy city that we hadn't seen before. We'll have to do it again sometime.

look what I did!

Remember those flowers I planted? If not, here's a reminder. That was on June 29th. Check them out today! From zero blooms, to 5 and almost 4 more on top of that! Sweet. I love sunny California.

One Tasty Taqueria

I haven't blogged much lately about food. It isn't that there isn't good food here... in fact we've enjoyed it a lot. One of our favorites is In-n-Out Burger. We ate it from time to time when we lived in Phoenix. I've also been cooking some... now that I have a real kitchen. that isn't the point of this post, though. The point of this post is to share the experience we had tonight. We went to a place called Garcia's Taqueria. It is a hole-in-the-wall for sure... no question there, but it is authentic mexican food... like so authentic that we were the only people of our ethnicity in the whole place. It is my favorite when I find a place like that.
Blake ordered a "Super Burrito" with Carne al Pastor (we think it was beef and pork). When they said Super, they really meant SUPER. It put every burrito we've ever ordered anywhere to shame size wise. Blake only ate 1/2 of it. I ordered a quesadilla with chile verde pork (spicy pork with green sauce). When the lady asked if I wanted the small or large, I said... "Large, I guess." since that was all I was ordering... and it was only $4 at that. I was surprised when it arrived and the tortilla was 18" in diameter. Wow, I may have eaten 1/3 of it. Needless to say, we have A LOT left over.
We also had a sweet treat from my past... Manzana. It is a yummy apple soda that I had when i was on a mission trip in Mexico during high school. I don't know that Blake had ever had it, so I insisted that he give it a try. His review... "It was alright." If you know Blake, that could either means he loves it or hates it. Who knows. I still don't.
Ok, so all this to say, we really enjoyed Garcia's Taqueria. It was good, cheap, and fast, but you know you aren't in TX when it doesn't have air conditioning in the restaurant. Most days it wouldn't be needed, but we are having a "heat wave", so that made it a little interesting.
Note to self: if it is warm outside, wait till sunset to go. As we were leaving, I think it had cooled of 15 degrees.

Update on Flowers and Hummingbirds

This is an update to the post about green thumbs...
And the answer to if I have one or not is... YES! At least so far, I do. Below, you will see my first flower. There were a few blooms when I got the flowers, but I'm not taking the credit for them, but I will take credit for this one...

We DO have humming birds! I got the hummingbird feeder at the same time I got the flowers, but I hadn't seen any until today. This is the only picture I got before Bo fulfilled his position as watch dog. He didn't even see the bird. He just saw that I was looking out the window and thought there must be something out there for him. I did manage this one "paparazzi like" photo. Yes, those are our bedroom blinds on the side of the picture. I was stalking the hummingbird until my cover was blown by my not-so-stealthlike dog.

Here's another random picture. Bo, the watchdog, thinks there is something in the corner of the patio. Every time we go out there, he sticks his face in it and sniffs like crazy. There isn't any more to this story, just one strange dog.

proof...

Bo asked me to post these as proof that he went out in the boat. One of the Apple guys that went to Monterey Bay with us took these.

Is my thumb green?

Maybe... We'll see in a few weeks. We are the proud owners of some new flowers. I've never tried to grow flowers, but today that has changed. We started small... just one little flower basket on the patio. I'll keep you posted on how they make it. I think most plants around here do really well since the weather is so nice, so if I fail at this... it will be a sad day.I thought it turned out really pretty, so here's a picture.
We've also seen a few humming bird feeders around, so we decided to try our luck with that as well. It isn't as exciting as flowers, but here's a picture.

finding out if dogs swim

the answer.... yes, but we didn't test that one today. We did, however take a little kayaking trip down to Monterey Bay with some apple people. We thought it might be fun to take Bo along instead of leaving him home all day alone, so we got him a little life jacket and along he came. It was fun! Blake and I took a 2 person kayak and Bo rode on my lap. He really did great except for the few minutes after he realized how far we were from shore, but he calmed down soon enough. The water was freezing. Both Blake and I were wearing wet-suits and a paddling jacket as you can see in the pictures, so we stayed warm except for walking out into the water to get into the boat and getting out of the boat to come back on shore.
We don't have any way to keep any of our cameras dry, so we just took these few photos on the beach after the trip, but a few of Blake's friends had waterproof cameras, so maybe they will share some of the photos taken while we were paddling and of the wildlife that we saw. There were otters, seals, pelicans, and all sorts of birds that dove under the water. They would swim right up close to the boat just to check the people out. Cool!
Anyway, enjoy a few pictures...These were a few of blake's friends before they came back to shore.

To Steve and Becky

To Steve and Becky, I saw this tonight and it made me think of you guys... and mmmmmmmm it was good too! Miss you guys!

To my Mom...

Dear Mom, We are so glad you got to join us on our road trip and celebrate your birthday with us. I thought I'd share some of our pictures from your little "birthday trip" to San Francisco. We love you! - Whitney and Blake
For my Mom's birthday, we thought it might be fun to take a little drive to see the Golden Gate Bridge and Pier 39. This is a view of the bridge from across the bay.Alcatraz Island... I'd love to get to go out there one day... but we didn't have time.The seals at Pier 39.We had dinner at Bubba Gumps on the end of Pier 39. The view was awesome as we got to look out over the water, boats, and sunset. These first 2 photos were taken while we were waiting to get seated. Those are some NIIIICE shoes! I wish I could have gotten a pair. haha.Blake consulting Zoltar, the fortune teller.Thanks again mom for coming with us, and we hope you had a really
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

the end of a long roadtrip

Well, we finally made it. We reached Sunnyvale (a few days ago). The last day of driving was the most beautiful, so I thought I'd share some pictures of the scenery.
These are the elephant seals that we saw. How cool are they!?! Just a cool rock that was at the same place as the seals. This guy was pretty funny. He would move about 5 feet and decide it was too much work and would stop... rest for a bit... and then start moving again.
The view from a cliff on the side of the road. I think they call them "vista points" around here.Bo's not too sure about this.... but soon he gained his confidence and took in the view.
Here we are... we've reached "the mothership". Blake wouldn't let me take his picture in front of it. This is all he would let me take.How amazing is it all? I'll do my best to keep you up to date on the happenings of California, but until then...

An Update from the Road... (with pictures this time!)

Some pictures from the road...
The Thing!?!? Blake and I already had the opportunity to see "The Thing" when we were moving to Arizona a few years ago. It was such a memorable experience that we decided to take my mom as we drove through there on our way to California. The billboards for "the thing" start hundreds of miles before you actually reach "the thing", so we got her all excited about seeing "it". Here she is with "The Thing". I won't tell you what is in the box, nor will I show you the picture I took of it. I'd not want to ruin it in case you are driving down I10 through Arizona.

I took the following photos as we drove through California on the 101 and highway 1. They were just taken from the car going 70mph, so if you look carefully, you might see reflections from the car window. I thought it was just too beautiful to pass up.

The ocean near San Simeon where we are staying tonight. Don't let the sun fool you. It is actually around 50 degrees and CRAZY windy.

A little mexican food place where we ate dinner.

Quick Update

We've made it to California... San Diego to be exact. It's been a long several days of driving, but it has also been enjoyable. Bo is loving long days in the car. It is, after all, his favorite thing to do. Tomorrow we'll head toward the San Jose area, but won't make it all the way before our apartment office closes, so we'll save that for Thursday. Not a lot more to write for now, but I'll send more updates as they happen. We miss you all!