Flashback Friday

Four years ago Carrie moved from one place to another over her birthday weekend and I drove from So Cal to help her. I also bought and paid for her birthday present! Yep for her birthday, I got Carrie her tattoo! :) I had mine for three years at this point and she had been wanting the one she got for nearly as long, so after lots of moving and all sorts of other weekend fun - she got her tattoo! Yep I'm contribuiting to the delinquency of my friends. :) We had a great time even though we were WORN OUT! So in honor of a new decade that is rapidly approaching: Happy Birthday, Carrie! (a tad early)

Year Four

Our fourth year can be summed up in two main events: pregnancy and house-buying. Those were the big check boxes that our team decided to tackle for our fourth year of marriage. Year three was out of country travel ;-) Year four we had to kick it up a notch and buying a house and getting pregnant seemed like good things to accomplish in year four of our union.

Our fourth year was started out pretty status quo, my work situation was becoming increasingly ridiculous and a change was on the horizon there "any day" every day. I eventually quit less than a week after we closed on our house. After finding out we were pregnant, I chose to start my SAHM duties early and kept myself busy at home.

For several weeks prior to quiting, our lives were consumed with house hunting, paperwork, inspections and all the good festive headaches that come with buying a home. Then they were quickly transitioned into the appliance, carpet, paint buying and decision making mode. Then we moved in. :) The first thing we did when we moved in was put up the Christmas tree. It was past Thanksgiving and I was dying. I always ALWAYS put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving - and to have to wait an extra 5+ days was torture for me. We had no furniture in the house, but we had a tree :) We moved in officially a week later. And a few days after that we confirmed that I was pregnant.

We spent Christmas proper in So-Cal with my family and it was a delightful time. Especially announcing to everyone that we were going to have a baby in August 2008! It was an exciting, yet nauseous time for us me. Well he was excited - but not so nauseous. 2008 was riddled with doctor's appointments and many firsts. First heartbeats, first movements, the ever expanding baby belly. Loving Husband was ever so attentive during my pregnancy and took wonderful care of me and our son.

We wrapped up our fourth year by celebrating early in case Ace came at one of our favorite places to celebrate our anniversary - the lodge by the falls. It was an enjoyable and relaxing time for us. It was our final anniversary as just the two of us. We were weeks away from embarking on a challenging and most rewarding endeavor: raising our son!

Moved!

That's right - we have moved into our new place!
Still need to clean the other place and get the last bits of stuff - but for the most part we have everything over here and slowly making it's way into its proper place. Yay!
Loving Husband's off to San Francisco for a week! I've got to get back to studying!

Snowing, Moving, & Studying....

Yay weather! This last week has been very pretty with all this snow, but very frustrating to drive around in - solid ice slabs we once called roads are what we have to drive on... Loving Husband last night was out in our drive way chipping the ice off our driveway so that we could park the car in the garage... today it finally warmed up to high 30s so some of the ice melted away and driving around was much easier, and with the sun out it's really pretty!

On another note... we are moving! Yep that's right we're headed further into the city and into a smaller place. This place was nice, but always temporary... so we're still renters, but paying less and have less space. We are signing the lease tonight and will be out of this place by the end of next month - so before the bar exam we'll be in our new place for sure.

That's all for now ... pictures of snow and our new place will follow soon, but I must go listen to a Sale's lecture right now! Yay bar studying!

A Resident

Yep that's me!!! Yes, today (after waay past the legal time period [30 days]) I procured my State Driver's License. So, I can legally drive, vote and donate my organs here its quite exciting, I know.

Whats more exciting was my past weekend although the NW is getting to be less painful to live in finding a few friends here and there to hang out with yay! California is still waaaay more fun because Carrie is there and THIS weekend, Becky was too! And Randy and Alicia! Oh that excitement! It was a tiring weekend, but highly social all around.

I managed to cram in a visit from my mom and grandma, 3 full days with Carrie with much wedding excitement (yay!) and a few hours with Becky and Co.. Getting to meet her new man, her roomie shes had FOREVER, and see my second mom and dad.  It was a ton of excitement and it really perked me up out of my funk, stated in my last blog.

I am so excited that although I am several states away from Carrie that I can still help her plan her exciting day AND she asked me to be a bridesmaid!!! Woohoo! Her dress is beautiful, the one Ill be wearing is too, but no worries - the bride will be stunning and myself and the other two fine ladies by her side will be cute. ;-) hehe. Wedding planning can be stressful, but I find that for the most part the venue shopping this weekend was amazingly exciting and fun. Can I say exciting one more time?! Hehe so happy for Carrie and Jason! On a different note, CONGRATS to Mark and Shelia! Oh weddings weddings weddings 2007 is going to be grand!

Interviewed for a job today my feelings after EH not that it is a bad job, but I didnt get the HIRE vibe from them, nor did I feel a crushing sense of sadness from the lack of that vibe either so well see. Its downtown and theres no parking another feeding factor to the EH feeling. I will keep you posted. For now Im going to go watch some tv and relax and hope this retched cough goes away.

We're Here!

Although it doesn't seem as anyone BUT Carrie cares that we are... since there were no other comments except from my road-trip buddy... but I digress and plan to write a stellar blog that all of you can simply be amused by and leave no interesting feedback for me. (I'm not sad or bitter, really!)

So, we left San Carlos around 10:30am on Sunday morning. A bit later start than we intended, but that's ok. Carrie took this leg of the drive! Some say it saved our lives... just because I'm a fast driver and twists and turns don't mix well with that... hmmph! Well, thank you Carrie for saving my life and yours!!! ;-) We stopped in Starbucks where we acquired and extra riding buddy... nameless until we hit the town of Willits, where we appropriately named him Will Carlos (Adopted from the San Carlos Starbucks) He's a bear by the way... not a serial rapist that couldn't catch a cab.
We drove on the 101 for many many miles on Sunday. We went over a very foggy Golden Gate Bridge, drove past many green trees and few blue skys, said hello to Paul and his pal Blu and somewhere around 5:30pm we said goodbye to California!

We continued our trek into Oregon and for the most part were clouded over, but still a great drive. We amused ourselves with dashboard photos and random shots out the car, T-Rex "replicas" and attempting to find a decent station to play our iPods on. We drove well into the evening and even into the night where we finally stumbled into Coos Bay on the Oregon coast and got a hotel room at 9:30pm. We wearily approached the counter, requested a room and got one with a spa in it! Oh yah! So Carrie and I took our belongings to the room and went back out to McD's to get ourselves Oreo McFlurries. Came back hopped in the spa, ate our delicious treats and watched SATC. Excellent! It was wonderful!!! We got to sleep around midnight.



We woke up around 8am on Monday morning and again Carrie started the trek up the 101 after an hour or so we cut over onto the 126 and headed towards the I-5. Got ourselves some lunch a little up the 5, switched driving positions, and then drove straight on into town around 5pm. Yay!!!! We had made it. Had dinner with Loving Husband and his parents, saw my kitties and then came back to my home to watch a movie on the computer while sitting on the air mattress and drinking some champagne. What a way to end a road trip! It was most excellent.

This trip was far more interesting than the last one, and I can't think of anyone I would have rather done this trip with! Love you Carrie!

On the Road Again...

Well, Carrie and I enjoyed excellent shopping at the Outlets and were quite successful with a few purchases on our way up to San Jose on Friday, enjoying a few stops for food, clothing and gas. We arrived at my Aunt and Uncle's around 6:30pm on Friday, not too terrible, we were worried that we had spent too much time browsing through clothing stores and we were going to miss dinner, but we made it. My Aunt fixed us a lovely meal and we all spent the rest of the evening and well into the night sitting around and chatting and consuming way more than the recommended dosage of wine (for any of our tastes) ::cough:: 6 bottles. We finally all headed to bed around 2am.


We then awoke way too early for any of our tastes on a NORMAL day and we got ready and my Uncle, Carrie and myself headed to Monterey Bay to see the World Famous Aquarium. One more "theme" park for me to visit before leaving California. However, before we headed to Monterey we had to go shopping, yes it is true we really had to. My Aunt and Uncle had been invited to a rather posh birthday party for a co-worker of my Aunt who was turning 50 and Carrie had to purchase a dress, and we both had to buy shoes. (Yay for packing all shoes I own but flip flops). So we accomplished those two tasks and headed out to the Aquarium. It was great. The jellie fish were by far the greatest, they were amazing. We walked around for a few hours and enjoyed the view and excitement of the area and then we were headed North again back to "home".

We arrived back to the house and got ready for the party. It was a lot of fun, the hordourves were amazing! I couldn't believe all the exciting different things we had to chose from, but man did we get full. :) We socialized minimally, enjoyed another glass or two of wine and then headed out after we partook in the amazing dessert spread. Delicious. We got home and had a mild evening and turned in rather early. We were all dead from our excitement the night before.

And now I sit typing away... getting ready to leave here and head back out onto the 101. We will go over the San Francisco Bridge and see many lighthouses in Oregon. And at some point we will simply crash in a hotel for the night - wherever we are too tired to go on at. :) So wish us luck! There will be another update when we arrive into our final destination on Monday!

And We're Off

It's really happening... Carrie and I are leaving today to head up the 101 on our last adventure to the NW(via car) UNLESS I can convince her and Jason to move there and then I will gladly entertain another road trip! Hehe Until then! ROAD TRIP!

Movers

It's my last day in So Cal. The Movers are now here wrapping things up and packing them into the giant semi that's parked out in front of the house. I'm sorta cleaning around them as they go so that I can get out of here as soon as I can. Not that I was to leave So Cal that bad - I think you can gather that that is not the case. But just so my landlord can come and do the final walk through and I can go get some food. I am starving! I have a cup of water and some tangerine altoid sours. MMM...

After the movers are done and everything is out of here... I'll turn in my keys and go sit at the beach for a minute or two. It's the last time that the beach will be home for me. And although I have only swam the Pacific Ocean ONCE since I've called So Cal home, I still enjoyed many sunsets, tanning sessions and random late night frolics with friends. (frolics in the clean sense of the word, sickos!) So the beach I must make an appearance at before I leave.

Then I will head to PB and drop of my cable equipment and then on the road to Los Angeles the first leg of the road trip where I will arrive at Carrie's and CRASH - I am so tired, sore and just plain exahusted.

Good-bye So Cal!

Packers...

Not the Green Bay kind (even though are my second favorite to the Saints!) ... but those that are packing up my entire life as I sit and observe. It's strange. Also at times disconcerting as to their methods and organization of packing. Sigh. I can't believe that I am leaving So Cal tomorrow! Yah I'll be back in like 20 days for a week for Troy and Jackie's wedding (yay!) but it won't be the same. I won't be a resident of So Cal anymore, I won't even still be a Californian!

It's just hard to believe that 8 years has come and gone and that these past few weeks have gone by even faster. I said goodbye to Shannon, Nikki and Jessica on Saturday (of course I'll see them again!) but it's still sad. Over the past week I sat in Jazz & Java for over 8 hours catching up and saying goodbye to Mark and Rah Rah (hehe!). I said goodbye to my Grandma and my Mom on Monday. It's going to be the hardest to be away from them. Until now, I've been able to drive up if they ever needed me... and although I can still do the same with a quick flight the logistics of it all will be far more taxing (and costly!) I said goodbye to Cassandra today, (THANKS FOR BREAKFAST!) and tonight, I'll say goodbye to Lys. I haven't cried yet... I'm sure Carrie will receive the tsunami force of those tears! But it is all very sad. Yes, I am excited for this new chapter of my life and I am sure the best is yet to come... but it's still incredibly sad.

The movers come tomorrow at 7:30am to disassemble and move to the truck all of what remains of my So Cal life. It's just so hard to believe, hard to fathom. Hard.

Yet, Carrie and I still have a fabulous road trip ahead of us, which I am very much looking forward to! Its going to be great. Friday we head out!!!

History Keeps Moving On...

I've been thinking about this phrase "history keeps moving on" ... it's what my dad wrote in my mom's scrapbook from her 50th birthday party. So much wrapped up into it. And although it sounds strange, I find it ever so perfect to describe life in its current state.

Today, May 10th, it has been 6 months since my grandfather died. It doesn't seem quite possible that that much time has gone by. But it has. And yet the last 4 months has seemed like a dragging struggle in my dealing with my dad's death. Time is most certainly a vacuum in and of itself. I go longer periods of time now between crying, but I still do ... history keeps moving on.

5 years ago next week, I moved into this apartment with two other girls. In 30 days, I will move out of it - the sole survivor for that period of time. It was my first apartment, my first home on my own. I've celebrated in this home, I've survived a couple rocky roommates in this home, I've had my heart crushed in this home, I was in this home on that fateful 9/11 day, I've had 5 Christmases in this home, I've made a best friend in this home, I've had amazing dinner parties in this home, I've had many game nights in this home, I've had traditions started in this home, I've graduated twice out of this home, I've gotten ready for my wedding in this home, I've made it my first home with my husband, I've lived alone for the first (and only time) in this home, I've been through so much in this home. It is hard to believe that at the age of 20, I moved into this apartment with Alyssa and Carrie and then Faith shortly after that... Getting ready to start my senior year of college. And here we are now... 5 years later- I am the only one left in the apartment, I am wrapping up my first year of teaching college, and I am headed to the NW to start a new chapter in my life ... history keeps moving on.

Everything is changing...

Carrie Moved!

Carrie moved back to L.A. today. I'm sad.