The Most Amazing Day

Eriks and I had the most AMAZING day today! We have been wanting to go to the beach since we got here, but we were always busy or it was stormy. Well... we finally went today. We mainly wanted to go to the beach to collect sea glass since all of the storms brought it to the shore. For those of you who don't know, I am starting my own business. I am creating jewelry, mirrors, picture frames and a couple of other things out of sea glass and selling them at local markets and sea glass. To be able to get the business up and going, I need to get a bigger stock pile of sea glass to work with.
We started out by searching for glass, and man did we find some. The storm brought in some very unique, beautiful and BIG pieces. I have enough to starting working on several pieces! : ) After an hour or so of searching though rocks I got a little bored. I don't know why, cuz I have never been interested in it before, but I have a desire to go running. I ran along the beach for about 20 min! It was really fun. Then, Eriks and I played in the ocean for a while. I went in past my knees. The waves were amazing. I was in awe of God's creation. I know it sounds cliche but I had a worship service with just myself and God as an audience. I was just so overcome with emotion, worshiping my God was all I wanted to do at that moment.
It started to get a little colder, so for about an hour, Eriks and I played with a football. I didn't know it, but I guess I am really good at throwing the ball. Not so good at catching it...... but hay, who can be great at EVERYTHING :) . When we came home, I took a bath. I cannot remember the last time I have taken a bath. It was wonderful! Now, I am just sitting on the couch relaxing. My day has been so fantastic, I just wanted to share!

Money Makes Things So Complicated!

So, I have been sending and sending applications, and nothing. I have sent about 30 resumes and applications since I have been here. I swore to myself that I would ABSOLUTELY NOT get back into serving. But... a lot of people have been talking to me about trying it out down here. The restaurants are a lot more busy, you make minimum wage ($8) and people tend to tip here a lot more (plus they are not open until 2, major plus!). So I finally had a change of heart. I really did like waitressing, and I am really good at it, but I just had a bad experience at me last job. So, yesturday I applied at three places; The Cheesecake Factory, JOYA and ZOA Noodle Shoppe. Well I went in today for The Cheesecake factory open interviews and got a second interview! And ZOA Noodle Shoppe also called and wants to interview me tomorrow morning! I think God just wants me to work in a restaurant again. Don't know why, but whatever he knows best right!? : ) I really want the job at The Cheesecake Factory! It seems like it would be really fun and I would make a lot of money! There is just some much to do here, I want to start making money asap so I can do more stuff! But yeah, I will let you know how it goes! Wish me luck!

Our New Place

So, these are some pictures of our living/kitchen area.

This is wall #1

This is wall #2. The white door goes to the bathroom and the glass door leads outside.

This is wall #3
This is wall #4, also known as our kitchen.

This is our bathroom. The curtain on the very left hides our washer and dryer.

These are some pictures of our second bedroom
(This is half ours, half not)

This is my sewing/craft station. Lots of projects still to do!

This is our guest bed/movie watching bed

(From Left to Right)
Eriks' computer desk/my writing desk/Eriks' closet

New Years in the City!

For New Years, Eriks and I took a train into the city to watch the fireworks. It was really exciting because it was the first time I had ever ridden a train before!
Me and my train ticket.
Eriks and I on the train into San Francisco. I was really excited!

Once we got into the city, Eriks and I went and got some pizza. I tell you, since I have moved here, I have had the best pizza. There are a bunch of little pizza places and man are they good! Well anyways after dinner, we went to Safeway to get a slice of cake for desert. While we were standing in line, a fight broke out between a group of guys in front of us and a group of guys with their girlfriends behind us. While it was going on I was kind of freaking out. They weren't actually hitting each other, they were just up in each other's faces and yelling. Looking back it was actually really funny. There was this little Asian man who was the "security guard" who must have been at least 80 with no hair and only had the use of one of his eyes. Well as soon as the fight broke out, he slowly walked to the other side of the store. The things the guys were yelling at each other was actually really funny. One of the guys yelled "why don't you go home and hold your momma's purse" and the other guy responded "Go hold my momma's purse? Is that the best you can do? Hold my momma's purse?" During the whole confrontation, I was trying to go to another line but Eriks said "No I stood here in this line and I am gonna check out!"
After we found a place to eat our cake, Eriks and I had a really good chuckle about the events that had just taken place. We then walked to the bay bridge area to watch the fireworks. We had to get a sit early so that we could actually have a good spot. It was fun. We found a place to sit and just talked together.
The bridge, lights and people
The bridge and a boat
Kinda dark, but it is me with the Bay Bridge in the background

The fireworks were beautiful. San Francisco has a much bigger budget then Boise so their fireworks were better than any I had ever seen! My favorite was the purple flower fireworks. I also really liked the smiley face and the multicolored ones! After the fireworks, we walked back to the train station. I tell you, I have never seen so many drunk, and I mean really drunk people before! Eriks said this is the worst year for drunk people he has ever seen. When we got on the train, we sat on the second story, and boy am I glad we did. Not only was it really cool to sit above most everyone, but there were a lot of drunk and puking people on the train. We sat above two girls who were just obnoxious and puking everywhere.
The very drunk girls. I just had to take a picture!
Besides all the drunk drama, Eriks an I really had fun on the train. It took us an hour and a half to get back to our car just because there were so many people. But because we were on the second level, we were really above all the drama were able to really enjoy our time together.
Me goofing around on the train
Eriks on the train

We didn't get home until about 3am, but we had so much fun! I am so excited to see what 2010 has in store for us!

The Move to California!

Before we left, the cats just loved playing in the boxes

So we left on Saturday December 26th 2009. It started off a little rough at Uhaul. It took us an hour to get our trailer because the first one didn't work, and they kept blaming our car. So finally they tried a different trailer and it worked. I felt a little bad because my family was waiting for us at our apartment the whole time. We finally made it back to our apartment around10ish. When we got they, there was a lot of work to be done. We still had to finish packing some random stuff and load EVERYTHING up. My family was such a big help. To be honest, I really didn't do all that much. I was just so overwhelmed by everything I kinda just walked around. We have so much stuff! I honestly don't think we could have taken anything more than what we did. My dad, brother and Eriks all had to literally shove the last bit in the trailer while someone pulled the door closed. I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to get the door closed or not. We finally departed around 1pm. The goodbyes were really hard, especially for my mom and me. I finally stopped crying just outside of Marsing. I wish Baldur had stopped by then. That silly cat would not stop yelling. We finally pulled over and gave him some more sedatives. We think that he must not have swallowed them the first time because about a half an hour after we gave him the second dose he calmed down. We stopped for the night in Winnamucka. We kinda splurged with the hotel but it was so worth it! It was a wonderful suite! There was a sitting area, a wonderful bed, beautiful bathroom and all the furniture was all made out or cherry! I truly felt like a princess. It was a great night. Eriks and I went to dinner then just came back and relaxed. It truly was a fabulous night! The next morning we left semi early to go to Reno. Our original plan was to spend the night in Reno, but when I called to check on our reservation, I found out that the kennel only accepts dog, and not cats. So, we had to cancel the reservation and decided to drive all the way through to Woodside Ca. Thankfully we were able to get all of our money back! We were both really hungry, so we stopped at the gas station and got a huge and completely unhealthy breakfast.
Me and our fantastic breakfast

It ended up being a really long day of driving, but we finally made it around 10 pm at our new home. Our little apartment in Lauma's (Eriks' mom) basement is amazing we have our own bathroom, 2 bedrooms, and a living/kitchen space. It was a really great start to our new life in California!
We made it!