California Fall

I know it's been a while since our last post. Here's a little bit about what we have been up to:

-I got to go visit my family for about a week in September to attend Time Out For Women with my Mom and sisters. It was such a fun visit and I loved being back in Utah and seeing my family even though Kent and I missed each other a lot!

Checking out the ducks at Willow Park Zoo

The cutest puddle jumper

The coolest little lady and her coolest Mama

Love holding that tiny hand :)

The best haircut cheerleader!

Love these ladies so much! (And that precious baby Max!)

-We got to speak in sacrament meeting at the beginning of October. Kent was called as the Sunday School President and I was put in as a Young Women's Advisor. Here in Rosamond, being a YW Advisor means I teach every other Sunday and that's it. I am still getting used to teaching. It's something I've never done before, and I really hate public speaking in any form, so it's been kind of hard for me. We are also on the Ward Christmas Party committee.

-Fall has brought us some chilly temperatures near unto 80-90 degrees, and our nights have been getting down to 40's and 50's, so Kent decided we should build a cover/heater for our pool.  So far it has brought our pool temperature up by 7 degrees...the perks of having a smarty pants engineer husband. :)

Our supplies

Putting it together

The best guy :)

The finished product...yay!

-We drove to Valencia to get some Cafe Rio! That makes the list because Kent is obsessed with Costa Vida and has missed it so much. Our nearest Costa Vida is about 4 hours away, so we decided an hour to get Cafe Rio was very doable! And it was delicious!!

-We got to go to the beach again this week. We chose to go to Santa Monica, and we really loved it! The pier was fun and busy. Crowds are not our thing, especially for Kent, so we spent most of our time walking down the beach. We found a nice little spot to be by ourselves and watch the sunset. It was just perfect.

That's basically all we have been up to the past little while. We are counting down until Thanksgiving when my parents and Brianne are coming to visit! Wahoo!

We Found the Ocean!

After what seemed like forever (but was really only three weeks), we finally got to drive to the coast. And guess what? There really is an ocean out here! We have been waiting to feel the sand between our toes since we came house-hunting in July so we were excited.

We decided, with the help of the Goog, to visit El Matador beach in Malibu. We were told there was a little parking lot you could pay to park in or you could park on the street and walk in. During our drive, we discovered that, with both of our wallets combined, we had a total of one dollar. High-rollers, are us. So, a passionate discussion ensued, led by Robyn, about how you should always carry cash monies because you never know when you're going to need it. How could we be so stupid, and now what are we going to do?! (Guess which one of us had the dollar? Not me.) So, we decided street parking was for us. Until we actually parked on the street. Super sketch. We were barely off the road. Long story short: we decided to check out paid parking and guess what? It actually really IS 2014! Welcome to the modern world, Kent and Robyn, you can pay for parking with your card. So, as Kent so eloquently put, if you don't need cash to go to the beach, you don't need cash. (We'll see about that.)

The beach was picture-perfect. There were quite a few people afoot, but we found a little spot to sit and pretend it was just us and the ocean. I think we have just been spoiled by the nearly empty beaches of Kauai so we will have to get used to California and all of it's people everywhere, and also get a better feel for what beaches are more our style. :) Our favorite thing about this beach were the brown pelicans. What a boring sounding bird, right? Not! They got gypped on their name! They are awesome. They fly over the ocean scanning for fish and then when they see one, they hover over it for a second and then literally dive into the water. So cool! Also, they are the bird from Jumanji!

Brown Pelican mid-dive

Innocent looking seagulls that just viciously ripped into a bag of Cheetos that washed ashore.

Brown Pelican

Also, we got a fridge. A real-life, adult fridge! After a trip to Costco to fill it up, we are eating like kings and putting ICE in our drinks. :)

Remember this little guy?

Huzzah!

To end on a high note, here is one of the many spiders we had to kill this week. Enjoy.

Desert Dwellers

We did it! We are officially California residents. And, yes, it is definitely an accomplishment for us. The first three weeks here have been, to say the least, very stressful. One car, no internet, and Kent immediately having to go to work for 9 hours a day made it very difficult for us to get ANYTHING done. And we had a lot to get done! We are loving living here, and Kent's job is an incredible blessing for us so there are no complaints here, but I will just say this: moving is STRESSFUL! :)

Unfortunately, as we had feared, the owners didn't leave us a fridge. Wah wah :( But Kent has a wonderful mini fridge that has been doing the job. Also, we are used to the mini-fridge world from living in a hotel for 2 months!

Three days after moving in, our water was shut off. It was a trial to get it turned back on due to Kent's schedule and my lack of car. It ended up taking 3 (not fun) days to get it turned back on.

Then, Kent had to take off a day of his first week of work so that we could go to the DMV. Where we spent the ENTIRE day. We both passed our written tests and got our brand new driver licenses and little Yoshi passed his tests as well and earned himself some shiny new California license plates.

We didn't have internet for the first three weeks so we had to bum off the free McDonald's wifi. I don't know what we would have done without it!

This week the last couple things fell into place. We finally got internet AND our mail key so we are feeling pretty settled now. And it is awesome.

Kent is loving his job. It's been stressful at times, as starting a new job usually is but he is really liking it and is nerding out about a lot of cool stuff he gets to do. I started school this week. I will be taking one online class from USU and then next fall I am going to start taking classes from a university here in California.

Rosamond is treating us well thus far. We live in a very nice, quiet neighborhood that we feel safe in. We've been enjoying our pool and spend a lot of time in there on Kent's days off. Our little frog neighbors love it too. We've found quite a few of those guys swimming around in there. We also found a giant spider that we swiftly dropped a brick on after rescuing from the pool.

Packing up

Kent stretching his legs during our hour and a half construction wait

Unpacking!

Hmmm this looks like the perfect size for our little fridge ;)

We can get used to this kind of sunset

Our tiny little frog friend

Our unwelcome pool guest

Kent ridding the pool of creepy giant spiders

Truth or Consequences

This weekend we got to go to Riverbend Hot Springs in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. We got to sit in our own, private pool (a cool 106 degrees) that overlooks the Rio Grande River. It was awesome!

In other news, we both got haircuts...aaaand that's about it. :)  We're excited that this is our last full week. We can't wait to get back to Utah! :)

More Visitors!

This weekend we got to spend time with Kent's parents and sister, Rashelle. We got to do a lot of fun things and see some cool stuff!

On Friday, we went to the Nuclear Science and History Museum, again. :) Luckily, there is PLENTY to learn at that museum so it was just as interesting the second time!

After the museum, we got some ice cream and then headed to the Sandia Peak Tram. The World's LONGEST Tram! Yep, it's true. After cramming 40 of us into the car, we headed up the mountain. It was really awesome. New Mexico is basically as deserty as they come, but just a tram-ride away is a different world.  Fresh mountain air, green trees, and AWESOME views of the Rio Grande Valley.

We had a delightful dinner at Olive Garden, and then headed back to the hotel. Kent, Rashelle, and I went in search of some fireworks. Since we were late-comers, there were not very many parking choices, so we found a little side road near the Isotopes Field and we were able to watch the fireworks from the car. Yay! It was perfect! U-S-A! (Kent's favorite chant!)

On Saturday, we drove to Santa Fe. We saw the San Miguel Church, and the Loretto Chapel, home of the Miraculous Staircase (as seen on "Unsolved Mysteries"). It was really cool! And, indeed, a mystery.

We ate some delicious pizza for lunch and then found some ice cream. We did a little shopping and then decided to head to Bandelier National Monument. So cool! Ancient Pueblos lived there, carving their houses/rooms into the cliffsides. We got to climb up to them and explore. Wicked awesome! We loved it.

Kent's parents left early Sunday morning, so it was just the three of us that spent Sunday together. We had a really fun day. We went to the Albuquerque Aquarium/Botanical Gardens, ate lunch at Church Street Cafe in Old Town, saw a movie, and (yep, you guessed it) got some more ice cream! Rashelle's flight ended up being ridiculously delayed. I think it ended up being about 5 hours late! So, that was no fun for her :( but we were glad for the extra time it gave us to hang out!

It was a really great weekend and we had a lot of fun. Thanks for coming to visit us! :)

California!

Last weekend we got to fly out to California to go house hunting! It was a very surreal feeling. I still can't believe we're actually going to live there. We flew in to Burbank on Thursday night and stayed until Sunday afternoon. We were supposed to land at 9:55 pm but due to some delays we didn't get in until 11:30 pm. Which meant our trusty Enterprise-Rental-Car-Guy went on home and left us high and dry. Luckily, Eric, our best Alamo friend, was still around and he hooked us up with a shiny, black Camaro! So, I would say it all worked out for the best. :)

On Friday, we looked at a couple of apartments in Palmdale. At both places, though, we were warned against looking at any other apartments in Palmdale or Lancaster, due to crime and such so we decided to just call it a day.

On Saturday, we looked at a house in Rosamond and fell in love with it! It was everything we had been hoping for, and the closest option to Kent's work. Now, we are just waiting to finalize it, but we're hoping that will be our new home for a while...fingers crossed! (We're just renting for now.) We're both really excited. Plus, it has a pool! So...what a fun place for all our nieces and nephews to come play! (hint, hint) ;)

Happy House Hunters

We are only in Albuquerque for 2 more weeks! I can't believe how fast it is going! We are definitely still enjoying ourselves here and loving our New Mexican adventure, but there's sort of a desperation to get as much family time as we can before we move in August so we are both getting anxious to get back to Utah.