Disclaimer

I love looking at people's blogs. It is one of my favorite things to do. I get all excited when I pull up my google reader and see unread posts. Oh, it gives me joy. When any of these people that I follow moves somewhere new, I am so anxious to see pictures of their new home. And it usually takes a while. And I get impatient. Thoughts like this go through my mind: "Seriously, no pictures yet? How long does it take to unpack?" or "How hard is it just to snap a few pictures?" or "Awww, no new post yet."

Well, out of recent experience, I have come to this realization. Moving is a lot of work. Very much so. I now understand why it takes people so dang long to post pictures. Just know this:

-We are out of our hotel (hallelujah!)

-We are really loving our new home

-We are still unpacking, but things are coming right along and we should be done soon.

So for all of those people out there, much like me, who are dying to see pictures, (are there any?)
they will be coming shortly. I would imagine that by next week things in our home will be picture worthy.

So, until then!

We needed this weekend!

This past week has been a crazy one. It really has, and I'm glad it's over. Here's how our week went down:
-Bryce had his first week of work, and that went really well. Once they start assigning him tasks, I think he'll really enjoy it. He's the greatest! :)
-I spent entirely too much time at various auto shops. First, one of our windows failed to roll back up (and still is not fixed), then we had to get the alignment fixed and the back rotors replaced. And when I thought that was the end, our rear caliper sprung a leak, and brake fluid was leaking out causing our breaks to really not work. And then our left headlight went out. Ugghh. I will say it was not fun. I had some hard days. So we really needed this weekend!

We decided to go for a drive on Saturday up the road to check out the beaches, and then we drove up to San Luis Obispo and back. Oh, the central coast is beautiful! It's really pretty spectacular to see all the farms and drive down these breathtaking rural roads.

Our first stop: Pismo Beach! That beach is pretty awesome and unique in the fact that you can just drive right through the sand, up to the waves if you want. Our poor little car would never make it, so we had to settle for the parking lot. We had fun walking along the beach, and I had fun hunting for sea shells. Note to self: Bring a bag next time to collect shells.

I like this picture that Bryce took, I love how the background it so blurry.

Here I am looking like a total nerd. I am looking for sea shells here, and notice I didn't come very prepared as I am wearing long pants and tennis shoes. Whatever, next time!

What a view!

Next stop: Shell Beach. We didn't spend that long there, because the waves went right up to the cliffs, but here's a quick video.

Our last stop was Avila Beach, and so far, our favorite! There is a pier that you can walk on, a boardwalk and lots of fun shops/restaurants, and steps that you can just sit and relax on that look out to the ocean. There was a lot going on there, and there were a ton of crazy surfers out there trying to ride the waves. The surf was so high yesterday; those people were NUTS! But for some reason Bryce is now convinced that he must learn to surf.

The pier

Those crazy surfers!

And here are a few videos of people trying to surf. Note that I am no expert in taking videos or editing them.

Hope everyone had a great week. This coming weekend: moving in to our new place!

"There's nothing like the beach in the winter . . ."

as stated by a sweet little old lady today, that we met at the beach of course. We found out that she was quite right.

We woke up in the morning to this beautiful sight. What a view from our hotel room! We were hoping it meant that the rain was subsiding. And it looks like the bad weather is finally dwindling, so that makes us happy.


We had today completely free since we aren't meeting with our realtor until tomorrow, so we spent the day yet again exploring the area. We decided to drive through some smaller towns that we will be visiting tomorrow on our "rental tour", and we loved them. And then we ventured further down the road to Santa Barbara, just for fun. What a drive!! It's so beautiful here. When we made the decision to move here, I thought it would be really flat since it's near the coast, but it's not. There are so many beautiful rolling hills and mountains, big trees, it's gorgeous. And as we were driving down the freeway, we caught a glimpse of the OCEAN! It was crazy driving right along the coast.

We made it to Santa Barbara and stopped at a few different beaches, the Arroyo Burro Beach and the Refugio State Beach. We had to take lots of pictures of the ocean, of course! Bryce said it's funny that he hadn't seen the ocean until our honeymoon and now we are within a 20 minute drive. :)

Here's a little photo (and video) shoot of our adventure.

You can kind of see a surfer in the right of this picture. We watched him for a while to see if he'd go out, but he didn't. The waves were just way too high, I think because of this crazy weather.

When we pulled up to Refugio Beach, we noticed that the big area used as a park and campground was mostly flooded over with all this standing water. It is seriously insane how much it's rained, and you can tell. A lot of farms nearby have lots of standing water. See the picture:


There we met this sweet old lady who said that there's nothing like the beach in the winter. It was really beautiful. She said that the beaches aren't crowded in the winter time and the waves are much, much closer. In the summer time the waves are a lot further out and they are packed with people sun bathing and surfing.




Well, that's all for today. Greetings from California, until next time!

What do you say we leave for California?

This video was taken on our drive to California on Wednesday. I hope you enjoy! Haha, we are such nerds.



Our drive was very interesting and very memorable. From Idaho to California, we experienced all sorts of things. Namely:

-a few snow flurries
-lots of rain.
-a stretch of pretty thick fog
-a long stretch of desert

and thanks to our GPS that lead us this way:

-lots of beautiful, back country roads
-grape vineyards
-orange orchards
-dairy farms
-flooded roads
-winding mountain passes

But we made it!! And I think we will really grow to love this place.

New year and lots of change!

I am sure you all have gathered that we are heading to California. We are pretty excited about it. This past week has been pretty busy with talking to our relocation company, the movers, the company transporting my car, the realtor, you name it. I have realized that moving is quite stressful, even when everyone else is doing everything for us (imagine if we were doing it ourselves!). We'll go on a little road trip in Bryce's car and will make it there Wednesday night. We don't know where we are going to be living yet, but Bryce's company is putting us up in a lovely hotel until we do. Friday and Saturday our realtor is taking us on a tour to find a place to live. It's all coming together. Whew!

With the beginning of a new year we are having a lot of changes. New job, new state, totally new environment. But we are excited about that. And in light of the new year, I thought I would write down a few of my resolutions. Hopefully that's not too personal, but that way you all can hold me to it.

-Love where we live. Have a good attitude and enjoy California and everything it has to offer.
-Finish reading the Book of Mormon. Still not finished . . . I've only made it through 2nd Nephi. But I'm going to finish it!
-Continue pursuing getting my children's book published, and get my art website all up and running.
-Have a more active lifestyle. This includes eating healthy, exercising, and hopefully losing a few lb's to get my insulin resistance under control. If I can control that, it will help in our efforts in having children.

So there they are. Wish me luck. And best of luck to the rest of you in accomplishing your goals!

Spontaneous Day Drive

When Bryce and I woke up this morning, his mom suggested that we get out of town and go for a little drive to West Yellowstone. Wahoo! It was fun to have a day getaway and have some fun with the family. It is, after all, our last weekend before we move . . . and it was good to have some bonding time.

Our first stop was at Chiz's in St. Anthony. Bryce and I have been there once, and oh my--it's delicious! But it was pretty much jam packed, and there was no bathroom. That was very important for us because we needed a potty break. haha. So we faked you out. We ended up not eating there and just continued along down the road.


We headed up to Island Park which was beautiful, but not nearly as snow covered as it normally is in the winter time. We stopped at Pond's Lodge for lunch, and it was very good. I love this picture in front of the lodge. I look kind of like a cheeseball, but whatever.


Our last stop was in West Yellowstone, Montana. Bryce has fond memories of going there with his grandma and hitting up the book store and the candy shop. So of course, we had to go there! We all got a book to read and a little treat. And look at Iola, she does look like a kid in a candy store.



We had such a good time and I am sure we'll always remember our spontaneous little day drive. Thanks, mom and dad . . . what a nice last hoo-rah before we move to Californ-i-a!

Overused Phrases in 2009

Happy New Year, everyone! We thought we'd start a new tradition and post a video of our most overused phrases of 2009, an idea that Bryce got from his good friends, the Hill's. Hope you enjoy! Here's to 2010 . . . let's hope it's a good one!