We Made It!

Friday was my last day of work in Kerrville, and I was emotional to say the least. I really love all my patients and coworkers and it was hard to say goodbye. Therapy can be a really tough and thankless job sometimes, but on Friday I felt so appreciated and loved by both patients and coworkers and I am so blessed to have been able to spend 4 months with them. A few tears were shed, but as I kept reminding myself (in the words of CS Lewis) there are far better things ahead than any I leave behind.

My sweet coworkers got me a balloon, card, and Lifesaver candy on my last day!

We are officially in California! It was quite a drive, but we were able to make it in really good time over the course of 2 days thanks to 75/80 mph speed limits most of the time.  We packed up the cars Friday night, and Saturday we woke up at 2:30 so we could leave at 3 and be in Phoenix by a decent time Saturday night- a 15 hour drive from San Antonio. As you can see, Macie wasn't quite ready to wake up..

The drive was absolutely beautiful (most of the time) and on Saturday alone we drove almost 1,000 miles, were in 3 states, and 3 different time zones. Macie drove with me and spent most of the trip sleeping in her snuggly warm bed in the passenger seat. What a life. Although she was not a fan of the desert which required her to go potty in the sand. She was like "no way mom!" and held it all day until we got to Phoenix.

A really cool rock canyon in AZ

When we stopped for lunch, Braden said he was disappointed that we were in New Mexico and they didn't have a green chile burger on the menu. I started laughing because we had already been in Arizona for over an hour! We made it to Phoenix at about 3:30, pretty much exactly 14 hours after we set out (with the time change) and with 4 stops too. We were able to stay with Braden's aunt and uncle, and I'm really glad we were able to because we had a really good time with them, and it is always nice getting to spend time with family.  Our internal clocks are pretty confused to say the least, but we tried really hard to stay up 'late' to help our bodies adjust to pacific time. On Sunday we were going to take a detour to the Grand Canyon, but since we were so tired we decided to go ahead and go straight to LA, which was only about 5 hours away from Phoenix. So we slept in, had a nice breakfast with Braden's family, then made our way to LA. 

It was so exciting to finally pass this sign!

We go to LA about 4 PM on Sunday. This time around we booked a king suite, which has a king bed and is bigger than the suite we lived in in San Antonio. We are really enjoying our new set up! The only thing that was a little surprising was that we don't have an oven, and our closet door is a curtain. Otherwise the room and hotel is way nicer than the one we had in San Antonio. It feels more like a small apartment than a hotel room.

Today we "slept in" (by sleeping in I mean our bodies are still adjusting to pacific time so we slept in by central time standards, but woke up early by pacific time) and spent the day unpacking and getting to know the area we are in. We really lucked out because most everything we need (Wal Mart, Trader Joe's, Costco, Sam's, etc) are within a 10 minute drive. We really live in a great area! We keep pinching ourselves every time we look out the window and see the mountains. We can't believe we will be living here 6 months! It feels like we are here only on vacation and in a few days we will have to pack up and leave again.

We also went shopping to get food and supplies, joined Costco (I love wholesale places!) and got lunch at In-N-Out, which was so so yummy. Since we don't have a stove, I bought a toaster oven. I am also way excited to get to play with my other new gadget, a fabric steamer! Even Macie was a beneficiary of our shopping spree, with a new toy- Petco has a line of Star Wars toys and we couldn't resist buying her a Chewbacca squeaky toy! She has the hardest time adjusting to a new place since I adopted her from the pound, she has some abandonment issues and gets nervous whenever we move to a new place. Poor baby! She is doing well though, and is loving the weather here. This week since I am off work we are planning to take it easy, and possibly going to my favorite place, Disneyland.
We are really loving California and can't wait to keep exploring and getting to know the area!
Here's to a great week!