I Won't Go Hollywood

This week has been really great! Tuesday night we visited a young marrieds small group with the church we have been going to, and we really enjoyed it a lot. It was great to meet other couples since we don't have any family or know anyone in the area. Work went well this week too, and I was even able to spend some time on Friday developing the program I want to implement. Saturday was of course spent watching college football (Go bears! still undefeated and #5 in the AP rankings!) and then Saturday night we went to Downtown Disney with a couple that we met at our small group, and had a lot of fun. We ate at ESPN Zone which is a really cool sports bar type place with tons of TV's and games, and the food was pretty decent too. We were able to walk around, and even got to watch end of the fireworks from Disneyland! 

Today we drove down to Hollywood. It's kinda underwhelming to be honest and definitely not as glamourous as you would think. I had been before, but Braden had never been. Unfortunately it was really smoggy/hazy so the mountains Hollywood sign weren't very clear.

Us with the Hollywood sign in the background. I promise it's there!

Hollywood sign

El Capitan Theater

George Clooney's hand and footprints at the Chinese Theater. Taken specially for my recruiter Amy!

Harry Potter cast

There are lots of people on the street dressed as different characters who want to take pictures  with you for money. If you look closely, you can see Minnie and Mickey Mouse, Jack Sparrow, Wolverine, Bumble Bee, and Optimus Prime

Us with Hollywood Blvd in the background- Jimmy Kimmel Live building

Hollywood and Highland Center

It was really fun just walking around and seeing the Walk of Fame, Hollywood sign, and the Dolby Theater, where the Oscar's are hosted. In the entryway they have every Best Picture winner and the year it won. It is definitely a must see if you are in California!

This week is Halloween, and I am trying to figure out what I am going to be because I'm supposed to dress in costume for school. Halloween costumes weren't exactly on my packing list. I wanted to go as a three hole punched version of Melissa (The Office reference), but Braden told me I wasn't allowed to because kids wouldn't get it (they wouldn't). My second choice was Harry Potter, but Party City didn't have a costume for that! My dad will also be in town this week, and is taking us to a Lakers game in the company suite! Can't wait! We are also officially getting to go to back to Houston for Thanksgiving and I am so excited to get to see my family. 

Here's to a great week! I can't believe the countdown to holiday season is almost here! I love Christmas and Thanksgiving (Calories don't count on those days, so let's all agree to just have a good time)

Cali Lately

I have been a little bit delinquent in my posting! I am usually on top of updates, but have gotten a little behind. To be honest, not too much has happened since my last update except a lot of sleeping and watching football. I have actually been taking naps (!!!) on the weekend which if you know me you know is a super rare occurrence because my body doesn't typically like to sleep no matter how tired I am. Like now, I am currently typing this at 3:45 (Cali time) and have been awake for quite awhile and can't fall back asleep. My body hates me. Anyway, luckily I have been able to catch up on my sleep on the weekends, and watch a lot of football. I love college football season! So I try to watch as much as I can- Braden says I'm like a walking scoreboard. It has been a great football season for the bears (they are ranked 12 and still undefeated!)!  Not so great for the razorbacks, but I'm sure once Bielema settles in it will get better. 

I have settled in pretty well at my new job. It is quite a bit different in the cueing and approach to therapy but I'm getting more and more comfortable with it. You would think that there wouldn't be much in common with geriatrics and peds, but I have been surprised how much of my knowledge and skills do carryover. You never know what to expect working with autism, just like geriatrics! Every day is different and I am thankful for really great support from my coworkers. My contract has had really bad experiences with speech therapists- I mean really bad. I keep apologizing and saying I promise we aren't all like what you have experienced in the past! One of my projects here is actually to design and develop their speech program- it's a daunting task, but I am pretty excited about this huge opportunity!

Obviously things in Cali are different from Texas- there's the obvious like higher gas prices and just prices in general, but here are some of my non captain obvious observations:

1. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason  to traffic or lack of traffic. I actually don't usually run into traffic on my commute to and from work which is awesome, but when I do it doesn't make sense. There isn't a pattern on when there is or isn't traffic. There will just randomly be dead stop traffic at the most random times for no reason. 

2. People here don't understand the greatness that is Chick-Fil-A. I have had several people say "oh is that place good? I've never eaten there" WHAT? 

3. I have had to explain my obsession with Dr Pepper. When I bought a Dr Pepper at a gas station the attendant said "do you really like that stuff? I think it tastes like cough medicine" maybe Dr Pepper is more of a southern thing, but cough medicine, really?

4. The CRV really sucks. It's an extra tax that you pay on anything plastic. It's supposed to encourage you to recycle and when you do you get that money back. I really don't appreciate the extra 1.20 I have to pay whenever I buy a package of Smart Water at Costco. CRV should really stand for crafty revenue venture

5. I love the weather. It's perfect. Although I have been pretty cold because its quite a bit cooler than Texas. The best part is there is no humidity so 90 degrees on California feels a lot cooler than 90 degrees in Texas. The smog does take getting used to- some days it blocks out the mountains which is weird, and there are cancer warning signs posted everywhere. Yay!

This weekend is going to be pretty laid back. Braden is in Little Rock for a wedding so it's just Macie and I holding down the fort! 

We have been going to the church that is literally right next to our hotel, and next week we are hoping to visit a young marrieds small group. Hopefully we will be able to get plugged in and meet some great couples!

Here's to a great weekend of rest, relaxation, and college football!

Staycation Recap!

Last week I was off work so we spent the week exploring the area, catching up on sleep (a few nights of 11 hours of sleep!), and having a lot of fun! On Tuesday, we were able to go to my favorite place in LA- Santa Monica! We walked around the 3rd street promenade and ate at my favorite restaurant, Barney's Beanery. After lunch, we went down to the pier and walked around. It was a really pretty day, and the only negative was the bad traffic on the way home!

Santa Monica pier!

CA coastline

On Thursday, we were able to go to the happiest place on earth, Disneyland! I love Disneyland and was so excited to be back. I think I was more excited than most of the kids, and Braden told me if I didn't stop skipping he wouldn't walk with me. Sorry I'm not sorry I was so excited!

On the tram to go to Disney!

Disney had all their halloween decorations up

Since we went on a weekday mid-week, the lines weren't long at all, with the exception of a few rides. We were able to ride some rides multiple times! Since we got Hopper tickets where we could go to both parks (the way to go!), we went to both Disneyland and California Adventure.

Happiest place on earth!

Our picture from Space Mountain

It's a Small World

Braden's favorite ride was the Star Wars simulation ride

My favorite ride is Tower of Terror. We are in the back row!

Next up was Cars Land! It is really cool. When you turn down the street, you really feel like you're in the movie! The cars roller coaster was the ride we waited the longest for, but it was really fun and so well done. I love how Disney rides are so elaborate.

After the rides, we watched some of the Disney parade. It is quite a production.

Simba!

Mickey and Minnie

After the parade, we went back to California Adventure for the show "World of Color". It is an amazing water and lights show to music and clips from different Disney movies. The pictures don't do it justice, it was really incredible and even Braden liked it!

It was a long day, but so much fun! We are still trying to get used to looking out our back window and seeing mountains (and smog!) but it's something we don't mind getting used to!

Macie is loving California! She especially likes that it really sunny, the bigger room (all the more room to run around!) and the bigger bed (all the more room to stretch her little legs!). I have successfully survived 3 days of peds therapy- while I felt a little like a fish out of water the first day, I am starting to get the hang of it and get into the new routine. My dad was in town last night and we were able to go out to dinner with him. It's nice that he has so much work in the area and we will get to see him often. Here's to finishing out the week strong!

San Antonio Top 10

Flashback! As my mom says, you can cry until you leave but once you close the door it's time to look forward to what's ahead instead of what you're leaving behind. I know it's a little late, but I need to look back at our top 10 favorite things we did while we were in San Antonio!

1. Hiking Enchanted Rock- the view was absolutely breathtaking! It was definitely worth the drive. I wish we would've had enough time to hike the trail around the rock and explore the caves.

2. Tower of the Americas- The views are simply amazing. Going to eat dinner is a really incredible experience.

3. Sporting events- We were able to go to two San Antonio Scorpions soccer games (a really great value and fun environment) and a Baylor football game. While Baylor is technically not in San Antonio, San Antonio is close to lots of other fun places in Texas.

4. Riverwalk/Alamo/The Guenther House- I lumped these together because they are all pretty much in the same place. If you are in San Antonio you have to go to the Riverwalk and the Alamo. We didn't get to go in and read all the history and stuff, but I highly recommend it. The Guenther House has the best breakfast and cinnamon rolls!

5. Schlitterbahn- The water park is the best I've been to. We waited to go in September when they weren't as busy. It was still pretty busy, so I can't imagine how terrible the lines would have been if we had gone in June or July!

6. Fredericksburg- Walking around main street and going to all the cute shops is really fun. They have some really good restaurants and a lot of the store fronts/buildings still have the original architecture. I wish we would have had time to visit the National Museum of the Pacific War.

7. Shopping- One of our favorite things was getting to go to the outlet mall in San Marcos. La Cantera is also a really great outdoor mall that's really pretty.

8. Retama Park- I love horses, and getting to watch horse racing is always fun. The local racetrack has really good drink and food deals on certain days, so its a really cheap and fun date night, even if you don't like to gamble!

9. Port Aransas- again, this isn't in San Antonio, but you can't beat a beach 2.5 hours away! We have been going to PA for years, and it's always lots of fun.

10. James Avery/Kerrville- If you're in the area you need to go to the James Avery headquarters! Also in Kerrville is a replica of Stonhenge, which is so random but really fun to visit!

One thing we didn't get to do was going to a bat preserve to watch 7 million bats fly out of their cave. It sounds pretty creepy but also really cool at the same time.

We loved our time in San Antonio!

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!

Sic Em Bears!

This weekend was amazing. It was our last weekend in San Antonio and Texas before we move to California. Since we don't know when we will be back, we decided to go to a Baylor football game. Waco is about three hours from San Antonio, so on Friday night we decided to drive half way and spend the night in Austin. We went to my absolute favorite restaurant, the Hula Hut, on Lake Austin. It is right on the water and has a beautiful view. It had rained earlier that day and it was pretty slow there, so we were able to sit down right away, and at a table over the water. The food is awesome- I got my usual shrimp quesadilla which was amazing.

We enjoyed our margaritas on the lake!

The view from our table

Texas state capital at night

On Saturday morning, we met some friends at 24 diner in Austin. It was delicious and great to catch up with friends before we move!

After breakfast, we headed the rest of the way to Waco. Timing ended up being perfect. We arrived in time to walk around campus a little bit and go to the bookstore where we were able to stock up on Baylor gear! I was finally able to find a hat that I liked, and got a license plate holder, t shirt, and v neck shirt.

I forgot that I walked over my favorite verse on the way to the parking garage!

Good times in NoRo 245, my freshman dorm! 

 We also got to hang out with the Baylor bears, Joy and Lady!

 Good old Neil Morris, home of the communication disorders department and where I spent most of my time at Baylor

Hanging out on the Baylor love swings! They have these swings in trees all over campus

Traditional Baylor picture with Judge Baylor, with Pat Neff Hall in the background

After shopping at the bookstore (and waiting in the longest line ever) we headed over to the stadium. We parked on campus and rode one of the free shuttles over to Floyd Casey. This is the last year Baylor will play there because they are opening the new stadium on campus next year. 

 Our seats were in the top corner, which actually ended up working out pretty nice because we could see everything and if you stood on the top row of the stadium you got a breeze. The game was so much fun and it was great being back at my alma mader. Baylor's football team is insane, and scored 35 points in the first quarter! We were getting thirsty so I said after Baylor scored I would go get us water. Baylor scored, I went down, got cash from the ATM and then came back up to our seats and in that amount of time Baylor had already scored again. Crazy. The one thing neither one of us thought about was sunscreen. So both of us got pretty burned. It was so frustrating because we could feel ourselves burning and could do nothing about it. I finally wrapped some paper around my feet, held one over my face, and some over my legs to try to prevent more burning. Braden said I looked pretty ridiculous but I think it helped.

 This is the Baylor president, Ken Star, running and leading the Baylor Line, which is all the freshmen who run the length of the field then make a human tunnel for the football team to run through. It is a lot of fun!

 The band made Dory during their halftime show!

The beautiful Waco skyline from the stadium

After the game, we were able to meet my college roommate Charissa at one of my favorite restaurants in Waco, Food for Thought. Their pizza is amazing and it was even better than I remember.

On the way home, we were sunburned and tired, but got to see this gorgeous sunset!

In other news, we are moving in t-minus 2 days! Bright and early Saturday morning. We are busy packing and downloading music and audiobooks for the drive. I checled the weather for LA once we get there and this is the weather report:

It's ok to be jealous! We can't wait. San Antonio has been great, but we are ready for our new adventure.