No Place Like (Our New) Home

Brooklyn loves the beach! She JUMPS over the waves while singing "Jesus Wants me for a Sun-BEAM!"

My mom, Brooklyn, and Stephen chillaxin' in the pool on the 4th of July. Good times!

Our first outing to the La Jolla Shores as a family. Brooklyn and I will try to go weekly with the "play group" from our ward, but we had to bring Stephen so he could experience what we do all day while he's at work - HA!

I decided to skip day two of our journey to Utah because it wasn't that exciting, and the point is we made it there safe and sound, finally! Also, I wrote about Eric's wedding in a previous post, so we'll skip ahead to the present time...

We finally made it to San Diego after staying a week in Utah at Kath and Mike's house. However, our journey was not yet complete because we hadn't found an apartment. We stayed at Helen and Eric's house in Del Mar for Stephen's first week of work while we looked for an apartment. I found one pretty quickly, to my great relief, but our move-in date was not until July 12th. So, for the 4th of July Weekend, we went up to stay at my parents house. Stephen came back to San Diego for work on Monday, but I stayed the rest of the week there until our move in date the following Saturday.

Our move-in was... exhausting, tiring, and overwhelming! I am really glad that Stephen is handled it so well because I was so overwhelmed trying to figure out how to get everything to fit in here, and I wasn't even the one doing all the moving! Here's the problem. In 6 1/2 years of marrige, we have acquired way more stuff than we realized could fit into our 1,100 sq. ft. apt. This floorplan seemed very spacious and accomodating compared to other apartments we had looked at in the area! It is larger than our previous apartment in Louisiana, but there's a whole bunch of stuff that we did not take to Louisiana. About 1/3 of our furniture and other random things did not come with us to Louisiana, but was left in a 10x10 storage unit it Covina. So, we had stuff in two different storage places, one in L.A. and one in San Diego, plus we had a baby grand piano that we left with some friends in Covina. All of these things were supposed to end up in our apartment here on our move-in day. The other challenge was that I was virtuously useless, (pregnant,) and we had no help from our new ward. (We were unable to contact the Elder's Quorum or Relief Society) We actually had one guy that we had met from the other ward previously who came for a little while. Besides that, it was my dad, brother, and Jeff (Pip's husband) who did all of the hard labor! Did I mention we brought a baby grand piano with us? Our aparment does have stairs outside and inside, which adds a slight challenge.

Also, we had an interesting situation with our fridge. I thought it would be a great idea to swap out our own fridge that was stored for 6 months in Covina with the one that Stephen described as "old" or at least "older" than our own that came with the apartment here. We still had no plan for the swapped out fridge, so Stephen took it over to the Del Mar Storage. ANYWAY, when we opened the door to check out our little frigidare, it was SO SMELLY and had tons of tiny flies in it - GROSS! I guess Jeff knew all along that fridges are supposed to be stored with the doors open or off. Obviously, we had not listened to Jeff. So besides the lack of space problem with our millions of boxes, I had a stinky, unusable fridge. I felt like I really should clean it out after all the trouble we went to store it and bring it over here. But, in the end, I nixed it. Poor Stephen! I was now creating more work for him. In the end it worked out. Stephen brought it out to the dumpster and took the doors off of it. Interestingly enough, he said he later saw it back behind the maintenance closet! The janitors here are keeping it and will probably use it in someone's apt. How sad for the unknowing tenant!

So the long and short of it is... we're finally moved in! We have our own apartment and are loving the weather and new friends we are meeting here! There is so much to do! So many cool places to visit that are really close to us! The best things are that the temple is less than 5 miles away, our ward has lots of little tots (3 nurseries!) So Brooklyn has a bazillion friends, and the beach is about a 15 minute drive away, only because of traffic lights. It's probably about 8 miles.

Our new address is: 8943 Lombard Place #324, San Diego, CA 92122. Please feel free to come visit, write our call us! (Although we are still working on getting a home phone!)

Road Trip to . . .

Early on the morning on June 16th, we said goodbye to Shreveport, Louisiana and headed off for the first of many days of wandering in the wilderness. (Not, really, but it felt like it!) Around 7AM, when we departed, it was near 90 degrees outside already, I was not sad to leave that!

Goodbye Shreveport and the Red River !

For our first leg of the trip, we were headed to Utah to attend Eric and Cindy's wedding. While there, we would stay with Aunt Kath and Uncle Mike McKendrick in Highland. It was a two day ordeal to get there, but once we arrive, we stayed for a week and relaxed with lots of family, it was a nice treat! Rebecca and Rosalia (Stephen's sisters) were with us on this part of the trip. We four adults drove 3 cars, (our 2 volvos plus the honda that Rosalia had at BYU) and I was lucky to Rosalia in my car to help out with Brooklyn. I don't know if Stephen and Rebecca were relieved or bored to each be in a car of their own, but they had a great attitude about it.

Our first major milestone was Dallas, Texas (see picture below). It was still morning, so we didn't stop here, but we did enjoy juggling our navigation skills on the intricate highway system there. (I thought I would be well prepared for this kind of craziness, being from Los Angeles, but let's just say the chaos and confusion helped keep me awake!)

Driving through Dallas. . .

We later hit Amarillo Texas and had dinner for some delicious gas-station fast food! We're feeling adventurous already!

So this is Amarillo? Hmmm. That's nice.

Finally we rolled into Albuquerque, New Mexico at around 10PM and stayed the night at a quaint little Howard Johnson Motel there. I was very relieved to arrive in Albuquerque because that would be the longest leg of travel in one day and we made it - all of us - without too much complaint except maybe some sore booties. Thank you Grandad for the usage of the car DVD player - it's on its way back home! We haven't forgotten! Also of note was the delicious free hot breakfast. A great way to start day two of our journey, and much more appetizing than last nights choke-down dinner.

Glad to BE in Albuquer-KEE!
Day two of our journey in the next post!

Eric and Cindy's Wedding

Sadly, the best pics of the bride and groom are on other cameras! Our battery ran out right before they came out of the temple! So you'll have to check out other Badger blogs to see the lovely new pair! It was great to go to Utah and see the whole gang of Badgers and celebrate with Eric and Cindy! It was part of our journey west back to California. More info on that in future posts... Brooklyn sneaking in a scrumptious snack of raisins during our picture session before the reception at Thanksgiving Point.
Mommy and daughter in coordinating dresses. My mom made Brooklyn's dress and I made mine. Rosalia had one exactly like mine, I'll have to get that picture up another time. Sklyar and Jessica at the reception. They've already been married two years now. Their wedding was our last big reunion! Rich, Bethany, and Halli, and choco-berries!
Dancing duo! Nothing could stop them!

The Interview

Monday night after graduation and Grandma Grace's wedding, Desirae, Brooklyn, and I headed down to San Diego for my interview with Scripps Health System. We stayed at Helen and Eric's in Del Mar. My interview wasn't until Wednesday so we went to a park by the beach on Tuesday. Brooklyn didn't want to go straight down to the sand but to the swings instead.
After about 20 minutes in the swing, we convinced her to go for a walk on the sand

She found out that she doesn't really like the taste of sand...imagine that? This is my attempt to clean her hands off with a baby wipe...it didn't work too well.

After receiving coaching from several relatives, I went to my interview on Wednesday. Thanks to Michael Miramontes I was fully prepared for the very first question, "So tell me about yourself?" I smiled, answered, and had a great interview. Afterwards we headed back up to Covina for pizza night at Pip and Jeff's new pad. It looked vaguely familiar, but much improved since the last time I saw it. I guess that's what happens when you're married to a professional handy man extra-or dinar. The next morning I arose early and flew back to Louisiana. Desirae will now have to take over and share the rest of her trip since she stayed another week in So-Cal.

GG and G's Reception

After the ceremony, we had a nice lunch-in.

Helen, Eric, and the family came up from San Diego and Richard and Lisa even came from Florida.
Here's Grandpa Glade and Grandma Grace with all of the grand- and great grand kids.
Here are the lovely McKendrick ladies....
and the manly men.
I loved this sign. In case it's too small for you to read it says, "It's never too late for Happy Every After."

Only 75?!

Grandma Grace was sealed in the Los Angeles Temple to Grandpa Glade. She was like a little school girl all over again with a huge smile the whole time. The ceremony was great and we really enjoyed seeing all of the family that came to celebrate.
Brooklyn on the temple steps with her two escorts.
We tried to get a picture with all of the family, but we had trouble getting everyone to look at the same camera.
Brooklyn's beautiful blues.
Desirae and Brooklyn loving each other's company.

Finally Done!

Well, I'm finally finished with school! I now have a Master of Health Administration from USC. Thanks to the stimulus package from the government Desirae, Brooklyn, and I traveled out late Thursday night (May 15th) to California to go to my graduation, Grandma Grace's wedding, and an interview at Scripps Health System in San Diego. Graduation on Friday was a long hot day in the sun. Apparently, we brought the heat with us from Louisiana, but it was good to see some of my classmates and celebrate with family. Here are a few pictures that we took:Desirae and I are in front of Ralph, Goldy, and Lewis Hall or RGL where I had a majority of my classes. She and Jim came along to see the main ceremony. Unfortunately, there were so many people that I think I was the only one of the three that heard and saw everything. Robert Iger, CEO of Disney, gave an excellent address after he received an honorable doctorate. I also got a lei on behalf of my mom.
This is where I lined up for the main ceremony. To my right is Jude and my left is Rudy. For those of you who were wondering, the color of my hood is peacock.
The procession.
Here's a picture of my competition for the Scripps Fellowship down in San Diego.
Here's a picture of me with my beautiful girls. Brooklyn is holding a balloon that's out of sight. SPPD had a little reception after the ceremony.

Jim, Tina, Pops, Desirae, and Brooklyn all came for my individual school ceremony (the School of Policy, Planning, and Development). The main ceremony was at 9am, but the SPPD ceremony wasn't until 2pm so Pops, Tina, and Brooklyn came later. In between the ceremonies we went over to Pip's work. She has a pretty posh office in a questionable neighborhood. Jim treated the three of us to lunch at the Corner Bakery. The food was pretty good, but the company was better.

The day ended with dinner at Johnny Carinos with Calvin, Carol, Caden, Caleb, Pip, TJ, and Michelle joining those of us who were at the graduation ceremony. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of everyone there, but we had a good time. Brooklyn loved hanging out with her cousins.