Next meeting

Hey girls!!!! Soooooo, I was the only one who
Showed up at the mall Friday! Let's plan something soon. If y'all wanna commit and do this, let's do it! Can Sundays after am services work for you???! Weekday evenings???? Let me know...

Our temporary, new normal...

This isn't the happiest of days, that's for sure.  Jude and I dropped Steve off at the airport this morning around 11.  That was hard.  He plans to visit within the next 2 months.  Being in the middle of the semester and him teaching 2 courses, on top of his research, it's going to be challenging to visit sooner.  If I knew he would be visiting sooner, this morning would've been easier.  OH WELL.  I've been saying that  a bunch lately.  'Oh well', 'be anxious for nothing', and 'I can't worry about this.'  Jude has taken Steve's leaving well so far.  I'm sure he will have a hard time tonight, at bed time.  All I can say is thank goodness for today's technology and FaceTime!  

Ok, I need to move on...we are settling in here. The home we are staying in is so lovely and the homeowner, Vickie is amazing and so very accommodating.  An adorable golden retriever, Rusty, lives here and Jude is in love with him!  I'm certain Rusty will be so comforting for Jude during our time here.   The ocean is about a mile walk from the house.  Jude has informed me that will be walking there everyday!  I look forward to it!  There's an awesome playground, park, dog park 3 houses away.  So many wonderful, beautiful opportunities for us.    

I'm only going to share a very little about brother and sister.  Brother is 2.5 and sister and 10 months.  We were able to meet them a couple days ago.  Jude, Steve and I had a couple hours to interact with them and get to know them a bit.  All I can say is they are precious.  We aren't sure when we get to visit with them again.  We'll know more in the next couple days.  Praying everything goes smoothly and we can move forward very soon and quickly.    

It's raining, so I think a nap sounds like a great idea...

Settling in...

Beautiful day!

We made it!

We made it to orange county late last night. Steve is at UCI working today. Jude and I are at the playground, enjoying the warmth and sunshine. Most of you know how I feel about this place. I love it! I feel incredibly comfortable here. I'll blog more later when I'm not limited to my phone. One thing, notice the snow covered mountains in the distance in the photo. The ocean is a couple miles from where we are and you can see the snow capped mountains. Love it!!! Okay, i don't love the gas prices so much.

California

Mojave Desert

Hoover Dam

Tearin it up animal style

Kingmam, Arizona

Leaving Flagstaff

The photo of car is showing snow which fell after 5 pm the day before. Steve and Jude cleaned over a foot of snow off the car yesterday. All on all about 2 feet of snow fell while we were in flagstaff. Crazy! That certainly made up for the lack of snowfall in Tennessee this winter.

Thank goodness for indoor pool!

Flagstaff

OMflippinStars

4 inches of snow in Flagstaff Arizona so far!!! They are expecting up to10 inches today. What??? The photo below is what we woke up to. It was taken through our window. Sorry, it's not so clear. So...the I-40 is closed 200 miles west of here. That's exactly where we are going. If we can get out of here, we will drive south to Phoenix then over to California. UGH. We knew they were expecting this weather when we stopped here last night, but we were too exhausted,after 13 hours of driving, to go any further. Certainly not 200 miles further. I'll update more later!

Math and maps

We are planning to stop in Albuquerque, NM to eat dinner. It's about 30 miles away. Jude is definitely getting antsy. He hasn't napped at all today. His confinement tolerance is dwindling, fast. Mine is too for that matter! We plan to spend the night in Flagstaff, Arizona, but get this, they are calling for major snow and a high of 28 tomorrow! It is currently 70 degrees outside of Albuquerque. We want to visit the Grand Canyon tomorrow. We'll see what the weather will ultimately allow. Steve and I saw it on our first trip to Southern California, back in 2003. Jude is super eager to see it. driving across the country is such a treat! I'm so thankful to have the opportunity again.

New Mexico

Texas

License plate game

It's official...

We are on our way to California! We left this morning at 9. We are currently in Jackson, Tennessee, eating and refueling on Starbucks. Iced caramel macchiatos are magical, by the way! To help the 13 hour travel days, we are listening to "Anne of green gables." such a wonderful story! I'm surprised at how much I recall from the movie, which I watched as a teen. Jude is handling the trip well so far. The poor thing has NO idea how long this trip is! So far he hasn't gotten carsick. Thank you Lord. His obsession with everything Star Wars is helpful, in the form of " clone wars" on the iPad and sticker books and such. I intend to doing some school each day in the car. We'll do our usual math and spelling, because he loves it (not) and we'll learn about each state through which we will travel. Our plan is to travel I-40 and get to Orange County late Sunday.

I'll blog again in the next day giving some information about why we are heading out to Cali for those of you who aren't sure exactly what's happening.

6 hours, 18 chapters, 2 Starbucks in to this life changing adventure!

Until then...