Seven Years

We moved into our house seven years ago today. Texas had never even been on my radar for a potential place to live. I remember in California hating Texas drivers when you would encounter them. Sure enough, our first few weeks here were quite scary getting used to the way people drove. Now, we're probably just as scary. But, as some of you know, we had just bought our house in CA, when the news came that Greg's company was shutting down the CA location. Greg was one of the few lucky ones who was offered a transfer. He actually interviewed in Phoenix first, but I always had the feeling it would be Texas, and sure enough that is where we ended up. We flew out here in May 2002 for a weekend house hunting trip. We looked all day Friday, and felt very discouraged. Saturday our realtor brought us to a new construction house in Plano, and we decided it was our best bet. We were able to pick our tile, carpet, back splash for the kitchen, and the wall paper borders for the kitchen and master bath. Our California house sold in less than a week, so we were set (we got to live in that house exactly one year). Greg's company moved us, what a blessing, and we packed up our two cats, our Chihuahua, and our 18 month old Matthew, and drove to Texas in June. What a trip. Greg and I thought we would die if we had to listen to Sesame St. one more time. Our house wasn't ready, so we actually lived in corporate housing for about two weeks. Then it was move in time. We closed on the 21st, and moved in on the 22nd. I'll never forget unpacking and finding Matthew's little white wagon, and he was so happy to see it. It was probably reassuring to him to see something he actually knew. I always feel like it hurt him moving to Texas, I know he was very young, but we left behind everyone he ever knew. He had always spent one day a week with my parents, and he always saw my sister, and suddenly we were in a strange place and knew no one. That first summer was so hard. We were homesick and I got pregnant with Justin right after we moved, and I was so sick with him. It was such a struggle to try and take care of Matthew and I had no one to help me. But here we are seven years later. We are in a very good neighborhood, and we couldn't have a better school district, but we still haven't found places to replace those in San Diego, such as the museums, Balboa Park, Sea Port Village, the Zoo and Wild Animal Park. Everything here seems so old and run down. The Dallas Zoo could fit in the front entrance of the San Diego Zoo. Of course the worst part is Greg's company just went through another shut down, so here we go again, but this time there are no transfers, they took everything over seas. He, of course, is hard at work on making a career change into computer programming industry, but it is very nerve racking for us with the economy the way it is. I feel the strain wearing us down, and it makes me sad. Maybe year seven is our lucky year though.

Our 13th Wedding Anniversary

Thirteen years ago today, Greg and I flew to the island of Kauai and got married. It wasn't without a few problems. First we were delayed getting out of LAX, because the flight was overbooked, and no one would give up their seat. So, then we had to run to catch our flight to Kauai out of Honolulu. We made it, but our luggage didn't. We had our wedding clothes, but I didn't have my make up or shoes. Oh boy. Luckily, they had hourly flights, so the luggage came in on the next flight. While waiting for the luggage we called the wedding license office, and they had a message from the lady performing our ceremony that the hairstylist who was supposed to do my hair wasn't going to make it. Well, we headed over to the office, got our license, and they were nice enough to direct us to a hair salon. We showed up, and the hairstylist was so nice, he fit me in, and even turned away other customers to take care of me. Okay, that taken care of, we headed to the far north shore to where we were getting married on a private estate in the shadow of Bali Hai. It started to rain on the drive, but at that point we didn't realized it rained everyday in Hawaii, and it lasted all of 5 minutes. We found the estate, and we dressed in a little cottage by a brook. We had our ceremony, then took our pictures. When we arrived at our hotel, there was a big party in the outside bar for couples celebrating there 50th + wedding anniversaries. We were still in our wedding clothes, so they we're so excited for us. It was really special. We said we would go back for out 5th anniversary, but of course, we had 7 month old at that point. And for our 10th, we had an 8 month old. So, maybe for our 15th!

Galveston Slide Show

This past Friday we decided to drive down to Galveston. Because Greg is working a co-op position, he does not have vacation days. Also because he is in summer school, we had to wait until a weekend where he wasn't swamped with homework. I packed up the car, and then the boys and I met Greg at his company when he finished work, and we left from there. We arrived in Galveston around 8:30 pm. We stayed in a Condo on Seawall BLVD. It was nice to have a kitchen because, unfortunately, Matthew will not eat at restaurants at all (travel is becoming increasingly hard for us because of this) so I was able to cook for him. We could see the gulf from our balcony as well. I love Galveston, it's by far my favorite place in Texas, if it wasn't for hurricanes, I would consider living there. (Those are big words for a girl who wants to move to the east coast.) You have Seawall Blvd, then you have the Mansions mixed in with rundown row houses. And they have so much history for such a little island, which I think is really the draw for me. Anyway, we spent Saturday morning playing at the beach. Only Greg got stung by a jellyfish this time. Poor guy, I think he gets stung every time we go to the gulf. And of course, since having kids, I can't go on a trip without having to find a store to buy something we forgot to pack. That afternoon we went over to see the tall ship Elissa. You can see signs of Hurricane Ike pretty much everywhere, it's sad to see some of the pretty houses still boarded up. Some of the hotels are still closed down. One store in the historic district had a line across the wall showing how high the water rose. That evening, we rented a surry, a four wheel bicycle cart type thing, and rode down Seawall Blvd. That was a lot of fun. The boys thought it was great. Too bad, I didn't have the camera with me. Sunday, we packed up and headed for home. Sadly, it really was too short, there were a lot of things I would have liked to do, but we worked with what we had. I shot a picture of the giant Sam Houston statue along I 45 in Huntsville, and we also found a cool abandoned house when we stopped in Fairfield, TX. I love buildings like that.

Jacob On Two Wheels!

Last week Justin encouraged Jacob (who is 3 1/2) to try riding his bike without training wheels. I thought Greg could push him up and down the sidewalk, and that would be it. Well, Jacob took off! We thought Justin started on two wheels early at 4 1/2. So, this is some video from that very first night. He was so excited, just grinning from ear to ear. I think it's funny how Jacob yells at Greg to let go when he gets near the camera. And the crazy Native American chanting you hear is Matthew.