We Made It

We are now officially Californians. After the longest week of our lives everything we own is finally in California... Caleb's car was even delivered yesterday which is an answer to our prayers because we have heard numerous horror stories of cars not being delivered when they were suppose to.

On Tuesday, my oh so wonderful Mother came over and helped me finish packing everything and without her I'm pretty sure we would still be in Texas packing. One thing is for sure I would never be hired as a professional packer. While she was over we went to grab lunch at Chick-fil-a (by the way there are none anywhere around here =(...) Some of you may know I have braces on my bottom teeth and I am suppose to wear a retainer on the top, well while at lunch my mom accidently threw it away! Perfect timing right?? Luckily he was able to order me a new one and it came in just before I left.

Wednesday was the big moving day. We started a little later than we had anticipated because we went through three trucks before we actually started moving. The first truck caleb brought home was entirely too big... it was like a semi. So Caleb took that one back traded it for a smaller truck, brought it home and we opened it up and the truck was filthy... it had all kinds of sticky stuff all over the truck bed. Third time was a charm he took that second one back and brought home the perfect truck! We had a lot of great help from Caleb's parents and our good friends Joey and Austen.

Caleb and his dad left bright and early on Thursday morning to start the long journey to California. I went back to Greenville to spend sometime with my family before my flight on Saturday.

On Thursday I visited with all my Grandparents which was really nice. I was really excited that I was able to go to Bonham and visit my Grandpa in the nursing home. He is the sweetest man I know, the Lord truly has blessed me with some of the best Grandparents!

During my visit back home I was also able to spend a lot of good quality "Girl Time" with my mom and sister. I am so grateful that I got these few extra days to spend with all my family. I have been so blessed to have the family and in-laws that I have.

Eating lunch with my Emily at School on Friday

Pedicures with my loves... you have to have cute toes in Cali right?

I flew out on Saturday afternoon, (side note: I flew Virgin airlines for the first time and it was awesome! I usually fly American but from now on I will try and fly Virgin. The planes were really nice and great customer service. I was also really impressed that you have your own personal TV with free direct TV to watch...I have never had that flying domestic) When I got here the guys had mostly everything already unloaded from the truck (no I didn't plan that... but I will admit it was good timing!). 

We learned our first California lesson. We woke up to a big fat parking ticket on Sunday. Caleb parked the Penske truck on the left side of our street because it wouldn't fit in our garage. We saw a sign on the right side of the street that said "No Parking on Tuesday from 8am to 10am for street sweeping." So we thought we were good to go. Little did we know that the right and left sides of the streets here have different rules.... bummer. 

Other California weird things: 

1) Its really weird because at any point you can look down the street and you will see a group of friends walking that look like this: 

1st girl: Sweatshirt, jeans, Ugg boots

2nd girl: Tank top, shorts, flip flops

This is so funny to me but on the other hand I understand it because I do feel like I have been changing clothes multiple times a day... its chilly in the morning and night but perfect during the day.

2) I googled where Target was and when we got there we realized its in a mall.... Isn't that weird.... like you actually had to go into the mall to get to Target... I thought this was crazy.

3) Groceries can be really expensive. Some things were normal but others were outrageous. I buy these little sugar free Kool-aide packs that you put in water bottles and they are $1.00 in Texas here they are $4.00.... 

4) This isn't about California but about moving.... Caleb has been looking for 2 days for finger nail clippers that were packed away in our 50 boxes that still haven't fully been unpacked. He finally found a pair last night and the excitement and look on his face over these finger nail clippers was priceless. Like it was Christmas. Oh the moving joys! 

God really has blessed us throughout this whole move. Everything went pretty smoothly, nothing broken or damaged. We really couldn't have asked for anything more! Thank you all for the prayers and the support that yall have all shown us over the last few weeks. We couldn't thank you all enough. Please continue to pray for us as we transition, please pray for us to find a new church home quickly and get plugged in easily, pray for me as I try to find a job, and for Caleb in his new job. I know God has big plans for us here and I am so glad to be a part of it. 

Caleb started his first day at the new job today. He was so cute getting ready for work. He is going to post a blog either tonight or tomorrow about his road trip and first day so be on the look out for that! 

See ya later's

I think Caleb and I both have gained 20 pounds from eating so much these last few weeks. Every night for the last couple weeks we have had "see ya later: dinner's or parties (I call them see ya later dinners, I dont like the word good bye so much now) to go to which is all fun and games until we are getting ready for the next dinner but we cant find any pants that will button. None the less we have had such a good time getting together with all of our awesome friends and family these last few weeks. I think everyone knows how much we are going to miss Tex-Mex food because we have had fajitas for 4 days in a row, but hey we aren't complaining! 

We have had a great weekend my mom planned a family get together on Saturday night which consisted of family game night which is one of my favorite things to do. I love family game night (yes I realize my children are going to hate me for this one day). Our good friends  The Hodges planned us a "Farewell Fiesta" party on Sunday, Rachel is so thoughtful and had so many cute details and of course some of her gourmet cooking. Then we got together with The Coffee's a family I nannied for during college and it is so crazy how big the girls are now. 

This is Grace the middle child of the 3, she is only 13!! Can you believe that??

We also got to go over and see The Richardson's another family I nannied for and we were so happy to be able to play with the kids before we leave. They are so funny. 

This is Milo he is the youngest of the three but not for long, baby #4 will be here in just a few weeks! 

We have been planning outdoor family pictures for a couple of months now since we are leaving and we haven't had family pics taken in awhile and I know we have been praying for rain for how many months now but whoever prayed for it on Friday night Im going to hurt. How does it happen that we haven't had rain in months but as soon as I get ready for pictures it pours!? We did end up getting some but they are all underneath this covered porch.... so when we get them back and I post them and you see the same picture but different poses over and over again you will know why... Also side-note if you notice I'm hiding behind my sister in a lot of them its because I (or caleb) may or may not have left my pants for that outfit at home.... and tights as pants is not really my idea of a cute outfit. 

We only have today and tomorrow left to pack because we are loading up the truck on Wednesday! Which means I probably will not be sleeping between now and wednesday... Caleb leaves with his dad to make the two day drive on Thursday morning and I fly out on Saturday to meet them there. We are both so mentally and physically drained right now its hard for us to even have time to sit and think about actually moving. I cant really wrap my head around the idea of us not living in Texas anymore. I have told some people its almost like eternity you can't really fully grasp that its forever. I honestly feel like I am just flying out there for a trip. I have never flown on a plane to move somewhere and stay there so I just cant imagine it, it seems so surreal. 

I think its a good thing that we have been so incredibly busy because we don't have the time to sit around and think about how much we are going to miss Texas and our friends and family. I think God plans things that way. But I will tell you one thing I am sooo looking forward to the day that I can come home and just sit for awhile with nothing else to do or to worry about... or since I'll be in California, I can go sit on the beach and not do anything... haha I just had to rub that in. 

As we have been packing we have found some weird/funny things we forgot we had but the worst of all was when I was taking out my shower caddy and found that I have been using this for weeks.... 

We are moving for real...

I'm convinced that God was wanting to give us a little taste of Cali because this weather lately has been awesome, I'm also pretty sure he wanted all of our friends and family to get a little teaser of California weather and love it so much that they will for sure want to come visit us! =)

The last couple of weeks have gone like this for us:

packing, seeing friends/family, packing, cleaning, sleeping, packing, painting, oh and did I mention packing?

As much as I am going to miss Texas I am so ready to be in California and settled in my own house that does not consist of ANY boxes. This last weekend we had to repaint our apartment that we just painted only a mere couple of months ago because we thought we were staying here for at least a couple of years... God had other plans for us... but His plans are better that ours and we couldn't be more excited. (except for the painting & packing part) Don't I look so happy?

Besides getting ready for the big move we have had so much fun getting together with everyone before we leave. This last weekend we had our very last get together with our Small group from church. It has been such a blessing getting to know and love every person from that group. They have supported us and helped us grow as followers of Christ over these last couple of years.

How Cute is this little Beach Cake?

Our Small group minus a few...

Last night we had a ton of fun getting together with some friends to watch the Cowboy's game.... Wonder how many friends will invite us over to watch that in Cali?? I'll keep you updated on that... Micah and Justin hosted it and during half time they had planned out minute to win it games and boy was this entertaining! 

How cute is this poster? They went all out for this, they even had the legit sounds and everything.

The first Challenge was putting an Oreo on your forehead and then getting it into your mouth without using anything but moving your face. The first person to get 3 Oreos first wins! Guess who won?? Oh yeah you guessed it... Me!! Mom I know you are so proud!! Here is Jason (second place winner in this challenge)

This is the tissue challenge where you have to get all the tissues out of the box with only using one hand... Caleb let the Campbell team sown on this one... 

Unfortunately the Campbell's got second place in the minute to win it challenge.. we were beat by a whopping one second! Can you believe that!! Props to the "almost" Davidson's!

Caleb and I have been so excited about the big move but last week it kind of hit both of us that this is for real. I have been emotional lately realizing that I won't be able to just drive down the road to see our family, we cant just pick up the phone anymore to call our friends to go have dinner etc. I am not usually an overly emotional person but lately I have definitely found myself pretty emotional over the smallest things. Don't get me wrong I am so thrilled to be starting a new chapter in our life, it just I'm sad about closing this one. It's very bittersweet. My sister pulls on my emotional strings more than anything, she is more than just a sister to me and I care about her more than almost anything in this world. I worry about being that sister that moved away that she hardly sees. I want to be there for her as she grows up and I don't want to miss those big things in her life. I am going to miss all my family tremendously but Emily is my baby. I take comfort in the fact that technology is so awesome that we can facetime as much as we want, I'm still waiting for technology to be able to send hugs... maybe one day. Just pray for us as we are having to say these hard good bye's to all of our friends and family... 

Im going to leave you with a list of some things we are excited about and going to miss:

Things we will miss about Texas:

• Friends and Family
• Good ole Texas fried foods
• Our garage/storage (we have none of this in cali)
• Low cost of living
• the occasional snow days and getting to stay home from work
• Our Church
• Blue Bell Ice Cream
• Lack of traffic

Things we are excited about for California:

• Meeting new friends
• Trying new things like surfing, mountain hiking, etc..
• Enjoying outside activities without the heat
• Getting plugged into a new church
• Going on this adventure God has sent us on together
• Starting new jobs and growing in our careers
• Caleb starting a new job that he is passionate for and honors Christ

We will do another list after we have been there awhile and see how they match up!