Traveling mishaps + TOMS + Chicken & Waffles

I know what you're thinking. "Is Caleb ever going to write a post?" I have good news. I am sitting down tonight to write about my adventure from Dallas to LA, my first day at TOMS, and what these past 2 weeks have been like (a whirlwind).

After loading up the Penske truck, my dad and I headed west.

I'll shed some light on a few useful traveling tips for traveling across the country. Trust me, it's better to learn from me than on your own.


1. When towing your car behind a moving truck, don't always assume the Penske people attached your car correctly. Always double check their work.
2. Always bring a jacket, not everywhere is 110 degrees like in Texas.
3. Make sure you get the right size truck, and make sure the inside is clean, before having to go back 2 times to get that "perfect truck".
4. Whenever you see a "Meteor Crater" exit sign, don't assume you will get to see the giant hole in the ground for free.
5. When an overloaded, oversized, diesel truck is about to tip over on the highway. Slow down, don't try to pass.
6. When you see other competing trucks (in my case U-Haul & Budget), you must race them down the highway. There's no questioning this...you just have to do it.
7. When a McDonald's in Albq., NM accidently puts a bug in your meal, don't ask for your next meal to be free. You'll probably get a business card with a hand written note that doesn't work in LA.
8. Read every parking sign in LA 3 times, then read it again just to be 100% sure you won't get a $68 parking ticket.

I really have no other way to explain my first day at TOMS other than truly amazing and welcoming. After kissing Jenna good-bye and leaving the house dressed up like my first day of school, I found a place to park (which can be difficult). I walked into HQ, took a tour, met a lot of people (whose names I am still learning), and found my desk! It was a busy first day covering everything I will be doing, but Allie T. and others around me made it a great first day.

Last Tuesday, I set out for a red eye to Atlanta to help with the Catalyst Conference. This is one of our biggest events of the year and it was helpful to see what all goes into making this happen. It was good experience and a lot of fun as well. I was starting to shake a little due to Chick-Fil-A withdrawals, but I loaded up in ATL and I think I should be okay for a while! After a hard day of setup, we went to a famous place in ATL called  "Gladys Knight Chicken & Waffles". I cleaned my plate and even downed a side of Mac & Cheese! This was probably one of the best meals I have had in a while! It was truly a great treat! The next 2 days at Catalyst were great. I was able to share the TOMS story to people who didn't know about it, as well as talk to others who are just as excited as I am about it. I enjoyed being able to hear  Katie Davis and Francis Chan speak. Francis Chan is an amazing speaker, but better than that, he puts his faith into action and truly lives out a Christ filled life. I saved the best for last and that was TOMS Chief Shoe Giver, Blake M. and he did an awesome job of representing TOMS in front of 13,000 people. He talked about giving sight to people in need and it almost made me cry. (Here's a cheap plug, but if you haven't heard TOMS sells eyewear now and helps give sight to a person in need, One for One)

After Catalyst I flew into Dallas for an amazing wedding for now Chase & Stacey Oliver! They had an awesome wedding and glad I was able to be there for it.

Well, my long overdue blog post is done, and I probably won't make an appearance for a while. So I hope you enjoyed it and I'll leave you with some pictures from the last few weeks!

Our booth display at Catalyst.

The start of a long day.

Our Start Something That Matters wall. People could write what mattered to them...apparently "Yo Mama & Name badges" matter to people! haha

Blake speaking.

Some amazing chicken & waffles! 

No More Boxes (YAY)

In one of my previous blogs I wrote about how I couldn't wait for the day that we didn't have any boxes in our house anymore... well folks the time has come and it feels even better than I thought it would! (Disclaimer: this doesn't mean that I have everything put in its place or hung on the walls yet, just that its not sitting in boxes)

I know everyone is disappointed that you get me again and not Caleb, I promised he would write a blog about his road-trip to California and his first day at TOMS.... and He still is going to just not as soon as I said he would. Poor guy has been so busy this week. He has promised to write one as soon as we get back from Dallas.

Yes, we are already coming back to Texas, to the land of delicious Tex-Mex and BlueBell Ice Cream. One of my best friends Stacey is getting married this weekend and I cant wait to watch her walk down the isle, I know she will be a stunning bride!

Caleb is going to be wore out by the time he gets to the wedding. I dropped him off at the airport at 11 pm tuesday night for him to fly to Atlanta. He arrived in Atlanta at 6 am checked in at his hotel go a little rest, worked setting up the TOMS booth all day Wednesday. He is working all day today and most of tomorrow then he catches a fight back to LAX and waits to catch his flight from LAX to Dallas for the wedding. Whew I'm tired just typing all that, I know he is going to be beat.

This is Caleb leaving on his first business trip

He is in Atlanta for the Catalyst Conference which is a super cool conference for young Christian leaders (can you tell I'm a tad bit jealous). They have tons of great speakers, I can't wait to hear all about it when he gets back. Here is the website if you wold like to know more Catalyst Conference.

He sent me a few pictures of them setting up the booth I'll share them with you

You are probably just as curious as I was about what is up with these socks... evidently they all wear socks when they are working hard putting together the booth... I'm assuming because TOMS can make your feet stink really bad... I'm still not quite sure on this..

This weekend we had a lot of good "Californian fun" we rode bikes down to Venice beach and the Venice Boardwalk. Venice Boardwalk is definitely an experience. Remember in one on my previous blogs how I talked about Crazy people and people smoking funny things.... well I found them.... ALL of them. It was a pretty unique experience and we saw some cool street shows. Also had many people soliciting marijuana to us. Here are the reasons you may need marijuana:

You can click on the picture to read it better. I specifically liked how cancer and AIDS were on the same bullet point.... as if those are at all related.

After Venice beach we walked down Abbot Kinney which is a really cool street lined with lots of cool restaurants, vintage shops, art shops etc. We ate at this really good pizzeria. Speaking of shopping (this is such a LA newbie story) a few nights ago Caleb and I went down to the shopping center in Santa Monica and we were in Steve Madden and low and behold Steve Madden himself walks in. Just walked in causally off the streets. Crazy!

 Also something really cool about the parking garage at this shopping center if you cant remember where you parked you just type in your license plate number on this big screen and it automatically tells you where you parked!

I know we are way to easily amused... and yes even though we live here we still act like tourist and take pictures everywhere we go.

We tried out a new church this weekend and it was pretty good, we are going to try out a few more in the next few weeks. Its really hard for us because we base everything on The Hills, we love The Hills and I know we will not be able to have the exact church here in LA but I know that God will lead us to one that we love just as much, it will just take time. We are praying for open minds and that we will find a church home soon.  

I am still on the job hunt, I interviewed with a nanny agency last week but right now they don't have any openings in West LA. I have an interview with another nanny agency on Monday so hopefully between the 2 of them I can find a job rather quickly. Please pray for this, its rather crucial that I find a job soon (not to mention I am bored out of my mind during the day). I know God is in control and that he will provide, he always has and he always will, this I can be sure of. 

My taxi should be here any minute to take me to the airport but Ill leave you with this picture I took while on a walk around our neighborhood.... it was just a subtle reminder that I am no longer living in Texas. I think they breed Prius' out here.

3 Prius' parked in a row 

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!

Back to Blog-umenting again...

Don't tell me..I know I know.. I suck at blogging. I'm hoping you will bear with me once again as I try to enter the blogging world. It has been almost a year, yes a YEAR since my last post. I am just going to warn you this first post maybe kind of long...

 

By now pretty much everyone knows we are moving to California in a few weeks and I feel like this is such a big step in our life. The other day throughout all this chaos, otherwise known as picking up and moving your whole life across the country in only a few weeks, I decided I wanted to document all of this craziness. I wanted to somehow after all of this is said and done be able to look back and remember this change in our lives and how we were feeling. So for the next little while this blog will be my journal... that I can't loose in all the shuffle of moving. 

I am going to back track a little bit and fill you in on the whole reason we are moving. This summer has been craziness. Caleb first got a call from TOMS back at the beginning of June, we were at Summer Spectacular practice and I remember him standing in his little monkey suit (we were monkeys in the play) and the look on his face when he realized he was in the running for a position at TOMS.... PRICELESS. Caleb loves his job at AOA but his true passion isn't marketing for Orthopedics, both of our passions is to try and make this world a better place and while doing that spread the message of Christ. What a great opportunity he has been given to live out his passion while making a living. We are both super excited about this its almost surreal. 

For whatever reason before we were married I always had this feeling that we would one day live either in Africa or California. Which is completely crazy because at that time I had never even been to either of those places. We did go on an awesome mission trip to Rwanda, Africa this last year and Rwanda definitely still has a tight grip on our hearts but God has opened these doors wide open for us in California. Who knows maybe God has plans for us to live in Africa one day but for now without a doubt in my mind I know he wants us in California. Caleb went through almost two grueling months of interview after interview with TOMS and finally he was offered the position. It was so hard for us to keep all these interviews and the possibility that we maybe moving across the country a secret. We prayed and prayed asking God to show us if this was the right move for us and in numerous ways he has showed us this is what he wants for us at this moment. 

Since Caleb has accepted the job we made a short trip out to LA after much searching we found us the perfect apartment with the not so perfect price tag.... but we quickly learned there is no such thing as a perfect price tag in California. We have been overly spoiled our whole life to Texas real estate we just didn't know it. We are moving to a community called Playa Vista and we are exactly one mile from the beach! I didn't take my camera a long so this is the only picture I got of the place from my phone:

Since neither of us had ever even stepped a single foot on California soil we had no clue what to expect. In my mind I had envisioned all these hippies with long hair smoking funny things or the Real Housewives of Orange County type. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised at how at "home" we felt. I didn't see any people with long hair, tied-dyed shirt with a leather vest, peace sign necklace around their neck or anyone smoking funny things. Don't get me wrong I know there are some out there but thats not what the whole state of California produces, thank goodness. 

After our trip we have been busy getting everything in line for us to be able to move. Which to say the least has been super stressful. More so on Caleb than me, which if you know either us at all you know Caleb is very much the stresses/worries way too much type and I on the other hand usually do not worry/stress enough. We have had a couple of bumps in the road mainly with breaking our lease at our apartment... I think if they could they would want me to give them my first born child just because we are moving out before our lease agreement was over. But you know the devil has to try to get you somewhere and the devil knows the best place to get my husband is his pocketbook. If you have a chance if you could just pray for us as we prepare to move, that things will go smoothly and to not let the stress get to us. Prayers are greatly appreciated. 

Well this post is already entirely too long and I have about a 97 things and counting on my to-do list that needs to be done. 

I'll leave you with a picture of us from our first trip to Cali..

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

As you all know I absolutely LOVE Christmas, so of course I have had my Christmas decor up for a few weeks now, but I am ecstatic that everyone else is finally getting around to putting theirs up too!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year got to spend some good quality time with our family & friends back home. Which it seems like lately we haven't been able to get back as often because we are just so dad-gum busy! We of course went on our traditional Black Friday shopping trip EARLY Friday morning. I just have to say I was really disappointed in the sales/items out this year. I think this is the first year that we didn't get most of our Christmas shopping done. I dragged my brother and his girlfriend with us and I dont think he will be joining us again in the near future, I dont think he enjoyed waiting in line outside in the cold as much as we do haha.

Over Thanksgiving break my friend Ashleigh got me hooked on these crafting blogs. I am so addicted now! Thanks Ashleigh, as though I didn't have enough to do already! Plus Caleb is  Suuuupper excited about this because he now come home to glitter, glue and whatever else I have been trying to craft that day all over the kitchen floor. We have both decided we definitely need a bigger place! A girl definitely deserves her own craft room =) Not just the kitchen floor! So hopefully when we have to move out in May we can make that happen ( hint hint Caleb).

School is beginning to wrap up but I cant even think about that because of all the craziness we have going on during the month of December. Its not even December yet and we are already almost completely booked! We have so much with Christmas parties, All the Christmas' with our families & getting prepared for Rwanda we have no down time.

Please remember to keep us in your prayers as we continue to prepare for Rwanda. We need each and every one of those prayers as we prepare, travel and throughout our journey there. We will keep you more up to date as the time gets closer. You can read more in depth about our mission trip at www.rwandahope.blogspot.com