Visit to Utah in August

August 8-16

I am a little late in posting this, but I did want to include this trip in my online picture journal. Back in August I had to make a last minute trip to Utah to collect some original signatures from the places Trav worked so we could keep Trav's License process going here in Californiaia. So we booked my flight to at midnight the right before I left the next morning. It made for a bit of a pricey ticket, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Since I didn't have a job yet, I decided to make a week trip out of it to visit family!

 I was so happy that I got to visit Megan and Baby Evan. He was such a cutie. I hadn't seen him since right before we moved so he had grown a lot, he was smiling, and he would look at me and interact with me. It was so much fun to hold Evan and visit with Megan. Unfortunately, Paul was gone, but I had a great time!! 

I stayed at my parents house for the length of my trip. We hung out a lot, and I just enjoyed eating breakfast, lunch and dinner with them. We did go see Captain America at the new Farmington Theater. We also had a girl's night out with my mom, sisters, grandma, aunt and cousins. We went to Red Robin for dinner. Of course we also fit it some fun shopping at Layton Hills Mall. I bought me a few things that I had to try to shove into my carry-on which was already overloaded to begin with, but it somehow made it home.

I got to see my parents new car. I love the smell of a brand new car.

I got to go visit Jaime, Keith, Colin, and Camden, along with my in-laws. We had a delicious dinner, compliments of Jaime and Marian. We had time to talk and catch up and the boys showed us how they had learned to ride their bikes.

Keith, Colin, and Camden hung out on the couch each listening to their iPods and mp3 players.

I spent a lot of time flying and hanging out at the airport to get to Utah and back, but it was definitely worth it because I got to spend time with family and catch up! I really wish Travis could have come with me. I sure missed him while I was there. Hopefully we can make a trip back to Utah together soon!

Working in the Lord's Vineyard

The first week of September Trav and I went up to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (I listened to General Conference :)) Vineyard in Madera, which is about an hour away from us. We picked grapes and laid that out to dry for two weeks, so that they would become raisins. Then we went back up on Saturday morning to roll the grapes into a "burrito" style roll, so that they could easily be picked up and thrown into a truck to go to be packaged. We were blessed with cloud cover for 1/2 the time we were there because it was a really hot day. Unfortunatly we didn't have the greatest turn out. There were about 10 adults and 5 kids/teenagers to do 4 rows. I was pretty proud of myself that I was the only woman in the ward to show up and help. I definitely appreciate the opportunity to serve and it is fun to see how you harvest grapes and make raisins. I'm glad Trav had his phone with him so we could get a couple of pictures.

I'm working on getting the raisins in the middle to roll them up. (Don't mind my no make-up face. I thought....why bother when you come home with dirt all over your face.) 

Studying is coming to an end....hopefully!

Thursday- September 22, 2011



I'm sure you probably all get sick of hearing about our Pharmacy School/Licensure journey (I think I am the one most sick of it ha ha), but the truth is that is has BEEN OUR LIFE for the past 3 years. I have asked Trav several times over the past three years if I could take a picture of him studying. He never wanted me to, but considering this is hopefully the last full day he will ever have to study, I convinced him that we atleast needed one picture to show our children one day how hard he worked to get where he is. So here it is!

What you can't see in the picture is all of his powerpoint presentations, packets of notes and bookbag that ALWAYS accompanied him on the floor. Study material is EVERYWHERE!

So he took the NAPLEX on Monday and tomorrow he will be taking the CPJE (California Test). Then we are going to enjoy California and the friends we've made here! :) If he passes both, which we won't find out until who knows when, then it will for sure be all over! Good Luck Babe! You've studied your little heart out! It should pay off!

Just an Update...

Well Tara said that I haven't been doing a good job at updating my blog which is VERY true. In all honesty I haven't had a lot to share, which is surprising considering we are living in a whole new city, but I'll explain.

So basically my life has consisted of cleaning, cooking, and applying for jobs....which I am getting rather tired of. I thought that with my experience and education I would be able to find a job fairly easy here. Apparently I was W.R.O.N.G! I have had a few interviews, but nothing has come through. I am having a hard time staying positive, but I just keep applying and hoping that the right job will come a long...and preferably soon. :)

So the reason that me and Trav don't have tons of new adventures to share is because the studying is STILL not over. Trav has been studying since we've been here and really kicked it in to gear these last couple of weeks because his Pharmacy Boards are coming up. Basically how it works in California to get licensed as a pharmacist is 1)You turn in your application 2)You wait forever 3) You finally find out that you are eligible to take the exams 4)Schedule exams 5)Take Exams 6)Wait for scores 7) Pay Money 8) Finally get a license. It didn't help that we had a little hiccup between step 2 and 3 which I'll have to explain later. So he is taking the NAPLEX on September 19 and the CPJE (California Test) on September 23. So we will both be over joyous when they are over and we can take a trip to the mountains to the east and the beach to the west.

Because we are so far away from our families, we are enjoying getting to know our ward. It is the largest ward in Visalia, which makes us happy. I got called to be a Relief Society Instructor. I teach the 4th week of every month so I get to teach a lesson on one of the recent General Conference talks. I'm so excited to study the words of the church leaders!  Travis is the 11-year-old Assistant Scout Leader. He has only gone a couple of weeks, but he always have fun and was excited for that calling. We gave our introducing talks in Sacrament Meeting this last week. They were on Service to Mankind and Service to the Lord. I think it was probably a good reminder to us that thinking of others is the most important thing.

So the church owns a vineyard in Madera, CA which is about 1 hour north of us. All the wards in the Central Valley are assigned 5 rows of grapes. So our ward had rows 96-100. The event was talked about since we moved here and they have made it clear that everyone needs to come and help so it can get done. So we got ourselves some gloves and grape knives and headed out Wednesday night to pick grapes. It seemed like everyone in our ward already knew what they were doing, so I asked if we could get a 2 min grape picking 101 lesson. ha ha. They said that basically you cut the grapes on of the vine and put them in a bucket, when your bucket gets full, you dump them on a piece of large paper that has to be laid flat, and then spread them out evenly so they can dry out in the sun to become raisins. It was so fun to see all of the families in our ward coming out. The kids were so energetic and they helped out alot! It was nice to serve. The raisins from the grape vineyard are used in the Bishop Store House and to send to anywhere that needs relief. It was cool to literally work in the Lord's Vineyard. We were really glad we took the opportunity to help.

We have been so welcomed into the ward. Many people have invited us over for dinner and we are so glad we are making new friends and can't wait to have more time to spend with them.

Well I am watching the Miss Universe Pageant as I type this so I know that my thoughts are all sporadic, but hopefully this give you a little update.

Sacramento

August 3-5

Mini Business Trip to Sacramento

Trav had some training with Target up in Sacramento the first week he started work and for this little Thursday and Friday trip.  We forgot our camera on the first trip, so I wanted to make sure to get some pictures on our 2nd Trip. We headed out Wednesday afternoon for our 3 1/2 hour drive to Sacramento. For dinner, we decided to go to The Old Spaghetti Factory. I recommend the spaghetti, but you get half meat sauce and half mizithera cheese.  It comes with milk, bread, salad (get the pesto ranch), and then their specialty ice cream all for $10. It is a great deal and it is delicious!!!

Then we went to see the Sacramento Temple!! (It is actually in an outside city of Sacramento called Rancho Cordova where we stayed at the Hyatt Place Hotel) The first trip we went and walked around the temple grounds later at night and we saw a couple of deer. Their home is on the temple grounds.  This temple is tucked up on a little hill and it surrounded by trees. So you can't really see it from afar. When we went this trip the fountains were turned off and there was no one to be found. We saw that some sort of sign was posted on the door. We assumed it was closed for yearly maintenance and cleaning. It is a beautiful temple and reminded me a lot of the Bountiful Temple.

(Compliments of a Bing search, who found this picture on a blog by Janelle)

Thursday day, I was at the hotel by myself. I mostly just relaxed, read a book, searched for jobs (which has seemed to be what consumes my time constantly these days...not an easy task), and I laid out by the pool. 

Thursday night, when Trav got done with his training, we decided to go check out Old Downtown Sacramento. Some ladies from Wells Fargo who I worked with that live in the Sacramento area suggested it. It was actually a good time. Unfortunately, because Trav had to work until 5 and all the museums closed at 5 we missed out on the California Military Museum, the California State Railroad Museum, the Sacramento History Museum, the Old Sacramento Schoolhouse Museum, and the Wells Fargo History Museum.  All of these museums are in walkable distance from each other in this 5 blocks by 2 blocks area. We are definitely going to have to hit those up the next time we are up that way!! But we were able to go walk through some shops and watch the sunset over the Sacramento River. It was a fun atmosphere and reminded me a lot of Jackson Hole.

Overlooking the Sacramento River

This is by the Wells Fargo Museum and you can get a feel from the shops in the back how it all looked. So cute and old fashioned.

This bridge apparently raises up and down so that large boats can go under it.  I also want to point out in the bottom left hand corner of this picture is Aqua Lodge.  A guy actually lives in this little boat house.  A lot of tourist come here and he wouldn't have privacy at all, but he was just lying in his recliner, feet up, watching TV.  It made me laugh :)

I found it interesting that speed boats and wave runners can go on this river, which would be quite fun!! Afterwards, we went to dinner at Outback Steakhouse.  We got their bloomin' blossom which is absolutely delicious!  It was fun to visit somewhere we haven't been before, even though we didn't get to stay long, 



Fortune Fish

 A couple week ago, we decided to go check out the Adventure Park here in Visalia. It is a lot like Boondocks. We were planning on doing mini golf, but we got caught up in watching the cars racing.  They have a track that has cars that drive the speed of the boondocks one, but then they have a fast racing course. You have to watch a little training video and wear a full on helmet and all. They were going super fast for little race carts.  We saw one of the guys try to take a corner WAY too fast and flew into the  wall. The moveable wall did its job by absorbing most of the hit.  When we saw it we both though FOR SURE he was going to get kicked out because that is what would happen in Utah. If you tap someone, you're done.  Well different story here. The guy over the race track went and fixed the wall as if nothing happened and the race continued.  I told Trav that we are definitely going to have to take some of our couple friends and go do that. It isn't cheap, but it would totally be worth it! Next, we headed inside to check out the arcade games. There was this mini bowling ally that we really wanted to play, but after exchanging a $20 for a $10 and 2 $5's and then realizing it didn't take $5's. And then changing out the 2 $5's for $1's, we thought we were ready to go.  It took some of our money and didn't take some, and we found out it was broken, so we were definitely disappointed.  After a few more games and a few games stealing our money, we ended up with enough tickets to buy us a few candies and this Fortune Teller Fish.

(I couldn't figure out how to flip these)

Well we thought that there would just be a fortune, like a fortune cookie, but written on a fish.  Well it worked a little bit different than that. On the back of the little envelope it says...

Fortune Teller Fish

Place Fish in palm of the hand and its movements will indicate

Moving Head.....Jealousy

Moving Tail.....Indifference

Moving Head and Tail.....In Love

Curling Sides.....Fickle

Turns Over.....False

Motionless.....Dead One

Curls up Entirely.....Passionate.

We thought this made it a little more interesting. So I put it in my hand and it completely curled up. Then we decided to put it in Trav's hand and see if it did the same thing...thus not really telling you your fortune.  He put it in his hand and the head moved. We both just laughed and it ended up being the most entertaining part of the night. I always love the simple things that make us laugh and smile!

Our House...undecorated

We moved in on July 1. We were very happy with this great find in our 4 day search of Visalia, CA a few weeks earlier. It is a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, 1 car garage, but the best thing is....NO little kids are above us! It has been so peaceful and quiet....seriously heaven!

Living Room

Large Patio in the back.

I will have to take more pictures when I have it decorated. Decorations are on hold for a bit because I am trying to decide how I want to decorate and I need a job first! :)