I'm employed!

I got the ideal teaching job this last week. Of the 9 or 10 applications I had out, there was one that I was really hoping would pan out. The school district is amazing. From looking at their vision and mission, it's really like a large public-school version of the small private school I'm leaving behind in Texas. They place a huge emphasis on professional development (they pay 100% of graduate work... yes, 100%), and focus on ethics and leadership as well. Needless to say, I'm quite excited. I'll be starting the day teaching yearbook 1st period (which doesn't start until 8:30am), and then after my prep period, I'll have one section of 9th grade English, and then 3 sections of 10th grade English. So it looks like I'll be reading To Kill a Mockingbird, the Odyssey, Romeo & Juliet, Of Mice and Men this summer. I'm looking forward to revisit some of those as it's been a couple of years since I've taught 10th grade.

Settling in...

So we arrived safe and sound and hit the ground running. Our stuff is scattered between a storage unit down the road and the Weik Auto Shop. To our pleasant surprise, A ton of people the previous weekend (led by Rob and Uncle Jim) descended on Shatrine's old bedroom and stripped the carpet, laid new drywall, etc. So it was like a clean slate when we arrived. So we've been painting, and expect to get new carpet in tomorrow. Uncle Jim came by today as well and helped me tear out the carpet in the downstairs family room, so when that carpet comes in next week, we'll be able to start making that our own little family room refuge.

The Last Leg...

We had a great time in the Bay Area with my family. Did our first bit of baby shopping... Babies R Us... good stuff...did you know Jeep and Eddie Bauer both make strollers!? Crazy. Anyways, we also got to meet up with the Armerdings (Sam, Karin, Caleb & Zach) as well as Roger for lunch. We then spent a family night like old times...Oceans 13...BBQ Ribs...exciting rounds of NERTZ "late" into the night (well...past Dad's bed time, anyway). We also got our first "Mother's Day" and "Father's Day" gifts. Yes, Andy and Marty are pretty excited about becoming "Opa" and "Gram."
After what were quite possibly some of my Dad's best batch of hash browns ever, we hit the road for our last leg of the trip. Even John showed up for the 5:30 AM breakfast and send-off.
We just stopped at Maxwell Rd. in Glenn County (perhaps a sign!?!).Should be to our new home by 5:00 tonight!

Competition in Disneyland.

Take that, Stephen Parker! I love it. A ride at Disneyland that involves keeping score and competition. Brilliant. The Toy Story-inspired "Astro Blaster" is my new favorite ride at Disneyland. We had a great day with Kristine and Keira and Karisse McCarty (Tom was working on some Disney Channel spots, not to mention it was celebrity day with the new Nemo ride opening the next day, so he was busy). Stephen, Koryn, and Sidney met up with us, and we had an awesome afternoon inspecting the new Pirates of the Carribean ride, and Koryn even had her phone stolen out of their stroller while we rode the Winnie the Pooh ride. Great fun. Actually, it turned out pretty nice (stolen goods excepted) because Stephen and I got to go "back stage" to file a police report with the Anaheim detective. And since the girls had to take their time eating and taking shifts to use the bathroon, Stephen and I also snuck on the Tower of Terror... excellent.

Cobalt Season in Santa Ana

So Shatrine wasn't feeling when we finally pulled in to LA, so she laid low with Tom and Kristine in Brea. I made my way down to see Ryan and Holly, who happened to be on a mini-tour in the southland. We thought we were going to miss them since we'd be in the Bay while they were in LA, but it just so worked out that they were in concert in Santa Ana (just 15 minutes from where we were staying). So I got to see them and Paxton. Ryan Bell from Hollywood took some cool shots to capture the evening, so I thought I'd post a link here to some of the pictures he took. Thanks Mr. Bell! (The picture at the top is one of Ryan's). Can you belive Paxton made it through the entire concert in that sling. What a trooper! Holly even rocked a melodica over his cooing babbles. Half the time, he just seemed entranced with Ryan's voice (Cobalt Season Ryan, not Photographer Ryan). Coolest part of the evening? Ryan played Koyannisqotsi (sp?) in the background during the concert, and at one point, he was singing about getting on the metro, and at it was like "Dark Side of the Moon" and "The Wizard of OZ"... people were sliding their BART tickets and getting on the train. Fun stuff.

Mobile Web Assistance

After leaving Amarillo, we were trying to calculate how far we could comfortably get, and we decided on Gallup, NM. So I called my Mobile Web Assistant (AKA Stephen Parker) who found us a Hampton Inn and Suites just outside of Gallup. Since we already checked and found there were no Sheraton pillowtop matresses on our route, this Hampton was a pleasant surprise because the bed was like sleeping on air. Thank you Stephen. If you don't have a Mobile Web Assustant, I highly recommend you book one before your next cross country trip.

Loading,Unloading,Loading...

We're in Amarillo on our way to eat lunch at the Big Texan. Our tow dolly is getting repaired at the Budget branch out here, so we are taking a long lunch. Well, we're far enough removed from our loading debacle, and I've cooled off enough to now tell the story.
First of all, let me just say we have the greatest friends. Shawn came out early Wednesday to move the big stuff with me, and Sara and Kate from school came and boxed up the kitchen. Sheesh. Not to mention Stephanie who was pretty much at our house for two days. Amazing. If not for them (and the later to be mentioned...yes, there were many more helpers), I would have surely gone insane.

Well before I get all worked up, let me ask you this question. If you were moving out of your little 2 bedroom town home, and you went to rent a truck and they told you they had a truck that would hold 1-2 bedrooms, 3-4 bedrooms, or 5-8 bedrooms, which truck would you rent? Well, after filling up the truck we rented, we realized we miscalculated because it only fit half of our things. So our unbelievable moving crew of the Lyons, the MacDonalds, the Barnes, the Ferris', and the Seegers, We had to completely unload everything and take back the 3-4 bedroom truck we got. Can you believe that!?! Talk about false advertisement! By the time we unloaded everything, the Budget rental place was closed for the day, so we had to push back the departure a day. We slept on our airmatress dreaming of a Sheraton hotel pillowtop and got up early the next day to trade our 16 foot truck in for the "5-8 bedroom" 24 footer. So our champion neighbors, Steve, Michael, and Lee came out to move all of our
stuff for the THIRD time. This time on coincidentally the hottest day of the summer to date...at the hottest part of the day from 1:30-5:30. Phew. They were invaluable...what great friends.

We're On Our Way!

Well, we finally made it on our way. I'm writing this from our Holiday Inn & Suites (free internet) Room... one hour into our journey. Yes, we finally got everything packed up and it was 9:00 when we realized that the tow dolly on which our Honda is being towed has a malfunction in the lights. So rather than wait an hour for the emergency roadside to come and hopefully fix it, we decided to drive an hour and get to a hotel and get a good night sleep (as opposed to on the floor of our empty house on an air matress)... well, we're exhausted, so I'm going to hit the hay. I'll tell of our packing adventures later.

ChristianiTEA

So we went to our church today for the last time (sad). After the service, we all went to the Mosaic Cafe (yes, our church has a coffee shop in the lobby). Rob got some hot tea, and it was so piping hot, someone made a comment about it being 'hotter than hades' or something of that ilk, and it led into this massive tangent about 'brimestone brews' and how we were certain somewhere someone has a "Christian"-brand of tea. You know, kind of like the "Teste-MINTS." Terrible. But we amused ourselves coming up with different flavors for our new line of "Christiani-TEA." I was so proud of my wife for coming up with my personal favorite flavor, "Tea of Galilee." Classic. So I thought I would blog about it and thus copyright the concept, so in case someone actually tried to bring the concept to fruition, we could sue them and claim we've copyrighted the concept, thus forcing them to remove all their products from production.
Thought we could do our part to rid the world of cheesy Christain knock-off slogans.
We did enjoy using up some of our Texas gift cards like Shatrine's birthday gift to Metro Cinemas from John. It's a really nice movie theater where they serve you food. So we watched Pirates III, and I tried to keep from throwing up my Reuben during the Pirate-fight-slash-wedding scene. Terrible. Almost as bad as the Christiani-TEA concept.

Maria...

Have you noticed how many songs there are with the name, Maria? Santana, Martin Sexton, Julia Andrews, West Side Story... We're learning them all as Rob and his girlfriend, Maria, are in town visting. We ate at our favorite Mexican food place in Fort Worth, Joe T. Garcias, and I was tempted to get the mariachis to serenade us with a Maria ditty, but better senses prevailed.
We've had a blast with them (Rob and Maria, not the mariachis) parading around, going to the Dallas Museum of Art Jazz concert in the park, checking out the Kimball Art Museum, seeing the longhorn stampede at the stockyards, and Rob and I even ventured to take a ride on the mechanical bull! Good times. We did, however, resist the urge to go to Billy Bobs (the quintessential honky tonk in Fort Worth) as Ted Nugent was in concert (if you can call it a concert...).