Happy Anniversary!

Today is my parent's 35th wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary!

I wish I had their wedding album and a scanner with me so you could see the wedding pictures from 1973, but... maybe another year!

Here are some pictures from one of our fun vacations to Montana last summer. This first one is from "the top of the world" overlooking Flathead Lake.


Here they are in Glacier National Park, the most beautiful place in the word!


Thanks, Mom and Dad, for getting married 35 years ago so we could all be a family! Love ya both!!

Can't Get Enough Ice...

So it turns out that David likes ice. A lot. Here he is on my parent's deck, after "helping" my dad spread some dirt with the wheelbarrow. I guess he was tired after his hard work and needed a drink break. What a cutie!

I like the progression of pictures my mom took, and thought you might want to see them as well. Rumor has it there might be some fun videos on her blog later on. Enjoy!







I sure miss him. I just want to kiss those cute cheeks! I especially love the last picture, it makes me giggle! And, don't you just love those bare feet? How adorable!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Sauce and Palm Trees

This was a great weekend! On Saturday, I took off bright and early to head to M&B's house to hang out for a bit. We were joined by Jim and Marilyn, Krista and Jayden (Jamie had to work) and my good friend, Jeremy, that I've been friends with since we were 16. It was great to see him again, and hang out with everyone! We enjoyed a great morning of visiting before M had to go to work, and had a wonderful BBQ meal with all the fixings. I realized I didn't take any pictures except for this one of M with Jayden, and I'm afraid it's a little blurry. Oops!


After a relaxing morning/afternoon of hanging out, eating, and visiting I took off for home again. I decided to take the long way home via a mall in Costa Mesa that has a Sony store where I wanted to look at a specific camera I've been researching. I was able to learn a little more and decided it's probably what I want and now will start saving a little more diligently for it. I also took this route home since I wanted to drive along the Pacific Coast Highway a little. I live 1/4 mile from it in Long Beach and have been wondering how far it is from my place to Newport or Huntington Beaches (my favorite in CA). I was happy to find it's only 10-15 miles away (depending which beach) and really didn't take too long! I also timed it so I'd drive along at sunset!


I didn't find any free parking to stop and take a picture, so sorry that most of these were while I was stopped at a red light and there's other stuff in the way. But, you can see it was a beautiful drive! I can't believe I get to live here for a few months!!



Then on Sunday morning I went to Pasadena, to attend our LB church there with Chuck and Penny. I was in for a fun treat! Jean-Baptiste is someone who attended our seminary in Fergus a while back. He's from Cameroon and it was fun to get to know him while I lived there. Well, he's been getting a degree in Pasadena these last couple of years and has been attending Immanuel. He graduated on Saturday and is heading back to Africa shortly to reunite with his family. There was a reception for him at church on Sunday, and it was fun to be there for it!

I stayed overnight at Chuck and Penny's, and had a wonderful time! We visited, ate, and looked at a few things online. Penny and I watched a movie late last night and then slept in this morning. After a relaxing morning, we filled the house with the wonderful smell of strawberries and rhubarb simmering on the stove! We (mostly Penny with me learning a few things!) made jam and also sauce. I'm really looking forward to getting some vanilla ice cream to put under my sauce!

Our finished product! Yummy!


I LOVE PENNY!! Some of my earliest memories include Penny, going up to Fergus to her BIG house with ALL HER GIRLS (she was head dean at Hillcrest). I loved being the little girl running around the dorm when I'd get to stay with her for a weekend! She made me feel so special! Then there were the times I was in grade school and she'd come to our house to visit and she'd braid my hair very gently, without pulling at all. I've heard great stories about me being the flower girl when she married Chuck. We also got to visit her a lot in CA when I was younger, and I loved coming over from AZ when I lived there for a couple of years. The memories really could go on and on and on! Penny has a way of making anyone feel cared for and loved, I feel so at home when I'm with her, and she's one of my favorite people in the whole world! I love you, Penny!


She and Chuck have a wonderful house in Altadena that is just the type of house I love. Lots of character, great wood floors, wonderful arches, and amazing windows! They also have a purple tree in their front yard that I thought you'd want to see!
As the lacy leaves fall off, it makes for a purple-green lawn. I think it's kind-of pretty!

Right out her kitchen window is a view of a perfect palm tree. Being that I've now lived in both Arizona and California, I've gotten to see lots of palm trees. But, I have to say that I think this is the most perfect palm tree I've ever seen! I had to experiment with different camera settings, and decided to just show them all to you!




I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family. Thanks for all the fun and relaxing times together this weekend!

Long Beach Apartment

Here are the long-awaited apartment pictures! Sorry it's taken a bit to get them uploaded. It was a combination of being exhausted at the end of my orientation days (who would think that sitting for 8 hours a day, 5 days in a row would be so tiring?) and then needing to get the place photo-ready. Well, here's a look at where I'll be living for the next few months. It's a nice place with vaulted ceilings, a balcony outside, a master suite with a bathroom, and of course a guest room! The place was very clean, (spotless, in fact!) and the furniture is nice. It's funny, the wood furniture (bed, dresser, coffee table, end tables, TV stand, and dining room table) are exactly what I had in Scottsdale. The couch and chair are the only things that are different, and they're more comfortable! The only thing I don't like about the place, is that the living room is SO much smaller than in Scottsdale, but since that was HUGE, I shouldn't be surprised!

Here's a picture standing at my front door.


The living room. Jim and Marilyn were kind enough to loan me a few things, including some great African prints!


This picture is to show you the really tall vaulted ceilings! This sure makes the place feel larger, and I love that there are no neighbors above me!


Standing at the couch, looking back at the dining room and kitchen (you can see the front door on the right).


The kitchen is small, but fine for just me.


The guest bathroom is just to the left of the front door. I finally framed one of my prints!


The guestroom. Again, Marilyn was kind enough to loan me some bedding, and I'll be adding one of her lamps tomorrow.


There is SO much closet space in this apartment! There's a whole wall of it in the guestroom, a whole wall in my bedroom, a second one in my room, and an entryway closet as well. In fact, I just measured, and the guestroom closet is 9.5 feet long! Wow, come visit me and you can bring as much as you want!! The entryway closet is 4 feet long... for the two coats I have hanging up in it....


This is my room.


I thought this was pretty odd. The sink is in the "hallway" just outside the bathroom that only has the tub and toilet in it. At first I wasn't so sure about it, but it's actually pretty handy! I can see where if there were two of us trying to get ready in the morning it would be pretty nice, but since it's just me, I think it's great not to have to blow-dry my hair in a steamy bathroom!


You can see my shower through the bathroom door. That's another closet behind the bedroom door. This one is 5.5 feet long and I'm using it as my office! :)


Standing at my bathroom sink, looking back at my main closet. Again, 9.5 feet long. For those of you who weren't adding that up in your head, that's 28.5 feet of closet space. Since I have only 14 clothing items on hangers, that only take up one mirrored door, there's plenty of extra space. I've never had this much closet space in my life, and I've never had such few clothing items with me in my life! In fact, I'm pretty proud of the fact that I have been able to fit all of my clothing into one suitcase and one garment bag (except my work scrubs went into a second suitcase). As someone who comes from a long line of over-packers, this has been pretty freeing!


In my Seattle apt I only had two mirrors, that were both waist-up, but I could stand back far enough to get the overall picture. In LaCrosse, I only had one mirror and couldn't stand back far enough (a wall was in the way!) so I brought my old full-length mirror that's survived since Hillcrest days. In Scottsdale, I finally got a full-length mirror on my closet door and thought I was really moving up in the world. Well here in Long Beach, there are whole walls of mirrors! No excuses for not noticing some stain on the back of my shirt or something like that!

Well, I hope you enjoyed your tour of "our" apartment! Let me know when you're coming to visit! I already have my first guests scheduled and am looking forward to more!

This is why I'm a traveling nurse:

This is exactly why I love what I'm doing right now! This was my view tonight as I ate dinner on the beach, watching the sunset. Could it get any better? Am I really getting paid to live here and work for the summer?

Oops, I'm getting ahead of myself! I intended to post all sorts of pictures of "our" apartment tonight, but it turns out I haven't really been here all day, which means I'm not any more settled than last night. But, since I had such a fun day, I have no regrets! (And I'm mostly settled, it's just all the little stuff to finish, and the decorating things to make it feel like home.)

This morning I had the huge blessing of worshipping at Calvary, the CLBA church in Fullerton where my Uncle Jim is the pastor. It was great to be back there (I had been around some in the late 90's with Youth Ministries) and to see a few people that I knew from then -or had met when I was here last month.

One really fun thing is that Erick and Merrily (of Washington fame) are down here for the weekend and came to church as well!

After church, Erick and Merrily and I headed to Laguna Beach for lunch and an afternoon stroll while Jim and Marilyn had a previous commitment. We ate at this great restaurant that had outside seating and we had the best seats in the house -right on the corner next to the beach! Here's Erick showing us that he and Merrily are celebrating their 34th wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary!!

After lunch, we walked along the boardwalk and saw all sorts of sights. This first picture is for my cousin, Krista, who is a HUGE volleyball fan and requested a beach volleyball picture. I hope this will do okay! In fact, pretty much the first thing we saw at the beach was 3-4 beach volleyball courts, all filled with fun players! I wish you could be here to join in! (And you wouldn't have to shovel sand to make a court like at the family reunion!!)

Click on this picture to enlarge it, and look at all the houses crowded together on the hill -Laguna Hill. Wow, the people are just packed in!

Erick told us these are the basketball courts from "White Men Can't Jump". It was fun to watch the pick-up games being played.

We walked all around the town of Laguna, up and down streets enjoying the fun shops. We also tried some WONDERFUL gelato down a quaint alley that reminded me of Europe. We headed up the hill to find some other shops, and discovered this great scenic view.



After saying goodbye to Erick and Merrily (and THANKS for the really FUN afternoon!!) I headed back to my apartment so I could get the address for my new hospital and head in that direction. I always check out the hospital the day before my first day, so I know where to park and where I'm supposed to go once inside the doors. I'm a little nervous about the commute, because it took 32 minutes to get there on a Sunday afternoon when traffic wasn't an issue at all. That's just how long it took with the distance, stoplights, etc. I'm due at Human Resources at 7:45am tomorrow morning, so with rush hour thrown in there, I'm not sure how long it will take. I had been figuring to give myself twice as long as it would take today, so to leave 60 minutes early to drive 11.7 miles seems crazy... [I'll admit, it made me think nostalgically of this post, talking about the 1.2 miles (3-minute) commute I had in Fergus.]

I found the hospital okay, figured out which parking lot to use (it's a really big campus and a little overwhelming...), found the HR office and decided to wait with finding my unit until I get the official tour.

I left the hospital and was determined to watch the sunset from the beach. I figured since I was further west than yesterday, it was a great night for it! I was also more prepared, with my jacket thrown in the car for the cooler beach weather! The hospital is pretty close to Redondo Beach, so that's where I went. I grabbed a really good ham and cheese sandwich from "Classic Burger" (it looked like a classic CA eatery!), found a parking spot, grabbed my lawn chair from the car, and walked down to the beach. I ended up with a great view! I sat in my chair and just thanked the Lord for His incredible gifts! I kept thinking about how really blessed I am!!






Should be a great summer!

I headed home the other way, which took 28 minutes, typed up this blog for you! and am now heading to bed so I can leave at 6:45am. Good night!

My First Day in California!

[New state, new blog look! Like the ocean colors? I tried yellow for the sunny-ness of California but it was too bright, and then tan for the sand of the beaches, but it was too blah...]

I'm sitting in my new apartment in Long Beach! Today was a beautiful day, the windows were open, a cool ocean breeze was blowing in the trees, and when I wasn't unpacking I was looking out the window at all the greenery around! While I loved all my time in Arizona and will really miss being around my friends there, I have to admit I'm happy to trade in the desert for green stuff again!

On Thursday night I ended up feeling wide awake all night so I kept packing away until all of a sudden, it was 5:30 am and sunny out! I decided it would be much cooler to pack my car early that AM before the temps reached the predicted high of 101 degrees. It turned out to be a good plan! I got my car all packed up (and even had a little space left over -coulda brought the kitchen sink!), decided to sleep for a couple of hours, met up with Kathy and Lisa and little Taylor for lunch, then took off for California! I spent pretty much the whole drive talking with friends, so it really flew by! I got to Jim and Marilyn's, visited for a bit, then slept REALLY well!

This morning Jim and Marilyn were gracious enough to come with me to help unload my car. Getting my keys took 3x the normal amount of time, but unloading the car took 3x less than normal! Thanks for coming along! It was so nice to only climb the stairs a third of the time!

I often take pictures right when I walk in the door, so that if there's stuff all around later on, I still have something to show you. Well, I forgot to do that today, and while I'm mostly settled, I'm not all the way done, so you'll have to wait just a bit... Sorry about that! Just so you know, "we" have a nice apartment!

I headed out this evening to check out the neighborhood. I have a good friend who's been known to call Starbucks "Mecca" and while I don't think she'll be able to visit me this summer, I want her to know that Mecca is less than one block away.

For the rest of you, this just means that you can visit me and still get your morning cup of coffee, since I don't have anything here to offer you!

[I consider this:Mecca, but I haven't seen one yet. Hopefully soon...]

I'm happy to report that Target is only 1.6 miles away. That's a good thing for this girl! I picked up a few essentials then headed out to do the thing I was most looking forward to... going to the ocean!

I timed it so that I could sit at the beach, eat the dinner I grabbed, and watch the sunset. I wasn't 100% sure where to go, but I just went in the direction of the ocean, in the shortest distance possible. I ended up right where I planned, and found Bluff Park there. It had the perfect little bench to enjoy my dinner, but the view wasn't quite what I expected. I hadn't thought about the fact that Long Beach is slightly in a bay and the beach faces south, not west. So, I watched the ocean, but not the sunset.

This picture is looking west.
This is looking southwest, and you can see the Long Beach harbor/marina. There were also tons of ships out at sea, and the islands you see are actually oil rigs that are made to look a little nicer than normal oil rigs (this info was courtesy of the older Spanish man who stopped to ask if I was enjoying the view and excited to hear that I just moved to the area today and already sought out the beach. He said it's the best place to take an evening walk and gave me a few other hints about the area.)


This is looking southeast from the beach, and when I remember to bring my jacket (it started to feel really cold in my t-shirt and shorts!) I'll head out on the pier next.


After driving west a bit, and still not finding the "west" coast of CA, but a really fun area of Long Beach instead, I realized that I needed to get back home and since it was getting dark, I'd try again tomorrow.

I stopped at the grocery store quick to get the essentials in life: milk, bread, yogurt, bananas, and Oreos.

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to going to Calvary for church (where Uncle Jim is the pastor) and I'll also head to my new hospital to make sure I know where I'm going bright and early on Monday morning. I hope to post some apartment pictures as well!