Awkward Change

I never finished posts about our trip across the country.  My goal is to do that today, but so far I have been in a funk, no kidding, since we crossed the Texas border line.  Reality set in that we weren't just on an epic 3,000 mile roadtrip.  No, no, we were moving to this new foreign land that quite frankly has nothing on the west coast in terms of beauty.  I grew up right by the Sierras and Yosemite, then in college moved to a place that is gorgeous with water and mountains (albeit rainy) daily.  Moving to a land of hot, dusty brown flat terrain is less than ideal.  My heart sunk as this reality set in, and I felt deep within me the need to cry it out.  Like full on sob, grieving what I lose (not only natural beauty, but deep friendships and closeness to at least one set of family) in moving here.  I have tried on multiple occasions the past week to cry, but tears won't come, so thus far I just feel stuck in sadness, loneliness and depression.

Needless to say, it's been a brutal transition, and that's not easy for me to admit or write about.  I want to be the positive adventure gal that is fired up about everything.  Instead I feel like the Psalmist lamenting in misery to God.  I have been sleeping a lot, and emotionally down when I'm awake.  I'm trying to make choices to exercise (walking the beach, etc. which is pretty cool) and eat well, and to reframe life.  I don't want to stay stuck in my self-induced pity party.  But at least for my first week here, that's where I've been.

Life is just going to look very different here.  Slow.  Which feels unfamiliar after the past 3 years of graduate school and traveling like crazy, and having tons of people to spend quality time with.  I have felt purposeless here, which is an awful feeling.  And untrue- we aren't purposeful because of what we can check off of our to-do lists.  We are purposeful because God delights in us and chooses to make himself known through us.

I think this second week will look better than the first.  There are still so many question marks...  the economy going down took away my potential job as a hospital chaplain, so now I've been interviewing at churches here.  There are some interesting options, but nowhere that's the obvious fit.  We get our new house and all our stuff back this Sunday/next Monday, which will be a treat, to have our own space, after living in other people's space out of suitcases for the past month.  I will meet with an infertility doc to talk about our options to become parents, and slowly some of our question marks will be erased.  

In all of this, I am grateful for Los, who's been such a servant to me, and an encourager when I've felt constantly down.  I love him so much for knowing exactly how to be my best friend and strong when I feel massively weak.  I know that God will do a new thing in our lives individually and as a couple in this new season, so here's to having no idea what the future looks like!  Please pray for me:)

Santa Fe

You know you're in Santa Fe when you see peppers drying everywhere!

The nation's oldest Christian church
and the nation's oldest house!  You can see straw in the wall, and those doors are so short!
Not a bad view for a pee stop:)
Yet another makeshift bed...

Grand Canyon

We had a good day traveling to the Grand Canyon and back from cute Flagstaff, AZ.  We probably won't go to the canyon again, but it was nice to hike a few miles there and see people from everywhere in the world!

These 20+ Dutch bikers were all wearing clogs!  Awesomeness. 
Wildlife right below us:)
Hot Dog.

London Bridge Is Falling Down, Falling Down, Falling Down...

Wanna hear a funny story I forgot about til last week?  So, back into the 60s, I think, the London Bridge was falling down.  So somebody put it on the equivalent of eBay, and an oil millionaire idiot in the States bought it for millions of dollars.  They moved it to AZ, and it's now an attraction at Lake Havasu.

The only problem was that when it was assembled, the Americans realized it wasn't London's beautiful and famed Tower Bridge, which we saw this summer.
But instead, a boring looking cement bridge.
Oops.  Our boat tourguide in London got a lot of laughs out of this story, whereas we Americans slumped a little bit lower in our seats:)
Burly wasn't impressed.  This is how he spent much of our drive, out for the count.

Our weekend in FresYES

We had a good time in Fresno with my parents, timing the trip to coincide with my mom's 60th birthday.  We saw a chick flick with her and she puggy-sat while we went to the FSU game the next day.
It was our first tailgate together, Los joining a long-standing tradition in my fam.  Dad made famous tri-tip and there was lots of other good stuff.  Thousands of people tailgate and the band of the week was ( the terrible, one-hit wonder) Smashmouth.
The guys were downing a huge bottle of tequila, I stayed away from that!
At some point my dad had to literally grab the bottle away from my husband, which I captured on film to shame him later (j/k)
It was great to catch up with cousins Jon-Michael and Jo Ann!
Of course the game was fun too, though it got super cold (strange for fall in CA)
We all ended up bundled up


The next day we went to church as a fam and hung out at my dad's with lots of family, as though it was a holiday.  Monday morning we made a pitstop at Jamba Juice and Whole Foods and then hit the road for Arizona.  We'll miss my familia, since we are likely staying in TX (first time away from fam for a holiday) this winter.

Back back to Cali Cali

So my anal need to be chronologically accurate fights with my laziness in blogging amidst all kinds of life change. We are NOW IN TX! I feel crazy about it (highs/lows/disbelief/sadness/hope, crazy) But I'll write about that soon. First, I'd like to highlight some of the fun parts of our week and a half journey that spanned about 3,500 miles.





Our first stop in the homestate was with the beloved Flory's.  They took us wine tasting in the relaxed, beautiful Russian River Valley.  I had zero concept of how huge the wine regions in CA are, and I was really glad we went to some peaceful places like Lynmar, as opposed to the more pretentious and commercial places I've been in Napa in year's past. Leave it to the Flory's to always find the best places:) They also took us to a great restaurant and Burly loved playing with Peet, though you might not believe that from these 3 pictures.



We admire and respect the Flory's for multiple reasons, and always enjoy conversation with them as they are responsible stewards of the lives and gifts God has given them. Plus they are fun, smart, interesting, we hadn't been at their house 5 minutes when we started talking about politics and religion. Gotta love people who cut the crap and wrestle with the hard stuff! Joel wants Los to run for President of the US. What do ya'll think?

They also told us about this great, private first-growth Redwood tree grove that we visited near the ocean.
It was near sunset and majestic, all of those trees hundreds of years old.
I made my husband be a giant tree-hugger, his wingspan is 6'1" and it would've taken 5 of him to go around this tree.
Los trying to toss Burly to the top of the trees...
We heart California, and miss it like crazy. Coming up next, time with my fam.

Our Cross Country Trip Begins!

Saying goodbye to Los' parents- we'll miss you!
Seize the Day!  At the Grand Canyon today we saw the CA license plate with the same thing!
It had to rain on us in WA one last time for good measure:)
We'll miss the verdant Northwest
This almost naked (diaper only) girl in Portland cracked us up... 

The Pearl District in PDX is so cool!

We had a fab dinner (such good wine) at Piazza Italia, we highly recommend it!

Los was stoked to go to the Garden for the Blazers game, it was super exciting, I admit!
Wouldn't life be better if we all had people like this to stretch us out every day?!

We stayed at the Bishop's lovely home on a canal to Lake Oswego, very cool! 
Burly Evans v. Bear Bishop with the supervision of Tony Bishop
Los subbing in for Ian (who was in Alaska on business) with cutie Julian
We love you guys!  Grateful for you!
Sorry Puggy, back in the crate you go, for 9 days of good old-fashioned road-trippin...

The Space I'll Miss Most- our garden

I feel great that our buyer loves the garden and will steward it well, but I will certainly miss it. Here are a couple of pics from our last days in the garden, marveling at what we've created in the past 3 years.

Can you imagine that we moved in NOTHING was in this backyard! Not even grass:) Just dirt and a lot of hope.


I grew at least 30 pumpkins and have been giving many away (I'm taking 2 all the way to TX!)

Los' parents got 16 for their porch:)