Pictures!!! And turning 25

Here is our house! This is the living room - from that window you can get a good little glimpse of the ocean.

Alyssa - notice the God Bless Our Pad above the couch? ;)

On the Left is the view you get from entering in the front door. I have Andrea's (and Melissa's) green hutch filled with some of my favorite things, and the red coffee table is

serving as a storage for games as well as a stand for the Ginormous TV we are using from Uncle Mark.

The next picture is down the hall, in between the living room area and kitchen. In the hallway is our laundry/ hall closet space. At the end of the hallway is the bathroom. To the Right is our bedroom, and to the left is our office space, with the desk, and hopefully guestroom, if we get a bed in there.

Here you can see the dining room, when you walk in the door it's to the right, and behind it is the kitchen. Like the chandelier? I used to hate it, but with all our other stuff in there, I don't notice it too much. Jordi took the back off of that counter so I could use it as shelf space for the microwave and other stuff. Very nice to have!

And this is me in our driveway on my 25th Birthday. That's the True Value parking lot right across the street. We go there all the time, it's very handy for Jord ;)

As a housewarming/birthday party we had a whole bunch of friends over for a bbq, it was really fun. On my actual birthday, Jordi didn't have to work, so we went surfing, had breakfast in Laguna, and hung out in San Clemente in the afternoon. It was a very relaxing and nice day - which we hadn't had in a while since we've been so focused on getting our house in order.

Well, there's a little taste! Hope to see you all sooooon. I'm getting very excited to see Scott and Andrea and Steph!

Our New Life

So I'm just going to elaborate a bit on our life the past few weeks, and all the answers to prayer that have us where we are now!

While we were still living at my parents house, I decided I was going to visit my best friend Corrie, living in Dallas, during her Spring Break (she's a teacher). Jordi wanted to go to Phoenix to help his friend out there with remodeling their house, so he decided to go while I was in Dallas. We had been apartment hunting a few times, and the selection was rather depressing. We toured lots of dark, ugly apartments - some smelling of mold, some with really weird 70's touches, most without garages (a necessity with all of Jordi's tools and our toys!!) I swear the 70's were the worst possible thing that could have ever happened to architecture and building. The 50's, like our last apartment in Redondo, still used tiles, implemented the invention of windows, etc..the 60's you can see the aesthetics decrease, but there is still lots of light and relatively normal space. The 70's comes along, and all of the sudden windows are "sooo last decade" and instead it's really cool to have paneled walls, dark passageways, random storage hidden in the paneling right under the vaulted ceilings and cottage cheese. There are even paneled mirrors! Built in anything is cool, no matter if it is helpful or attractive. The uglier the lamps, and the chunkier the drywall, the better! It's scary out there, is all I have to say to all you apartment hunters!

We lucked out and found an apartment built in the 80's. Once again, windows are in fashion, although so is stick-on linoleum tiles (which we are constantly having to restick when they slide up on eachother), and vinyl countertops (blech). And of course, the color mauve - the color of our vinyl countertops, the vaulted ceilings and walls, and our grandiose ugly chandelier.

Anyways, this was by far the least ugly apartment, with the most windows, and it had a garage, so we decided to apply for it. The day before I left for Dallas and Jordi left for Phoenix, we found out that we had been accepted! Unfortunately since we didn't have jobs, we had to pay 2x the rent for our deposit + first months rent + prorated March rent. We paid A LOT to move in!!!

I had an awesome time in Texas with my best friend, although it did snow the day I left! At first I thought it was beautiful wonderland, and then on our drive to the airport it became scary when there were accidents every 50 yards, and a car actually came backwards down an embankment almost right into us on the freeway!!! But then when I was sitting on the runway for 2 hours waiting to be deiced, I decided the snow was just downright annoying. Jordi had fun building stuff with his 2 college buddies, and we came home happy and tired on a Sunday. That Tuesday was our move in date. Also, Melissa, my sister in law, had just come to town from Australia, and Dave, Jordi's brother just came back from his bike trip to South America. With all the siblings back in town, plus moving out of our storage and into our apartment, it was needless to say, a very hectic week!!

We had an absolute blast with Melissa, I loved having her back in town, and really wish she didn't have to go back to Australia!! :( It's also nice having Dave back in the country, and now that Easter celebrations are over, we are starting to have a little routine here in San Clemente.

When Jordi was in Arizona, one of his friends that he was working with told him that his dad's company was hiring installers in Orange County. When Jordi got back, he applied, and he has just started his training this week, our second week in the apartment! We couldn't have asked for better timing! We basically applied and moved out on faith that we would get jobs soon, and Jordi got this full time job with benefits right away! And then while Melissa was here, she introduced me to one of her good friends, Jess, that owns a Bar Method Studio in Crystal Cove. Bar Method is a type of exercise, incorporating workout moves for dancers, as well as some Pilates and Yoga stretching moves. Anyways, she needed someone to work the front desk a couple times a week, and I am currently doing that! So I work there a few hours a week, and I also get free exercise classes! Although I would love some more work, this has been great for me so far, and I love it. And Melissa came at just the right time to set me up with Jessica ;)

Everything has been so orchestrated, we thank God because we know we are in the right place for now, doing things that we enjoy for the moment. Although Jordi's job is full time, I see him so much more than when he worked for Webcor, it hardly feels like full time ;) We are loving this little town, and we both get to surf more than when we lived in Redondo, which is fun. We are so close to both our families, and most of our friends, which is really fun also. Can't wait to check out the weekly Farmer's Market downtown tomorrow! :)

Puji Tuhan!