Catching Up

Hey Everyone! It's been a week already and I've been dying to give you an update!

Man does it suck to not have Internet at the house. We're waiting until I get paid to see if we can swing all of the main bills right now. I just got access to Internet (like right now) at my desk yesterday, but since I'm at work it's hard to try and do this when I'm supposed to be working. Jake and I are trying to make the Internet access in my cell phone work for us, but you know how that can be.

So... how is it here??? It's awesome. We love it and are already thinking we could probably be here and happy for a while. Things are going great. We've already got tons of people calling us to hang out, friendly neighbors, and we really like the area. It's alot like SoCal, except no beach anywhere. H-O-T.

Here are some highlights of what we've been up to without having to write a book. I promise I'll have pics of our place and the church as soon as I can....

• Our 2 day trek went great. Spike made it the whole way and we didn't have any probs. He just sat in his caged totally annoyed that he had to sit through 2 whole books on CD with me. LOL
• OHHHHH I totally forgot to tell you all!!! I'm not going to be a country girl (well, kind of). I know when I wrote about the house and how much it will be an adjustment I complained a ton about how it was going to be in the sticks. Wrong! After seeing so many houses you kinda blend them all together so I was confused. We are totally close to parks and shopping and a pool and everything! I LOVE where we live. However, on my way to work I do have to make sure my vents on my AC are closed when I pass the cows every morning. Poo smell. Ugh! I'm so embarrassed. JK JK JK
• Once we got to the house our neighbors (Alissa and Andy) across the street came up and introduced themselves and helped us carry in our guest room bed. Then the next day they invited us over for dinner with 3 other families on the block. So friendly! All of them are in their early thirties with babies. It was fun getting to know them. They think we'll want to have babies being around all of them. I don't know right now... :)
• The neighbors told us the owners of our house are a Hispanic gay couple - might explain the crazy paint on the walls. Fiesta! :)
• All of the Central Youth Staff came and helped us move in. One guy even brought over his lawn mower and mowed our lawn! It was such a blessing and Jake and I got everything out of boxes and in their place after just 3 days. Phew! Now we've been scheming at night behind Walmart to dump all of our trash and ruined boxes. Hee hee. I honestly feel like we're on a mission when we do it.
• I almost died when I went into the garage (Yay we have a garage!) one night and was greeted by a huge, hairy spider - I'm saying it was a tarantula - Jake says it was a wolf spider - I mean, this thing had legs like hairy fingers! Now when I go to bed I have anxiety about one of those creeping up on me while I'm sleeping. Eeeks!
• We survived our first monsoon this week. Talk about scary... thunder, lightning, major wind, and heavy rain that you can barely drive. The sky looks like there's a war going on. Both of our backyard trees blew over and two of our roof tiles were blown off. Good thing we don't own the house and can just call maintenance. It's so weird to be extremely hot out with rain.
• We might not paint the inside of our house afterall - or maybe we will when we actually have the energy. Knowing that we don't own it and after 3 days and nights of unpacking and getting settled in, we could seriously care less about the walls, we're just tired and over it. Moving is no bueno. But our house is incredible. More than I could ever have imagined for us. Please come and visit! :)
• Jake had his first interview with a company called Magellen on Monday. They handle all of Arizona's mental health cases. He interviewed to be a case manager for adults that are severely mentally disturbed and have been institutionalized and now they are trying to reintroduce them into society. They sounded very excited about Jake joining the team. He had to turn in some other paperwork so we're just waiting to hear back. He also applied for many government jobs. A woman here that I work with, her husband is an officer and told us about some pretty cool jobs working with Missing Persons and CPS. Jake would probably want to do that more.
• You're probably wondering why Jake didn't take the worship job here at the church. Many reasons. First, it's on the other campus about 10 miles from where I'm at so we wouldn't get to serve and do ministry together. That's so important to us and part of our livelihood. He'd have an entirely different group of kids and leaders he'd be working with and we weren't really excited about that. Another reason, we weren't sure what type of future Jake could have just doing worship. It's hard for guys to make a lifetime career out of just leading youth in worship. So he's going to be helping out there and pursuing a career with his counseling background and maybe even get into a teaching credential program.
• I'd love to send you pics of my new office here but guess what... it's not built yet. Yep, I got here and they told me it wasn't ready because they have to reinstall a fire sprinkler. So... here I sit with the intern at a cubicle. It's actually not bad and what I'm totally used to. Hopefully I'll get to officially move in with my books and stuff in the next couple of weeks.
• One (maybe 2) of my girls from my Life Group in Roseville (they just went off to college to Hope and USC) will probably be visiting us this weekend and staying in our guest room. I'm SO excited! I have this crazy idea that whenever anyone stays in that room we take a black and white portrait photo of them and hang it on the wall. Hopefully we'll have tons of photos to cover that wall. I really stoked about getting to continue to be in these girls' lives.
• We purchased our very first washer and dryer set off of Craig's List. Jake's still trying to figure out how to hook them up. It's weird here in AZ - everything's electric, but sometimes there's gas hookups. It's weird, trust me on this.
• Last night Jon took me around to all of the High School Small Group houses. When he told them he'd be bringing me around he said they better have yummy desserts waiting for us - especially my fave - Pizzooki. Guess how many groups made Pizzooki last night? LOL! Almost all. After the first house I felt like a missionary eating the next ones out of courtesy and graciousness. Ugh. There goes my butt and thighs. JK It was really so sweet. And I had a blast getting to make connections with the leaders and kids. I can't wait to get to know them even more.

Ok I just got off the phone and asked Jake if I missed anything to share on this blog and all he wanted you to know is that "it sucks being a homemaker". LOL He's totally bored not having a job (or Cable TV) and just doing stuff around the house. He doesn't understand why any woman would want to do it. LOL

Ok well, that's it for us for now! I love you and I'll have pics up as soon as I can! Hugs and Kisses!

Farewell NorCal

Today's our last day in Roseville. We leave tomorrow morning on our 2-day voyage to Gilbert, AZ. It still doesn't even feel real - even as I sit here on the floor of an empty apartment. Strange. I wonder if it will ever hit me. Maybe there'll be a day when I see something that reminds me of Roseville or get a call from a friend from here and I'll break down. Moving on is definitely bittersweet. Here's to the journey, not the arrival - forming new friendships and memories along the way! Life is good.

WTF = Where's The Fun?

Our apartment is upside-down and packed up in boxes. Last night I tried to make Jake spaghetti and realized that all of our pots are in sealed boxes. It's craziness. I still have alot of packing to do.

My Name

I've decided for my stuff at Central I'm going to have everything say "Brianne Johns", instead of Bri. It was fun being in SoCal getting called Brianne again by family and friends and I decided I really like it. Bri is a cool nickname, but Brianne is my name. There it is. I'm done with that dilemma. :)

We Got A House!

If I could only explain to you how stressful it was to find a house in 1 and a 1/2 days... I was Mrs. Grumpster. Starting off, I had researched a ton of houses and their mileage from the church before we left for this trip. I had it all narrowed down to the perfect choices for us to check out when we got there. But then... one by one as I called to make appointments to see each house, leasing agents would tell me they were no longer available. It's a hot renter's market in AZ. No joke, they are placed on the website and gone within a day.

Something cool though, an agent got a hold of me and said she wanted to research for me and then set up an appointment to show me around to rentals when we were in town. She said she would have the most current ones that were available for when we got there. I thought that was perfect! She would do all of the work for me. She emailed me pictures and prices and we spoke back and forth on the phone about my wish list for our next home. We set up an appointment for Tuesday morning.

We arrived in AZ on Monday, straight from our weekend from Mike & Heather's wedding and visiting family, and visited 2 houses. One I had looked up online at Jake's parents house the day before, they just gave us the lock box code to see inside ourselves, and another we had an appointment for, but the agent stood us up. We called the day a wash and waited until Tuesday to see all of the houses the first agent had for us. It looked like she had about 10. Another agent wanted to set up an appointment for a couple of houses I found at Jake's parents' house as well, but I told her we'd have to call her after our first appointment because I thought we'd be busy all day.

We got there and there were only 3 houses she had to show us. I crossed my fingers and said a prayer. I wish I could tell you it was fun. After each house I got more and more nervous hoping that the next one would be "the one". All 3 houses were horrible. Bug infested, cat urine smell everywhere, bars on the doors, scary neighborhoods, tacky wallpaper... my hopes were dashed. We went to lunch and called the other agent hoping to be shown around to her houses... She didn't answer. We stalked her and her office like crazy. The scary part, we knew we'd be on a plane in less than 24 hours and needed to find something to live in since we were moving there on the 21st (in like a week). Ahhhh!

So what did we do? We went to the houses that we wanted the 2nd agent to show us and looked inside the windows since they were locked - I'm sure we looked like robbers. Kept calling her. We drove around neighborhoods and looked for "For Rent" signs and called. No joke, there are at least 1 if not 2 to 3 "For Rent" signs on each street in AZ. People are foreclosing on their houses and looking for a way out. We made an appointment with a private owner that way. It was gorgeous, inside a gated community, close to the church and shops, but the lady wanted alot more than we were wanting to pay. No luck with that. We kept calling that agent. We got a hold of another private owner, but decided his house was too big for us. We got a hold of another leasing company this way, drove to about 3 of their houses, and found out they were all not available until mid-September. Not going to work. We kept calling that other agent. I was so angry, and scared.

By about 5pm with nothing, we surrendered our dream for a house and visited an apartment complex. The most disappointing thing about that? They were just as expensive, if not more, than the houses we saw online! And small! I'm still surprised we did this all in one day.

Waiting, waiting, waiting... never a call from the 2nd agent who said she wanted to meet with us. Up until last night at 7pm we had nothing. It was between the expensive house from that private owner, an apartment, or the one we saw on the first day with the lock box.

We decided to go back to the house with the lock box and check it out again. To be honest, it was a really nice house... just painted super tacky on the inside in a couple of rooms and about 5 miles from the church and shops. I'm such a city girl I really wanted to be in the hub of things, like 1 mile or less (yes, I know I'm a dork). No joke, you pass the corn fields and the cows to get to this house. But, it was in a great neighborhood and offered everything we wanted at the price we wanted - including a community pool (we think) and a park around the block.

We left the lock box house after our second visit and went to Chipotle for dinner. By this time, I was Super Mrs. Grumpster. Jake and I had to decide... the expensive one near all of the shops but no appliances (like washer and dryer and refrigerator), or the country one that included everything where we could host alot of get-togethers with our youth group but was painted super ugly tacky and further away? I went back and forth, totally discouraged. I really wanted to find something PERFECT.

By this time I just wanted to go home, go to bed, and forget about moving to AZ. Perhaps God was trying to teach me something through this... actually, I know He was. We finally came to a decision. The country one. I called the leasing agent of the lock box house (after 7pm on a Tuesday night mind you and leaving on a plane for Sac the next morning) to let her know we were in and wanted to put a deposit down to hold the house. But I was really not excited about it. We needed something to move into in a week! Jake was excited - he totally balances me out. He's the best. She didn't answer, so I left a message feeling hopeless.

A miracle... she calls back around 8:30pm. Luckily for some reason of all of the houses we looked at, I downloaded the applications for this house at Jake's parents' house and took them with me - just in case we wanted it. She told me she'd need the apps as soon as possible. So we filled them out and my dad took them to work this morning and faxed them at 7am. She told me we could send her a holding deposit later and that the apps would be fine.

And then.... As Jake and I are at the airport waiting for our plane today I get a call. It's the leasing agent. Bad news. She made a mistake. We DON'T have the house. There's another applicant on this house. It's now a race for whoever can get her a $650 cashier's check first to hold the house. Are you kidding me??? We're about to fly back to Sac in minutes. I called my dad and asked for a HUGE favor. He said he'd do it. By this time it's 9am this morning. Did I tell you it was a hot renter's market or what? Again I'm thinking we might be moving with no house. More Mrs. Grumpster. My dad leaves work, rushes to the bank, and amazingly has the check in her hand at her office by 10am. WE HAVE THE HOUSE.

That'll teach me... I wasn't really into the house until I knew someone else might have it. All of a sudden I LOVED the house and would do ANYTHING for it! God wanted to show me a thing or two. Since I wasn't excited before, He was going to force some excitement into me. It worked. :)

So... I'm gonna be a country girl! Yee-ha! :) LOL Below are pics of our house. We will be living here for a year and see if we like it enough to stay longer. If not... like my dad said, we can always look around for something closer or better. Jake and I are going to paint the tacky walls. It's going to be awesome.

For those of you who are wondering... the rent on this house is only $1095 a month. CRAZY CHEAP. It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath. All of you need to come and visit! We have 2 guest rooms so you are more than welcome!

Our tacky RED door. The owners of this house must have been fascinated by McDonald's or something. You'll have to wait and see the pic for our master bedroom - bright yellow and Ronald McDonald red. No, it's not tolerable brick red, it's fire engine red. To the left of this door is the entrance to the guest bedrooms and guest bathroom.


The living room and kitchen - with that tacky red around the kitchen island. So random.

A different angle of the kitchen and the hall leading to the master suite.

Here it is! Our Crazy Master Bedroom! These are my pictures. The pictures online DO NOT make the colors look this bright.

And the tacky yellow master bathroom, leading to our walk in closet. I actually LOVE that it has 2 sinks. How awesome for Jake and I getting ready in the morning!

The tacky yellow guest bathroom.

One of the guest rooms. I seriously don't get why the rest of the house has neutral colors and then the kitchen island, master bedroom, and both bathrooms are so "colorful". Maybe they were matching their bright furniture?

This is very cool. Our backyard is all set with a BBQ island and patio. It's really cute, even in person. We're on a corner lot so we only have neighbors behind and on the left of us in the back. Also, both the front yard and backyard has grass. My friend Drue from Vegas told us that grass is always nicer than the "desert landscaping", making it feel more like California. We lucked out! I guess we need to invest in a lawn mower and BBQ. I feel so grown up!

And that's it! Welcome home Johns'! We hope you can come over and join us sometime!

Heather & Michel's Wedding

Our good friends Heather & Mike have been together for 8 years and decided to get married on 8/8/08. So cute! We went down to SoCal for their beautiful wedding at Strawberry Farms, a golf course in OC. Click here to see all of the pictures I took.

Becky & I

They even had 8 bridesmaids & 8 groomsmen

Happily Ever After


Ok, Mike's cool Uncle Gary. I made friends with him.

How cool is that???

Umm... How much cooler is this...???? :) lol

Me & My Nephew Colton. He's almost 1 now! Time flies.

Us and the Bride & Groom

Me & My Beebs

They had the cutest 1st dance... so fun!

Jake taking my pic...

The money dance...

Inside the Barn Reception... it was beautiful!

My Fave

On my last day at Adventure my friends took me out to wherever I wanted for lunch. I chose my favorite place - Kokyo! I LOVE Japanese Teppanyaki - like Benihana's where they grill in front of you. I could literally eat this everyday! We had a blast.

Mandy, Me & Marlene

Drue, Steve & Scott

Our chef. I think his name was Roberto - not so Japanese, but it was delicious! See his volcano below?

Adventure Farewell Party

I've got alot of catching up to do here. I'm going to try my best to blog it all tonight. By the way, Spike is fine. We took him the doctor and they said he seemed healthy. He hasn't been barfing since that night I blogged. Of course after we suffer being shredded by Spike to get him into the carrier and pay the doctor's visit bill he's fine. It's a miracle... more like Spike is trying not to go back there ever again.

Below are some pics of Jake's and my Going Away Party at Adventure. They spoiled us. It was so much fun. They had kids come up and give testimonies of memories with us, they had a parody skit about us, they had completely silly games like American Idol and dizzy Pin the Tail on the Donkey (inside jokes), and a station for a love offering to help with our bills and a card writing station. They gave us some amazing gifts and tons of gift cards to our favorite places. It was a pretty awesome night.

Cha-Cha!

I got a new phone! And I LOVE it. Isn't it so cute?

But even cooler than that is what I learned from my friend Brian on Sunday for cell phones --- Cha Cha.

Ever heard of it? Basically you can text to Cha Cha (242 242) and ask ANY question and a person on the other end will answer it! No extra charges, just your regular text cost in your plan.

Here are some questions we've asked so far...

• Who is... (enter yours or someone's full name)? (Talk about creepster answers!)
• Who is the 22nd US President?
• What is the largest age gap in a marriage couple? (The answer Anna Nicole Smith - 63 years with J. Howard Marshall)
• What are the movies for (city, state)?
• What's the weather for (city, state)?
• What is the largest shoe size ever made? (Answer - 29.5)
• I'm bored, what should I do tonight?
• What does your Number 8 Ball say about...?
• Why is the sky blue?

It's really fun and helps for those times you're arguing with a friend (or husband) about something you both think you know but don't know. JK JK JK Now you can get the answer! Hope you guys like it!

Brianne or Bri?

It's been a crazy week of goodbyes... I'll have pics of our Farewell Party soon.

But here's the more pressing question I'd love your feedback on...
Central wants to know what name I want to go by, Bri Johns or Brianne Johns, for email, door name, business cards, and name badge type stuff.

What do you think? I'm having a hard time with this. Jake thinks "Bri" since that's usually how I introduce myself. But then again, my birth name might sound more professional. I could reinvent myself. :) Everyone in NorCal calls me Bri, but SoCal people call me Brianne.

Ugh, it's a dilemma. Can you help?

Taney's Sick :(

My poor kitty (Spike, aka Tane, aka Taney, aka Wayne... he has many names) is 12 years old and I've been worried about how he'll make the trip to AZ. He's in great shape (still plays with his toys and runs around) but in the past 3 days he's been throwing up each night, sometimes multiple times. I'm taking him to the vet on Monday since there were no openings today. I really hope it's nothing serious. It makes me sad.

My poor baby!