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!