Part III

The long awaited Part III is finally here. After our wonderful September in Reno we finally made it back to Santa Barbara to get settled and get back to real life. Ryan started orientation at school the day after we got back and the rest of the time we spent unpacking boxes and getting organised. So I have attached a few pictures of our place because a few people have been so patient in waiting to see them. We still have a lot of work to do and need to get stuff hung on the walls but at least you can get an idea of where we live.

This is our bedroom, I am standing on my side of the bed and am looking at our closet on the right and the door to the hall on the left.

I am standing at our dresser and you can see the bathroom on the right.

I am standing near the door so you can see the window on the side of the bed.
This is the guest bedroom/ office. The bathroom is straight ahead and the door to the hall is on the right. There is a balcony on the left just outside the sliding glass door.

(Sorry I didn't pick this room up more.) The last picture I was standing right between the bed and the desk. In this picture I am standing in the door way and the closet is to my left behind the door. We love to have visitors and this would be your very own room and bathroom. (I promise to clean my quilting stuff off the bed.)

This is a picture of the view right as you come up the stairs into the guest room.

This is the view from the bottom of the stairs. Notice all the cabinets at the top of the stairs. There is awesome storage in this place.

I am standing at the front door in the entry way looking into the living room. The stairs go up to my right and the 1/2 bath is right to my left.

This is the 1/2 bath which is very small and hard to get a picture of. The toilet is to the left.
I am standing with the entry way behind me looking into the living room/ dining room. The patio is out the back. The washer and dryer are in a closet off the patio and yes we have to many books.
(My table doesn't always look like this but we were getting ready to eat.) To the left of the tv is our fireplace. We think it is a little funny that we have a fireplace but no air conditioning in sunny Santa Barbara.
I am standing by the book shelves and now you can see where I was standing for the last to pictures to the right and left of the kitchen door. The doors at the bottom of the stairs and under the stairs are more storage.

Here I am standing in the living room looking into the kitchen. The fridge is right to my left.

Here I am standing at the dishwasher looking back into the dining room. The fridge is on my right.

So far we love our place and it is starting to feel like home, but sometimes we don't know what do to with all this space.

2 weeks ago

I know that I am way behind on our life so I am setting a goal for this week to get all caught up. I still need to write part three of our grand move but unfortunately I am at work and all the pictures are on my home computer (sorry Joelle). So I though I would tell you what we did two weeks ago and then I will post Part III as well as some pictures from this past weekend while my parents were visiting.

We drove to my Grandparents house in the Bay Area on October 24. On Saturday night the 25th we went to the Bridge School Benefit concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre. It was an awesome night and we hope to make this a tradition.

The musician line up was: Band of Horses, Cat Power, Death Cab for Cutie, Wilco, Sarah McLachlan, Norah Jones, Jack Johnson, and Neil Young. (all acoustic)

Here we are having so much fun.

The rest of the weekend we spent with my Grandparents and it was wonderfully relaxing.

Happy Halloween

Resting

Part II:  When we arrived in Santa Barbara Ryan still had two weeks until he started orientation, so we decided to head home to Reno for some time with the families.

We drove from Santa Barbara to Reno.  California is a big state and there is not much out there.  As we were driving up the 5 (the interstate the runs up the middle of California) we came to this area that smelled really really bad.  At the moment that we were both wondering where that smell was coming from we came up over a little hill to see mile and miles of cow ranch.  It was pretty funny,  "Oh that's were the smell is coming from."  It was really bad for several miles on the road.

The first weekend home we went to lake with Rod, Soda, Grandma, Aunt Rhonda, and Jackson.  It was a great day.  We all skied and enjoyed the sun.  

The entire next week we spent shopping for a new car.  We test drove a bunch and went back an forth but be finally decided on a white Honda CRV.  So far we love it and we have put almost 3000 miles on it already.

After we bought our car we broke it in by driving it to California to see my Grandparents.  On Saturday we all drove into San Francisco so see a Chihuly exhibit but it was so crowded we were going to have to wait for 3 hours so we didn't stick around.

That evening we went to dinner at Patrick Davids and had a lovely time out on the patio.

The next weekend was all about Kippy.  Ryan's little brother is leaving on his mission and he had his farewell while we were home.  All the brothers came home for the weekend and we had a really fun time.  Saturday morning Kipp went thought the Reno temple and then everyone came over for lunch.  Saturday afternoon we took family pictures and then had dinner together as a family.  Saturday night we all watched Alex conquer the Earthquake at Swensen's and then we went swimming out at my house.  Sunday we had a family breakfast and then church was a 1.  Alex, Rusty, Ryan and Kipp spoke.  They all did an awesome job.  After church everyone hit the road to get back to Utah so it was a very quick weekend together but it was fun.  As I am writing this Kipp is spending his first full day at the MTC (mission training center).  He went in yesterday and I have been thinking about him like crazy.  It brings back all the feelings I had entering the MTC.  He is going to be a great missionary, but we are going to miss him. 

The rest of our time in Reno was filled with hanging out, swimming, sewing, watching TV, golfing, playing tennis, cooking, organizing my closet, playing video games, eating, talking, and resting.  We celebrated Nicole's birthday while we were home and found out some very good news.  I am going to have a niece.  Nicole and Chris found out they are having a little girl.  Congratulations to them and me Aunty Whitney.

Ryan and Chris playing lots of video games.

It was really nice to spend time with the family and rest.  

Stay tuned for Part III

The Journey

We now are officially back on the grid and I have a lot to tell you about.  Part I is the Journey.  It all started Saturday morning August 23 with a large yellow Penske truck,

4 hard workers and an hour and 15 minutes(thanks Brad, Nick, Brett, and Jill taking the picture)

We said our good byes to 336 East 67th Street #5 and we were on the road.  The check engine light came on while we were driving the truck back to the apartment to load everything.  We checked the oil and all major fluids everything looked ok and it was a really new truck so we took our chances and headed out.

Bye Bye Manhattan.  Unfortunately I was to interested in taking our last pictures of the city the I didn't get the Welcome to New Jersey sign but I got all the rest.  Here they are in order.

Cruising in the truck.  Thanks mom for the handy camera poll.

The first night we stopped in Toleto Ohio.  Our hotel was actually really nice and had a huge indoor water park attached to it. Sadly we didn't get to go because the road was calling our names.  Before we hit the road we had an all American morning with the National Anthem being played on the radio, a trip to Walmart, a new copy of Bruce Springsteen's greatest hits, and breakfast at the Waffle House.

The check engine light finally turned off.  I guess it figured we were ignoring it so it might as well turn off. 

There is a lot of corn and soy in this country.

The first time either of us have seen the Mississippi River

This sign says welcome to Nebraska.  It was a little dark and the camera has having a hard time.  The second night we stayed in Lincoln Nebraska.  Our hotel wasn't quite as nice  but we got free breakfast.  The doughnut were especially yummy.

This picture is for my dad.  It was a junk yard with everything even an airplane.

The weather was nice the entire trip except for a little rain in Wyoming but it made for some awesome pictures.

This was my job at fill up so our windows were squeak clean. 

It was a little dark as we pulled into Utah but here is the sign.

We stayed our third and fourth night in Provo with Ryan's brothers.  We picked up all our stuff we had been storing there and hit a few of our favorite restaurant while we were there (Cafe Rio and Smokehouse).  Most importantly we met our new sister-in-law Laura.

Wednesday morning we were on the road again.  

This shot is perfect good job Ryan.  You can see the Welcome sign, the state line sign, and the 0 mile marker sign all together.

Literally 2 miles before our exit in Santa Barbara our trip odometer his 3000 miles.  Perfect timing.

Our strong mussels hefted everything out of the trip Wednesday night and Thursday morning and we took the truck back Thursday afternoon.   

It was a really smooth trip, the check engine light never came back on, and Ryan and I are still speaking to each other. 

I still have so much to tell about so stayed tuned for Part II.