Things are looking up!!

Hey guys!!!
Things are going great here! We are having alot of fun! Things are going so much better now than they were at the beginning. We have met some really great people which has made everything so much easier. The church we have started going to is really great and has several young couples which is nice. We have become really good friends with the pastor and his wife (Rusty and Karen) and also with their daughter and son-in-law(Theresa and Kyle). Theresa and Kyle are our age and have a little boy that is 14 months old and super cute. They live really close to each other and we go over there often to just hang out. Rusty and Karen have a pool so I have gone over there several times to hang out at the pool with Theresa. Its really nice. They are all super great people and are good Christians which always helps. We have been really blessed in both places we've been to meet great Christian people which has been amazing!
On Tuesday, we went to Yosemite National Park which was absolutely incredible. It is one of, if not the, most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is truely a majestic place. You are surrounded by massive mountains of granite and fantastic waterfalls which are unbelievable. There are meadows and rivers that make the whole place seem serene. It really is a place out of a picture book. The sheer beauty of it is unbelievable. It is a very awe-inspiring and breathtaking place. I coult not believe the beauty that this place has.
We went to several places there, but there is still so much for us to see. We definitely plan to go back soon. Another amazing thing is that the animals there are not afraid of people. The squirrels would literally come right up to you (of course, they could have been looking for food!). We were crossing a meadow and noticed that there were 4 deer grazing really close to us. They would raise their heads and look at us, but would not get spooked or run away. The pictures below show how close I was able to get. It was really incredible!
Below are the animal pictures and some other pictures from that day. There is also a picture from the outside of our house that we are staying in, since many of you have asked! Also, many of you have asked about the gas prices here. Yes, they are ALOT higher than they are at home. The picture below is from a gas station about 10 miles outside of Yosemite National Park. Yes, it is for real and yes, people were paying that! Enjoy!! We miss you and cant wait to see you all!!!!

Not much to report. . . . .

Im trying to do better with this blog thing so I thought I would give you guys an update even though I have no pictures to put up. All is well out here in California. We are trying to adjust to the time change and the warmer weather. I never realized the effect the time change has on a body. Its hard to shake it and to get adjusted. Apparently we both caught a bug during our hotel hopping on the road so we've been a little crummy. Other than that, we are doing good. The weather here is fabulous. It is always sunny and warm, which is nice. It is a little hard to get used to the warm weather since we were so used to the cold in Philadelphia, but its a nice change. We are actually even getting a little sun. We have a really big fenced in backyard that we spend alot of time in so its nice. We've even gotten sunburned a few times. The sun seems to be alot stronger here than back home in NC. I would be out for hours there and not seem to get any sun, but Im out for an hour or so here and get ALOT.
I do have to say that the produce here is AWESOME!!! We are living in the middle of all kinds of fruit fields and farms. It is great and we love it!
We havent been able to so much exploring yet. We are hoping to go to San Francisco and Yosemite soon which will be lots of fun. This trip has been a little different because we havent met as many people as we had by this point in Philadelphia so that is a little tough to get used to. We really miss our friends in Philly and all the things to do nearby there. But this is a new adventure and Im sure it will be great. Its jsut off to a slow start. We did find a church that we really like and that has a young couples ministry so hopefully, we will meet some great people that way.
Several people have asked about the dogs and they are doing great. They are loving all of the space they have and the big backyard that they can play in. we are loving the space to. Its a nice change.
So thats the news from California! Hope everybody is doing well. Keep in touch. We love to hear from you!!

A note from California!

I know that I am terrible at this blogger thing, but in my defense, my computer has been broken and in the shop for the past 3 weeks. I finally got it back today and I am very happy about that!

There is alot to catch up on. We finished up in Philadelphia and are now in California.

Before we left Philadelphia, we did alot of fun things. Shane, Me, and Amy went to New York City for a day and had a blast. We also spent alot of time with our friends we met in Philadelphia.

New York was alot of fun. We did alot in the day that we were there. We walked our legs off and were exhausted the next morning, but it was alot of fun and we had a great time and saw alot. The first 3 pictures above are from Central Park. It was beautiful there and really neat to see things that are usually seen in movies. We also took the subway while we were there which I thought was really neat, even though we rode it for 45 minutes in the wrong direction (with my navigation record, it really wasnt a surprise!). We saw Rockefeller Center and Times Square which was amazing. There were so many lights everywhere, even in the daytime! We saw Broadway and Carnegie Hall which is a beautiful building. Went down WallStreet and got pics took with the wallstreet bull. We also went to Chinatown which is FABULOUS!!! I got a beautiful purse and wallet for nearly nothing. I could spend alot of money there if turned loose! Thankfully for Shane, we were on a schedule in order to see everything so we didnt get to spend much time there, but Amy and I could have spent all day there! We also went to the World Trade Center site which was heartbreaking. It is so hard to believe it has been almost 6 years since that terrible day. They are still cleaning up at the site and there are lots of memorials that have been erected around the site. It was both amazing and heartbreaking to realize that so many had died where we stood. We went across the street into St Pauls Chapel which was the churchat the base of the World Trade Center where alot of recovery efforts were based out of. There are still lots of memorials in the church along with missing posters and photos of those who died. It was a very emotional place. We also went to the Ladder 10 firehouse which was the first firehouse to respond and lost alot of their men. There is a beautiful memorial along the side of the firehouse. It was all really amazing to see.

We also rode the ferry out to Staten Island where we would pass by the statue of Liberty which was awesome to see. It wasnt as big as I had imagined it to be. It was still pretty big, just not as big as I was expecting. We also went to Grand Central Station which was beautiful both inside and out. We really had a great time and cant wait to go back.

There was a huge cemetary near our apartment in Philadlephia called Laurel Hill Cemetary and it was beautiful!!! It was huge with over 73 acres. It seemed to go on forever! The tombstones were incredible! They were really old, some even dating back to the 1600s. Many of them were massive! They were so tall and elaborate. Some people were buried in moseleums that were bigger than houses. It really was incredible to see. We were there for several hours but didnt even cover a third of the cemetary. It was really sad because there were many tombstones with several childrens names on them. Many families lost several children within the same week. It was easy to see the times when there was a pandemic and many people died. One family had a child who was born and then died within a year, every year for 5 years. It must have been really hard to have lived before modern medicine.

The last two nights at work, several of the girls and I went out after we got off work. It was alot of fun. On the second night, we all played Quizzo and it was alot of fun (although we did really bad). It was a blast though. The girls at CHOP were great and I will really miss them! We had alot of fun together.

Of course, I cant talk about my last days in Philly without talking about the Lincoln Greeners (that was the name Julie gave us and it stuck). That is a wonderful group of people and I was so blessed to meet them and have them as friends. The last night we all had together, we all went to dinner and just enjoyed spending time together. It was sad to tell them bye, but I know we will all see each other again at another time and another place. They are each dear friends and we will miss them greatly.

We were home for about 2 weeks, which seemed to FLY by. the time was gone before I knew it. I was only in Asheville and Burnsville for about 3 days, then I went down to Mom and Dads in Statesville to see my family and friends there. It was great to see everybody, even though I didnt get to see and spend time with everyone I would have liked to. Im sorry if I didnt get to see or spend time with some of you. The time just seem to run out. I had a great time with the family. It was great to see them. I really miss them when Im on the road. 3 months is a long time to not see the family so it was great to have a week or so with them. AND while I was there, I was blessed to be a part of the birth of the cutest baby in the whole world! My best friend Heather and her husband David gave birth to William David Hughes (well, Heather birthed and David cheered!) He weighed 7lbs and 9 ounces and was 22 inches long with the biggest feet and fingers Ive ever seen on a baby! He is absolutely adorable. It was amazing to see him come into this world and I was blessed to have that opportunity. It was very exciting and precious and I will never forget it!

It was sad to leave everyone again, but I know I will see them again soon for another happy reunion!

The drive out here was AMAZING. I was amazed at how the landscaped changed so much. I never realized how different the land in America was. Some was beautiful and some was . . . . well.. . . . not that great and quite boring. We spent the night in Nashville, TN the first night. Then Oklahoma City, then a smaller place called Holbrook, AZ and then Barstow CA. Then we finally made it to our house in Keyes, CA. We drove the I-40 route through NC, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and CA. We saw THE biggest cross in the USA (yes, it does say THE BIGGEST cross). In case you are curious, it is in Groom, TX and that is about all that is there. Thanks to this trip, I now know that Spruce Pine and Burnsville are not the middle of nowhere. The middle of nowhere is somewhere between Texas and New Mexico. Arkansas is not a pretty place and there is nothing there (no offense to anyone who happens to love that area, but I thought it was terribly boring!). Oklahoma is beautiful with very green fields and cool windmills which were really cool to see. Texas is semi-desert and theres not a whole lot of anything there either. New Mexico has alot of desert and is very flat, but its pretty. It was neat to be on land that is VERY flat and then see mountains up ahead. The sunset over the desert was beautiful and the colors were incredible! Arizona was really pretty and it was constantly changing even in the desert. We climbed up to 9000 feet and the mountains were beautiful. They even had snow on the top of them. It was awesome. We went to the Grand Canyon which was INCREDIBLE!!! That is an amazing place and I would highly recommend it to anyone who hasnt been there. We really had a great time there.

So that is pretty much a summary of the trip. THe dogs did fine and we made it here safely. We are now in our house, which is FABULOUS and HUGE. WE love it. It has a big fenced in backyard for the dogs to play in which is really nice. Im pretty close to the hospital. I went for a walkthrough and the people were nice. Its a really small place though which will take some getting used to after CHOP which was MASSIVE! Im sure it will be great though. I start computer training tomorrow so we will see how it goes.

Hope all is well with everyone! Miss you guys!