California is...

... a totally different world! I went out for a walk through the neighborhood for the first time this morning. It was SO beautiful. The temperature was just right and the sun was shining so brightly. The neighborhood where I am living is quite nice. Almost all of the houses out here are stucco. The homes are so beautiful. I wish I was good at describing things so I could tell you about it, or if I had a camera here I would just take pictures. But since neither is the case you will just have to take my word for it that is beautiful. If you go straight back from my house the hill is pretty steep so  the houses kind of look like stair steps. All the homes have a Spanish flair to them.  They have beautiful arch ways and colorful tiles. I saw a light (almost white) house this morning with pink trim. Most of the time I would gag at the very thought of pink trim on a house, but this house was so beautiful! The architecture is totally different out here - and I mean TOTALLY.

I saw several lemon trees while I was out this morning. There are citrus trees all over the place out here and no one does anything with the fruit. There is a loaded lemon tree straight across the street from my house. Chrissy told me I should just go over and ask if I could have a few of them. I am trying to get up the nerve to do that. I will probably get brave enough about the time the lemons are all dried up and ready to fall off the tree. 

Anyone want to come visit me while I am out here and go exploring???

Arriving in California

I have been so busy getting ready for my new adventure I haven't been able to post about what my new adventure is! A few weeks ago a friend of ours called and said he needed someone to take care of his aunt in California when she got out of the hospital. He was asking if one of my older sisters could do it. They obviously couldn't because of their work. I kind of off handedly said I would do it if it was only for two or three months. Careful what you say - you might have to stand by it. I will skip all the details of how things worked out, but here I am, sitting in California! I left Wednesday. I will just kind of skip over having to say goodbye to everyone. That was not easy on any of us. I did do better than I expected though.

We had to get up FAR too early in the morning to head to the airport. Dad and Mom drove me down. We got there later than we should have been but thankfully the airport wasn't crowded and I made it through in plenty of time. Security in the airport is insane. I hadn't been through our new airport yet. Crazy!

The weather was kind of stormy so the ride was pretty bumpy. Thankfully turbulence doesn't really bother me. There were no big drops just a lot of bouncing. I wanted so badly to be able to sleep on the flight but unfortunately, even with a row all to my self, I did get much sleep. I landed in Denver for my layover about 8:00 local time. I was there for about two and a half hours. One more airport I can add to my list. :)

We flew over the Rocky Mountains as soon as we left the airport. They were SO pretty. Thankfully I slept more on that flight so I didn't get to see much of the scenery. I again had a row to my self so I got to have plenty of room to stretch out. That makes flying much more enjoyable. 

When I landed I met up with Bro. Jim (the nephew of the lady I am going to be living with) and his daughter Joanna. They landed just a little while before I did. Some friends of theirs picked us up from the airport. We went back to the house where I will be living and dropped off our luggage. We had an appointment in the afternoon at the hospital so I could be shown how to work with (I guess it is about time I mention her name) Dorothy. I pretty much knew it all already from working with Fran. It never hurts to refresh stuff though.

From the hospital we went to a taco place to eat supper. Bro. Jim said he has been eating at that taco stand for over twenty years. They had really good tacos! They were a lot different than what I would consider "normal" tacos. 

Then it was off for grocery shopping. First we went to Cosco. I have never been shopping like that before. It was kind of strange. Most of the time when you go grocery shopping you pick up what ever you are out of. Here we had to start from scratch. We got tons of stuff. After we came home and dropped all that stuff off went to Trader Joe's to do some more shopping.

When we finally made it home for the evening, Joanna and I decided to clean the refrigerator before we put things away. That way we didn't have to take everything back out the next morning. 

By the time we got done with everything it was 10:30 here. That means I had been up for over 20 hours. I was SOO tired. Thankfully I got to sleep for a long time!

We did some cleaning and sorting here at the house this morning before we went to get Aunt Dorothy from the hospital. We went to lunch when we left the hospital.

This afternoon we did more sorting and cleaning. Her house has a whole lot less paper sticks now. Did anyone no paper shredders can be really fun? ;) Joanna and I had tons of fun feeding all those papers through that thing.

This evening I am here with Aunt Dorothy alone. Bro. Jim and Joanna went to visit some friends. Here is my first taste of what it is going to be like here. I had better get a bunch of books to read or this is going to be a very long three months. I am sure I will get used to it. It will just take some time.

I will keep everyone posted as to how everything is going. There is a good side to this and a bad side. I am sure I will be posting more often - but I have a feeling it probably won't be very interesting to anyone. :)