We stopped in Livermore the other night to visit one of my old mission companions, Andrea. She had a baby just 3 weeks after I had Sophie so it was fun to catch up and see each other's offspring. We laid them on the floor so they could look at each other and laughed that it was their "first date". Luckily we caught most of it on video. Jakob said something to her and she turned her head around and looked the other way. Playing hard to get? Maybe. I'll have to talk to Sophie later about giving nice boys a chance :)
Friday, July 20, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Home Sweet Ghetto
When we arrived in San Leandro, we weren't taken back by it's beauty. Our neighborhood is rather quaint and homey, but outside of that things are a little run down and, well, I'll put it this way -- I won't be jogging outside at night. I didn't think it was that ghetto at first, but after a few trips around other parts of the Bay, we're convinced that it is. We got some Thai in downtown Palo Alto last night after going to Ikea. Palo Alto is NICE. A lot nicer than San Leandro.
On top of being in an undesirable part of town, we're really close (like 100 feet) to a daily run of a Union Pacific train -- complete with horn-blowing and house tremors. BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit, also runs close by, and the picture wouldn't be complete without planes flying overhead on the way to the Oakland International Airport, about 10 minutes from here.
The couple of trips we've taken to Wal-Mart reminded us that we're not in Provo anymore. I realized during the first few minutes I was in there that we, aside from the door greeter, were the only white people in the whole place. Don't get me wrong, that usually doesn't bother me, but it was getting late and well, the crowd that goes to Wal-Mart at night isn't the kind I'd invited over for dinner. Last night we needed to drop by there on the way home and because it was late, I decided to stay in the car with the baby. I pulled out my laptop and checked my e-mail while I was waiting.
Then it occurred to me, "Why am I sitting here in a ghetto parking lot, alone, with a laptop in my lap shining like a beacon in the dark, just asking to be ripped off?"
As I finished up what I was doing, a car parked in the spot right across from me, and a man got out of the car. I saw him glance over at me, then he started to walk over. I immediately began to tense up, I closed my laptop a bit and I heard him start to say something to me like he wanted me to roll down my window. I shook my head at him as if to say, "No way, buddy. There is NO way I'm rolling down my window so you can get me." I think he sensed it and stayed about 5 feet from the car. I could hear him say through the window,
"Hey, if I were you, I wouldn't be sitting in this parking lot with a laptop running. Somebody was ripped off last week. I thought I'd warn you."
Silly, naive me, with my Idaho license plates. That's what he was probably thinking. He was right. What was I thinking?
On the brighter side, I do feel safe in our neighborbood and our place is kind of cute (despite the carpet).
On top of being in an undesirable part of town, we're really close (like 100 feet) to a daily run of a Union Pacific train -- complete with horn-blowing and house tremors. BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit, also runs close by, and the picture wouldn't be complete without planes flying overhead on the way to the Oakland International Airport, about 10 minutes from here.
The couple of trips we've taken to Wal-Mart reminded us that we're not in Provo anymore. I realized during the first few minutes I was in there that we, aside from the door greeter, were the only white people in the whole place. Don't get me wrong, that usually doesn't bother me, but it was getting late and well, the crowd that goes to Wal-Mart at night isn't the kind I'd invited over for dinner. Last night we needed to drop by there on the way home and because it was late, I decided to stay in the car with the baby. I pulled out my laptop and checked my e-mail while I was waiting.
Then it occurred to me, "Why am I sitting here in a ghetto parking lot, alone, with a laptop in my lap shining like a beacon in the dark, just asking to be ripped off?"
As I finished up what I was doing, a car parked in the spot right across from me, and a man got out of the car. I saw him glance over at me, then he started to walk over. I immediately began to tense up, I closed my laptop a bit and I heard him start to say something to me like he wanted me to roll down my window. I shook my head at him as if to say, "No way, buddy. There is NO way I'm rolling down my window so you can get me." I think he sensed it and stayed about 5 feet from the car. I could hear him say through the window,
"Hey, if I were you, I wouldn't be sitting in this parking lot with a laptop running. Somebody was ripped off last week. I thought I'd warn you."
Silly, naive me, with my Idaho license plates. That's what he was probably thinking. He was right. What was I thinking?
On the brighter side, I do feel safe in our neighborbood and our place is kind of cute (despite the carpet).
Friday, July 13, 2007
Next Stop: Sacramento
Things have settled down a bit since the first three crazy days we were here. The fridge and stove seem to run great. I baked some cookies and finally felt like I was at home. Although, sitting on lawn chairs in the living room and watching episodes of Monk displayed on a monitor that sits on the floor hardly feels like home. Only another week or so to go.
We met our neighbors. I decided that it's good to meet your neighbors. It seems like a silly thing to say, but I didn't realize it took extra effort to meet the people in my neighborhood until I lived in a place where everyone on my street wasn't in my ward. Our neighbors are an older couple named Sam and Patty. They've lived here for nine years and Patti's daughter and grand-daughter live right next door. We've been over there a couple of times to ask questions about things and they even put some ice packs and breast milk in their fridge for us until we got ours. They're super nice. And they even commented a couple of times that they love the sound of a baby crying. Good thing because Sophie has been having a lot of loud but brief outbursts this week.
I guess I should mention the training since it's the reason why we came out here. :) It's been really fun! I've met some nice people. (And incidentally, the mother of one of my old roommates at Utah State is in my class. She lives in Pennsylvania. Small world.) The class is small and only has about 12 or so women. Nope, no men. And a few of the women are from out of the country (Mexico, Hungary, Ukraine, Korea and Taiwan. Only the lady from Mexico flew in from her country. The others live here.) I've learned a lot about why my Suzuki teacher did the things she did and a lot about creating an atmosphere where children can learn music like they learn language. I'll have to post a summary of things when I finish. There's so many cool things about Suzuki!
Tomorrow morning we're heading to Sacramento for the weekend. Sophie needs to meet the Perry clan and I think Steve's mom wants to show her off at her gyms. They've got her picture on all the computers there and even posted some by the cardio machines. Ha. She's famous! We're also making a trip to Ikea to get some shelves for the kitchen. Ikea's fun. I haven't been to the one in Draper yet, though. I'm giving it a few months to settle down. I still can't believe people camped out there.
We met our neighbors. I decided that it's good to meet your neighbors. It seems like a silly thing to say, but I didn't realize it took extra effort to meet the people in my neighborhood until I lived in a place where everyone on my street wasn't in my ward. Our neighbors are an older couple named Sam and Patty. They've lived here for nine years and Patti's daughter and grand-daughter live right next door. We've been over there a couple of times to ask questions about things and they even put some ice packs and breast milk in their fridge for us until we got ours. They're super nice. And they even commented a couple of times that they love the sound of a baby crying. Good thing because Sophie has been having a lot of loud but brief outbursts this week.
I guess I should mention the training since it's the reason why we came out here. :) It's been really fun! I've met some nice people. (And incidentally, the mother of one of my old roommates at Utah State is in my class. She lives in Pennsylvania. Small world.) The class is small and only has about 12 or so women. Nope, no men. And a few of the women are from out of the country (Mexico, Hungary, Ukraine, Korea and Taiwan. Only the lady from Mexico flew in from her country. The others live here.) I've learned a lot about why my Suzuki teacher did the things she did and a lot about creating an atmosphere where children can learn music like they learn language. I'll have to post a summary of things when I finish. There's so many cool things about Suzuki!
Tomorrow morning we're heading to Sacramento for the weekend. Sophie needs to meet the Perry clan and I think Steve's mom wants to show her off at her gyms. They've got her picture on all the computers there and even posted some by the cardio machines. Ha. She's famous! We're also making a trip to Ikea to get some shelves for the kitchen. Ikea's fun. I haven't been to the one in Draper yet, though. I'm giving it a few months to settle down. I still can't believe people camped out there.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
. . . but I still love technology. Always and forever.
How do I even begin to describe the last three days? Well, I don't have pictures yet and if you're brave enough to read this whole thing, you'll know why. They'll come soon enough.
I need to preface this story with a few concerns I had before coming to San Leandro. The whole reason why we're out here is for me to do my Suzuki training and because an apartment had opened up on the waiting list we've been on since October (for when we move here in the fall), we decided to stay here instead. Because I'm nursing Sophie I was worried that my class would interfere with her feeding schedule. (I use the term "schedule" very loosely.) The days are broken up into a 4-hour class, followed by a 1-hour break, then another 2-hours for observing lessons. Sophie is just beginning to go 3 hours between day feedings, so I had a brilliant plan to pump breastmilk a day ahead so she could eat during my long class session. I had some that I had frozen, so we put it in a cooler with an ice pack until we got to San Leandro and I could stick it in the fridge.
Well, assuming we would have a fridge was my first mistake. We got into San Leandro at about 8:30 PM on Monday and went directly to Damian's office (our manager). We read through all the contracts and rules and he made a comment that the guy who lived in the place before us had cut about an inch off of the bottom of some cabinets so he could fit his fridge in. (Instead of unscrewing them from the wall and moving them up.)
I said to Damian, "Oh, the guy brought his own fridge?"
"Ya, none of the aparments are furnished."
"You mean appliances, too? Like fridges, stoves and stuff?"
"Yep."
A few minutes later in the conversation, I also found out that it didn't have a dishwasher or a garbage disposal either. That was a shock. This was the first aparment I had lived in that didn't have at least a fridge and a stove. We expected that we would provide our own washer and dryer, but this absolutely floored me. Then I thought about the breastmilk in the cooler and panicked a little.
We walked into the apartment and the first thing I noticed was the ugliest carpet in the world. Everywhere. That was really disappointing to me because I had expected hardwood floors. The unit we saw last summer had lots of hardwood and the guy who lived there said that most of the units have hardwood or a combination with carpet. Ours has all carpet, except for linoleum in the kitchen and bathroom. On the bright side, the carpet was really clean. Damian had shampooed it twice and made sure the whole apartment was spick and span. This is actually the cleanest apartment I think I've moved into. I don't feel like I need to wipe anything down. That night we set up Sophie's bed and our air mattress and started to talk about how the next day would go, with me driving back and forth and him taking care of Sophie. I was really worried that she wouldn't be satisfied with the milk that I had saved for her and that she would be screaming here at home with poor Steve totally helpless and unable to feed her more. That on top the need we had to find a fridge and stove as soon as possible, plus the slight anxiety I had about starting (and finding) my Suzuki class and being in a city where I didn't know my way around, just broke me. I burst into tears for a few minutes, and then I was better.
Tuesday morning I started my class and Steve stayed home with Sophie to do some appliance research. We decided that instead of using more of our savings to splurge on new appliances that we would get some decent used ones and save some money. So Steve hunted on Craigslist that day and we found a decent Whirlpool gas stove that someone was giving away for free in the area. YAY! That was a good start!
This morning Steve rented a truck to go pick up the stove and to go to San Francisco to get his scooter. We figured since we only had the truck until tomorrow morning at 7, we should probably look for a fridge, too. Steve was still in San Francisco when I got home from class, so I jumped on Craigslist and found a guy who was selling a fridge, a washer/dryer set and a BBQ grill. All for $700. Not bad at all. Everything was Kenmore and in really good shape as far as I could tell from the pictures. The next few hours went like this:
5:00 I emailed the guy and asked him for dimensions.
6:00 He emailed me back with dimensions, so I called Steve and we decided we would take the whole lot. (We'd been talking about getting a real grill when we got here since we use our little one so much.) I emailed the guy back and told him we wanted to pick everything up tonight, if possible.
6:45 No response from the guy yet. He lives about an hour from where our place is and about 45 minutes from where Steve was. Because we had to pay for the rental truck by the mile, we decide to both start driving up there from where we were and meet in the hopes that he'll write us back with an address within the hour. I set up my little command station in the passenger side of the car which included a map of the bay area, my laptop equipped with my nifty little Sprint card, and my cell phone. Both plugged into an Ac/DC adaptor so I wouldn't lose power. I opened up my Gmail account, so I could watch for his email while I was driving. (Hey, it's not that dangerous. All I had to do was hit F5 to refresh the page :))
7:15 Running around Target trying to find rope, which I didn't end up finding.
7:45 Driving on the freeway, halfway to where Steve and I had planned to meet. No response from the guy yet, so I start praying in my head that this will work out because we had decided against buying brand new stuff. I'm sure the Lord smiles on frugality, so I thought He should smile on us, too.
7:50 Received the following email from the guy:
"Sorry. We just sold the washer and dryer, and actually need the refrigerator until next week."
My first thought was, "WHAT THE?! When you pray really hard for things, they're supposed to work out!! And I'm 30 minutes from home for no reason!!" I wasn't blaming God or anything. I was just upset.
8:00 Met up with Steve and we talked about what we should do. I suggested that since we've got the truck, to try to find a fridge right then. I start looking at Craigslist and found a fridge and a washer/dryer set. They were listed by different people, but both were within 10 minutes of where we were staying. We arrange times to pick everything up, then we took off back where we came from with Steve leading the way with his trusty little GPS to both homes. (It was about this time that Steve informed me that we were out of minutes until Sunday.)
8:30 Picked up the fridge.
9:15 Steve dropped me off at home so I could feed Sophie. I was so proud of her. She slept through all of this and went 4 hours before she was hungry again.
Now it's 11:45 and Steve just got home with the washer and dryer. They weren't in as good of shape as we expected, but they'll work fine.
I got to thinking about all of this and the first thing that occurred to me was that we spent $525 on a fridge and a washer and dryer. If that other deal would have gone through, we would have spent $700. We ended up spending $175 less and maybe God was telling us we really didn't need a BBQ grill right now.
Another thing that occurred to me was how awesome technology is. In a matter of a few hours, we were able to get three major appliances in two cities in about three hours. And we did all of this remotely and wirelessly. I would like to thank the laptop, Sprint mobile broadband, the cell phones, the AC/DC adaptor, the GPS and Google Maps.
Kip knew what he was talking about.
I need to preface this story with a few concerns I had before coming to San Leandro. The whole reason why we're out here is for me to do my Suzuki training and because an apartment had opened up on the waiting list we've been on since October (for when we move here in the fall), we decided to stay here instead. Because I'm nursing Sophie I was worried that my class would interfere with her feeding schedule. (I use the term "schedule" very loosely.) The days are broken up into a 4-hour class, followed by a 1-hour break, then another 2-hours for observing lessons. Sophie is just beginning to go 3 hours between day feedings, so I had a brilliant plan to pump breastmilk a day ahead so she could eat during my long class session. I had some that I had frozen, so we put it in a cooler with an ice pack until we got to San Leandro and I could stick it in the fridge.
Well, assuming we would have a fridge was my first mistake. We got into San Leandro at about 8:30 PM on Monday and went directly to Damian's office (our manager). We read through all the contracts and rules and he made a comment that the guy who lived in the place before us had cut about an inch off of the bottom of some cabinets so he could fit his fridge in. (Instead of unscrewing them from the wall and moving them up.)
I said to Damian, "Oh, the guy brought his own fridge?"
"Ya, none of the aparments are furnished."
"You mean appliances, too? Like fridges, stoves and stuff?"
"Yep."
A few minutes later in the conversation, I also found out that it didn't have a dishwasher or a garbage disposal either. That was a shock. This was the first aparment I had lived in that didn't have at least a fridge and a stove. We expected that we would provide our own washer and dryer, but this absolutely floored me. Then I thought about the breastmilk in the cooler and panicked a little.
We walked into the apartment and the first thing I noticed was the ugliest carpet in the world. Everywhere. That was really disappointing to me because I had expected hardwood floors. The unit we saw last summer had lots of hardwood and the guy who lived there said that most of the units have hardwood or a combination with carpet. Ours has all carpet, except for linoleum in the kitchen and bathroom. On the bright side, the carpet was really clean. Damian had shampooed it twice and made sure the whole apartment was spick and span. This is actually the cleanest apartment I think I've moved into. I don't feel like I need to wipe anything down. That night we set up Sophie's bed and our air mattress and started to talk about how the next day would go, with me driving back and forth and him taking care of Sophie. I was really worried that she wouldn't be satisfied with the milk that I had saved for her and that she would be screaming here at home with poor Steve totally helpless and unable to feed her more. That on top the need we had to find a fridge and stove as soon as possible, plus the slight anxiety I had about starting (and finding) my Suzuki class and being in a city where I didn't know my way around, just broke me. I burst into tears for a few minutes, and then I was better.
Tuesday morning I started my class and Steve stayed home with Sophie to do some appliance research. We decided that instead of using more of our savings to splurge on new appliances that we would get some decent used ones and save some money. So Steve hunted on Craigslist that day and we found a decent Whirlpool gas stove that someone was giving away for free in the area. YAY! That was a good start!
This morning Steve rented a truck to go pick up the stove and to go to San Francisco to get his scooter. We figured since we only had the truck until tomorrow morning at 7, we should probably look for a fridge, too. Steve was still in San Francisco when I got home from class, so I jumped on Craigslist and found a guy who was selling a fridge, a washer/dryer set and a BBQ grill. All for $700. Not bad at all. Everything was Kenmore and in really good shape as far as I could tell from the pictures. The next few hours went like this:
5:00 I emailed the guy and asked him for dimensions.
6:00 He emailed me back with dimensions, so I called Steve and we decided we would take the whole lot. (We'd been talking about getting a real grill when we got here since we use our little one so much.) I emailed the guy back and told him we wanted to pick everything up tonight, if possible.
6:45 No response from the guy yet. He lives about an hour from where our place is and about 45 minutes from where Steve was. Because we had to pay for the rental truck by the mile, we decide to both start driving up there from where we were and meet in the hopes that he'll write us back with an address within the hour. I set up my little command station in the passenger side of the car which included a map of the bay area, my laptop equipped with my nifty little Sprint card, and my cell phone. Both plugged into an Ac/DC adaptor so I wouldn't lose power. I opened up my Gmail account, so I could watch for his email while I was driving. (Hey, it's not that dangerous. All I had to do was hit F5 to refresh the page :))
7:15 Running around Target trying to find rope, which I didn't end up finding.
7:45 Driving on the freeway, halfway to where Steve and I had planned to meet. No response from the guy yet, so I start praying in my head that this will work out because we had decided against buying brand new stuff. I'm sure the Lord smiles on frugality, so I thought He should smile on us, too.
7:50 Received the following email from the guy:
"Sorry. We just sold the washer and dryer, and actually need the refrigerator until next week."
My first thought was, "WHAT THE?! When you pray really hard for things, they're supposed to work out!! And I'm 30 minutes from home for no reason!!" I wasn't blaming God or anything. I was just upset.
8:00 Met up with Steve and we talked about what we should do. I suggested that since we've got the truck, to try to find a fridge right then. I start looking at Craigslist and found a fridge and a washer/dryer set. They were listed by different people, but both were within 10 minutes of where we were staying. We arrange times to pick everything up, then we took off back where we came from with Steve leading the way with his trusty little GPS to both homes. (It was about this time that Steve informed me that we were out of minutes until Sunday.)
8:30 Picked up the fridge.
9:15 Steve dropped me off at home so I could feed Sophie. I was so proud of her. She slept through all of this and went 4 hours before she was hungry again.
Now it's 11:45 and Steve just got home with the washer and dryer. They weren't in as good of shape as we expected, but they'll work fine.
I got to thinking about all of this and the first thing that occurred to me was that we spent $525 on a fridge and a washer and dryer. If that other deal would have gone through, we would have spent $700. We ended up spending $175 less and maybe God was telling us we really didn't need a BBQ grill right now.
Another thing that occurred to me was how awesome technology is. In a matter of a few hours, we were able to get three major appliances in two cities in about three hours. And we did all of this remotely and wirelessly. I would like to thank the laptop, Sprint mobile broadband, the cell phones, the AC/DC adaptor, the GPS and Google Maps.
Kip knew what he was talking about.
Monday, July 09, 2007
In-N-Out
We don't go to California without eating at In-N-Out. We don't even make it to California before we stop at the one in Reno. Steve's a California boy and there's some kind of uncontrollable urge that he was born with to eat there. He could eat In-N-Out multiple times a day during our vacation, but luckily he spares me. Don't get me wrong -- I love In-N-Out, but it doesn't exactly go "In-N-Out" of my hips very well.
Since it was Sophie's first trip to In-N-Out, we thought we'd document the occasion. Too bad she won't be eating anything. . . directly anyways.
Were heading into the pass between Reno and Sacramento, so I better jet before I lose my connection!
Since it was Sophie's first trip to In-N-Out, we thought we'd document the occasion. Too bad she won't be eating anything. . . directly anyways.
Were heading into the pass between Reno and Sacramento, so I better jet before I lose my connection!
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