Goodbye City Life

Goodbye:

Stinky elevator that had an expired 2005 certificate of inspection proudly on display.

Mushrooms growing from the cottage cheese ceilings.

Water damaged bathroom walls and cardboard ceiling.

Yellow hot water.

Smells of Indian food cooking on Sunday mornings.

View of neighbors balcony, kitchen and neighbor smoking her 80+ cigarette for the day.

1970's yellow and white kitchen tile - the same tile they had in our church's bathroom growing up.

Tandem parking and waking Jon up early in the morning to move cars.

Death defying left turn onto Barrington Street.

Crazy Brian and his need to borrow our car for "emergencies," his unfulfilled promises to fix our ever rundown apartment and his delicious Italian meatballs and sauce.

View of the Pacific Ocean...from our roof.

Consistent 70 degree weather.

Beautiful, antique dinning room chandelier...I wish that I at least tried bribing Brian into letting us take it.

Brentwood zip code and the 3-times its worth rent that went along with it.

Tall blue and white building with its awkward attempt to look French and its huge blue tower acting as our no fail landmark for all our visitors.

I don't quite miss you yet, but I have a feeling one day I will.

Redwoods Camping Trip

This summer for Jon's birthday and the 4th of July, we went camping in the Redwoods. Our plan was to leave Thursday and drive to UC Davis to stay with Marshall and then all three of us would drive to Crescent City (which is right on the CA/OR border) the next day.

Thursday morning Jon was in the parking garage packing our car with all of the camping supplies when Brian (our building manager) came out of his "make-shift" workroom to speak to Jon. As they were talking they both started to smell smoke but they figured it was from somewhere outside of the apartment complex. They continued to talk and then Jon started noticing a lot of smoke in the air and all of a sudden the fire alarm in the apartment complex starts going off. It turns out that Brian's workroom had caught on fire because his American flag fell onto an exposed light bulb which caught it on fire and then the flag lit his work chair on fire. This in turn set off the water sprinklers which literally flooded the entire workroom and parking garage. From where I was on the 4th floor of the apartment complex, you could hear the alarm but it wasn't too loud, in fact, I thought it was from the apartment complex across the street (which is a little concerning to me). Once I stepped outside however, you could smell the smoke and see it in the air. Brian was pretty bummed because all of his equipment was damaged due to the water but at least everyone was okay. So with the smell of campfire already blanketing our car and belongings, we headed on our road trip. I am going to miss these types of wacky stories when we move.


We lucked out and got the best campsite in our campground. We were surrounded by Redwoods with no neighbors near us....just how I like it.

We went to "Trees of Mystery" which is pretty much a tourist trap, but it was still fun. They have paths that you can take in the redwoods with stops along the way that point out different facts . They also have a sky rail/ski lift that you can ride and really get the "feel of being amongst the redwoods" it was actually really fascinating and breathtaking being up that high.

We visited Jedediah Smith State Park. It was beautiful there. They have a beautiful lake and a lot of paths through the redwoods that you can wander around in.


For the fourth of July we headed down to the beach where tons of families and friends were setting off their own fireworks. I am assuming fireworks are legal in Crescent City because the amount and size of fireworks that were going off right above our heads by amateurs was both overwhelming and amazing. The city also had their own fireworks show. It didn't start until 9:00pm so by that time, the fog on the beach was really thick and we basically heard but didn't see the "official" show...but they sounded good :) Overall, it was an excellent trip.

Our Well Has Run Dry

In our apartment that is...

We are going on day 3 of no water at our place and it just plain sucks. A couple of months ago...actually MANY months ago I noticed that whenever we used our hot water, yellow water would come out of the faucet for the first couple of minutes...gross, I know. Well, I put in a request to get it fixed and our building manager, Brian, came up to "discuss" the problem and basically said that as long as we run the water for awhile before using it, we should be fine and that for him to replace all the pipes would be a huge process involving a pipe going from our kitchen, across the wall in our living room and into our bathroom and numerous holes in the wall. I could tell he wasn't going to do anything about it so I just left it at that. Well, on Saturday, Brian comes running into our apartment, doesn't even knock, in a huge panic (and knocks over my glass of water while doing so!) and tells Jon to turn off the water (Jon was doing the dishes) because we were flooding the apartment below us. It turns out that our gross, rusted pipes have finally gave way. At first, he said we would be safe using only the cold water but upon our trial run living on only ice cold water he came running back into our place yelling that we were once again flooding the place below us and we are not to use ANY of the water in our place and he turned everything off. As an alternative, he is "letting" us use the bathrooms/showers and sinks on the sixth floor penthouse which is vacant. He said this to us as if we should be excited about using their bathrooms! Well, I am not. I prefer my own bathroom thank you. Last night we finally ventured upstairs to the sixth floor to use the showers and they were freezing!! No hot water at all. When we told this to Brian, he said that he forgot to turn on the water heater to that apartment...UGH!

Now we have to go through the huge process of installing this pipe through our apartment and supposedly Brian was going to get "started" on it today. Unfortunately Brian runs on a very slooooow time frame so I really have no idea when he will finish but I really miss our water :(

*Update - Brian didn't even come by today!!!!

5th Year Anniversary

Jon and I had our 5th anniversary on the 27th of December. Even though it was technically our anniversary, we didn't really acknowledge it or celebrate it on that date. We actually decided that we would drive home from Salt Lake on that day. We got up really early to pack and Jon chipped off all the frozen ice on our car for at least an hour. I don't know how he did it, I went outside once to carry luggage to the car and although it was beautiful because it was still dark outside and the sun was just beginning to rise, so the snow was really glistening, it was freezing! I forgot what it feels like to actually have your bones ache due to the harsh, biting cold.
When we left, the roads were still really icy but by the time we got out of Beaver, it was fine. However, the minute we hit Las Vegas it was bumper to bumper traffic the entire way home! I absolutely hate being in traffic staring at the dirt outside for hour upon hour. It took us 12 hours to finally get home and by the time we arrived in Brentwood, all I could think was how good my own bed was going to feel.
We were anxious to get everything out of the car, so we made one huge trip and took as many pieces of luggage as we could and got up to our apartment. Jon went to unlock the door and the door didn't open. We realized that the bottom lock to our apartment was locked! How could that be? We only use the top bolt lock because we only have one key...and that key is the bolt lock key! We were furious...someone (apartment manager) must have gone into our apartment while we were gone and locked both locks when they left! Jon tried calling both our apartment managers; one was on the east coast for the holiday's and the other wasn't answering her door or phone. We continued on being furious...Jon even broke into the Manager's office and looked through all the drawers looking for some kind of master key. We were determined to get in. Eventually a neighboor took pity on us and gave us all her screwdrivers and tools hoping that we could break in...but as it turns out, our apartment is REALLY secure. Honestly, I never really felt safe in our apartment and sometimes when Jon is at school really late, I have felt like someone could break in really easily. But now I know that that is impossible...we live in a vault.
As it turns out, I had my camera in my purse and had to take a picture of Jon trying to break into our own apartment:


We never were able to break in...we didn't even get in until the next morning!