Hey Homie

So we've been here in sunny, Southern California for 2 weeks! It has been awesome! We love our apartment and the community that we live in. Jake and I get to go in the hot tub often when the kids go to bed..it's so relaxing. We went to Santa Monica Beach and the pier there last Saturday. Such a blast! I will have to post pictures later, we are still using the internet from our fitness center since we can't get it in our apartment yet!! Emerald and Charlie had so much fun at the beach. Emerald loves running from the waves and trying not to get wet. Charlie likes to eat the sand and watch it run through his fingers. I heart chubby baby fingers!

Our ward here is THE BEST!! There are so many nursery aged kids for Emerald to play with and the members here are so much nicer than ones in Utah! It's nice to be out of the bubble and to be around LDS people that are LDS because they WANT to be. I went to a little pumpkin patch and animal farm last week with some other Moms in my ward. Emerald loved petting the shetland ponies and going in the bounce house with Mommy! We also had a Halloween party with our ward last night which was really fun. Emerald loved the candy and got to stay up late!

It's been really nice weather here...still like summer...it's kinda funny that it is already November and it's still 80 degrees outside! I love it! Last week we actually had a wind storm. They closed down the freeway because the winds got up to 65 mph. It was crazy! It blew over our tree and our neighbors tree...almost uprooted it! They get wind storms here...but never really rain or snow. I can handle wind. I can totally handle wind. :) Emerald has been talking like crazy now! It's so fun to teach her how to say things. Her new phrase is "Hey homie". AWESOME KID. I taught her that one....if you didn't already know. :) And she has been OBSESSED with the movie The Polar Express. She loves the train and Santa! Christmas will be so fun this year!

I'm loving life here in Cali. I haven't been home sick at all!! I miss my parents and Mia....of course! But I really love it here. I feel great now that we have moved...like our lives are actually progressing. Life is great. Jacob LOVES his job. He comes home and is actually HOME. Not answering his never ending cell phone calls from stupid Chemistry grad students!

He is doing a bunch of training right now and reading up on manuals to get a feel for the replacement space shuttle (more of a capsule really) that he will be working on. He has to get going with his security clearance and then he can head over to New Mexico to work on it for a few weeks. I'm excited about that because when he goes on his business trips....I get to go home (my parent's)!! So hopefully I can make it there in December for a few weeks. That will be fun...I will have to bring some cheetos...I know you love those cheetos Mom!! HAHA! I will have to write about our cheeto incident another time! It's another one of those roadtrip memories....like the one where we ended up in Pocatello....or the one where we went to Pearl City instead of Pearl Harbor....or the time we crossed that highway in Colorado and my life didn't even have time to flash before my eyes! Oh good times on the road with Marie and Papa and Katy! :) Oh and the "deer crossing next 5 miles"...that was great.

Hopefully I can post some great pics of us at the beach and our new place soon!