Did my three mile bike ride this morning in 19 mins I feel pretty good about the day!! I am standing in line waiting for my student ID and all I can think is "yay cheaper movies!!" ya...like I'm gonna have time to see movies haha!!!
Anyway I'll blog after the day and let ya know what happened!!
Wish me luck!
Much love,
Me
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Pictures are posted
In "Sasha's Pictures" on the left side of the blog there is a new album called "Monterey House" that is where you will find pictures of our lovely abode. I will get some pics of the inside up....when we tidy up a little :-) The inside is MUCH nicer than the outside
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Panic
Well school starts Tuesday! Yikes! I didn't think I'd get nervous but turns out I did!! I will probably spend the entirety of today and tomorrow studying Arabic. I am entering in the intermediate level which is intimidating because it is technically where I should be if for example I did this program directly after my undergrad ...but I've had 2 years off!! Yikes! Hopefully my former French teach Mr. Magnus is right when he says you never entirely lose a language, what you know comes back. We'll see...I have been studying but I don't feel like I've been very productive...meaning I tend to think I know something cus it's familiar...but put me to the test and I prob don't. I definitely have my work cut out for me this summer! I am excited.
Kael is still on the job hunt. He has submitted his resume via email to a new restaurant opening up. He is pretty excited about that one because despite not knowing the menu yet he is sure it will be good cus the head chef used to work for a really famous chef Thomas Keller who is most known for his work at a very expensive, top 10 in the country, restaurant in napa valley. He also has 2 other restaurants he'd like to work at which he will drop into tomorrow. Hopefully one of these three works out for him because they are his top choices and the ones he thinks he'll learn the most from.
That's pretty much what's going on here! Things should get exciting this next wk! Yikes! Wish us luck!
Until next time...
Much love,
Me
Kael is still on the job hunt. He has submitted his resume via email to a new restaurant opening up. He is pretty excited about that one because despite not knowing the menu yet he is sure it will be good cus the head chef used to work for a really famous chef Thomas Keller who is most known for his work at a very expensive, top 10 in the country, restaurant in napa valley. He also has 2 other restaurants he'd like to work at which he will drop into tomorrow. Hopefully one of these three works out for him because they are his top choices and the ones he thinks he'll learn the most from.
That's pretty much what's going on here! Things should get exciting this next wk! Yikes! Wish us luck!
Until next time...
Much love,
Me
Friday, June 10, 2011
And on with the show
So, we got to our new home (yes yes pictures to come)and actually got everything unloaded the same day. Our new roomates are very very nice! We all get along really really well, I think the living with other people situation will work out just fine! :)
What may not be working out as planned is living in this house....after we got all moved in and mom left us to do our planned out yard work a police officer showed up at our front gate. Great timing on her part (the police officer) because Kael and I were literally on our way out to go buy grass for the side of the house we were fixing up for maddi...she saved us a lot of money!! Here is how: turns out our landlord built the room we are using now for a tv/video game room illegally. It used to be a car port and he turned it into a fourth bedroom and second bathroom both of which are definitely not up to code. Apparently our landlord has been dealing with the city's code enforcement officers for several months and has not cooperated...cooperating being either a. tear down the 4th bedroom and convert it back into the car port that it was or b. following city guidelines bring the room and bathroom up to code. We highly doubt he is going to do either...sounds like he is a bit confused at the whole thing. Icing on the cake-for us- is that the reason the cops know about this illegal build is because the former tenants here called the cops on our landlord for coming onto the property late at night and hanging around ect. Creepy. He is an old I think Greek guy, but we're not sure of his exact ethnicity and at first glance you kind of feel bad for him...but then you realize that the officers have been trying to help and he still hasn't made any progress towards legalizing his property.
So the saga continues. We paid 1st, last, and deposit when we moved in...all $1600 so we are just going to let him know in the next wk or so that he can use the deposit and last month's rent for the months of July and August and we will be out of the house by the end of August. We definitely are not paying a dime more to this guy. SO the house hunt will be continuing once again. Joy. Looks like there is a lot of good properties on the market right now though so hopefully there will be similar pickings in August. Positive thoughts.
So far today Kael and I have just hung around the house, its pretty chilly, to us anyway, and gloomy. We did discover the local dog park which is not far from the house so we took Maddi there today. We'll try to get her out there a few times a wk at least...now that we don't really have a back yard for her like we had thought. (since its all just dirt and the fencing is shotty) Oh the joys of renting.
There are lots of pictures on my Facebook of my trip to Minnesota and North Dakota if anyone is interested...also a few mobile uploads of the side of the house and the front of the house...kind of...but i'll upload pictures here of the house one of these days! :) I am kind of hoping for a sunny day to do it to be honest, but I may have to give up on that!
Until next time,
Much love,
Me
What may not be working out as planned is living in this house....after we got all moved in and mom left us to do our planned out yard work a police officer showed up at our front gate. Great timing on her part (the police officer) because Kael and I were literally on our way out to go buy grass for the side of the house we were fixing up for maddi...she saved us a lot of money!! Here is how: turns out our landlord built the room we are using now for a tv/video game room illegally. It used to be a car port and he turned it into a fourth bedroom and second bathroom both of which are definitely not up to code. Apparently our landlord has been dealing with the city's code enforcement officers for several months and has not cooperated...cooperating being either a. tear down the 4th bedroom and convert it back into the car port that it was or b. following city guidelines bring the room and bathroom up to code. We highly doubt he is going to do either...sounds like he is a bit confused at the whole thing. Icing on the cake-for us- is that the reason the cops know about this illegal build is because the former tenants here called the cops on our landlord for coming onto the property late at night and hanging around ect. Creepy. He is an old I think Greek guy, but we're not sure of his exact ethnicity and at first glance you kind of feel bad for him...but then you realize that the officers have been trying to help and he still hasn't made any progress towards legalizing his property.
So the saga continues. We paid 1st, last, and deposit when we moved in...all $1600 so we are just going to let him know in the next wk or so that he can use the deposit and last month's rent for the months of July and August and we will be out of the house by the end of August. We definitely are not paying a dime more to this guy. SO the house hunt will be continuing once again. Joy. Looks like there is a lot of good properties on the market right now though so hopefully there will be similar pickings in August. Positive thoughts.
So far today Kael and I have just hung around the house, its pretty chilly, to us anyway, and gloomy. We did discover the local dog park which is not far from the house so we took Maddi there today. We'll try to get her out there a few times a wk at least...now that we don't really have a back yard for her like we had thought. (since its all just dirt and the fencing is shotty) Oh the joys of renting.
There are lots of pictures on my Facebook of my trip to Minnesota and North Dakota if anyone is interested...also a few mobile uploads of the side of the house and the front of the house...kind of...but i'll upload pictures here of the house one of these days! :) I am kind of hoping for a sunny day to do it to be honest, but I may have to give up on that!
Until next time,
Much love,
Me
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Settling In
Now...where was I??
So we set off to California the day after I got home from MN which I believe was June 2nd. The day started off early, since we had a 12 hr drive ahead of us we wanted to get an early start. We planned to meet my cousin Olivia at her place at 8:15 to pick up a bike she was going to sell me. Already there were so many things wrong with this plan. I really should have gone the night before to get the bike. 1. because I needed to get cash out from the bank and 2. because she had to leave for work at 8:30 so if we were at all late due to traffic our window would be tight. And guess what...our window was tight. I didn't actually make it to her house before she had to leave, which, no one realized meant I wasn't able to give her her cash that had made me late in the first place. Kael got there, got the bike loaded in the Uhaul and mom and I turned around, went to Starbucks to pee and got on the highway right behind him...or so we thought. Mom and I were driving along the 202 out toward California and for a few miles couldn't see Kael. We kept thinking, he couldn't possibly be that far ahead of us could he??? We were on Interstate 10 West before we thought to call him. Turned out he had pulled over to shift stuff in the Uhaul and didn't tell us he stopped. We pulled over and he caught up to us and so the day goes on. Driving 55MPH I was dying. I feel bad for my mom who had to listen to me wine. 55MPH does not bode well for someone with a lead foot. At some point we stopped to shift around stuff in the Uhaul again because it was swaying on Kael a lot. Mom and I looked in the Uhaul to try to help him and I asked him where my new bike was..after all I hadn't seen it yet...and we all thought maybe it just shifted forward and was burried. About 30 minutes later Kael came over the walkie talkie and goes "uh...Sash? Remember how you asked about your bike....I don't think its in the Uhaul..." I will skip the exploitatives I yelled at him and just say that what happened was Kael took it out back on the 202 to shift the weight around in the trailer...turns out he left it on the side of the road. Irritated to say the least.
Fast forward 4 hours later and we crossed into California FINALLY. We decided not to stop for lunch however until we got to Palm Springs. When we got there around 2pm we had lunch, took Maddi on a nice long walk to Petco and got a heavy duty tarp to re cover the mattresses and kitchen table in the bed of Kael's truck. Literally a mile down the road the tarp was flying all over the place...so we pulled off and tried to fix it. Got back on the road and again, a mile later the tarp was a gonner. So we pulled off the road to take it totally off. After a detour out of the gas station we were off again. Poor Kael was exhausted from moving our entire apartment down three flights of stairs and we'd already had a long day at that point. We made it through Los Angeles but not much farther than that. Daddy booked us a hotel room in Bakersfeild.
The next day went much smoother. Just a quick 4 hour drive to Monterey!! haha We were ecstatic to get to the house. I'll take lots of pictures to show you what we walked up to it definitely was underwhelming. The yard is all dirt no grass with a shotty fence that will absolutely not contain our wild pup. However, despite the ugliness the outside the inside of the house is quite quaint. The paint could use some work, but nothing that a few posters and picture frames didn't cure.
This is a long enough blog. I am sure if Stacy is reading this she is thinking "ok this is too long, I don't have all day to read one post" Right Stacy?! haha
Until next time, which I promise wont be a weeks time....
Much love,
Me
So we set off to California the day after I got home from MN which I believe was June 2nd. The day started off early, since we had a 12 hr drive ahead of us we wanted to get an early start. We planned to meet my cousin Olivia at her place at 8:15 to pick up a bike she was going to sell me. Already there were so many things wrong with this plan. I really should have gone the night before to get the bike. 1. because I needed to get cash out from the bank and 2. because she had to leave for work at 8:30 so if we were at all late due to traffic our window would be tight. And guess what...our window was tight. I didn't actually make it to her house before she had to leave, which, no one realized meant I wasn't able to give her her cash that had made me late in the first place. Kael got there, got the bike loaded in the Uhaul and mom and I turned around, went to Starbucks to pee and got on the highway right behind him...or so we thought. Mom and I were driving along the 202 out toward California and for a few miles couldn't see Kael. We kept thinking, he couldn't possibly be that far ahead of us could he??? We were on Interstate 10 West before we thought to call him. Turned out he had pulled over to shift stuff in the Uhaul and didn't tell us he stopped. We pulled over and he caught up to us and so the day goes on. Driving 55MPH I was dying. I feel bad for my mom who had to listen to me wine. 55MPH does not bode well for someone with a lead foot. At some point we stopped to shift around stuff in the Uhaul again because it was swaying on Kael a lot. Mom and I looked in the Uhaul to try to help him and I asked him where my new bike was..after all I hadn't seen it yet...and we all thought maybe it just shifted forward and was burried. About 30 minutes later Kael came over the walkie talkie and goes "uh...Sash? Remember how you asked about your bike....I don't think its in the Uhaul..." I will skip the exploitatives I yelled at him and just say that what happened was Kael took it out back on the 202 to shift the weight around in the trailer...turns out he left it on the side of the road. Irritated to say the least.
Fast forward 4 hours later and we crossed into California FINALLY. We decided not to stop for lunch however until we got to Palm Springs. When we got there around 2pm we had lunch, took Maddi on a nice long walk to Petco and got a heavy duty tarp to re cover the mattresses and kitchen table in the bed of Kael's truck. Literally a mile down the road the tarp was flying all over the place...so we pulled off and tried to fix it. Got back on the road and again, a mile later the tarp was a gonner. So we pulled off the road to take it totally off. After a detour out of the gas station we were off again. Poor Kael was exhausted from moving our entire apartment down three flights of stairs and we'd already had a long day at that point. We made it through Los Angeles but not much farther than that. Daddy booked us a hotel room in Bakersfeild.
The next day went much smoother. Just a quick 4 hour drive to Monterey!! haha We were ecstatic to get to the house. I'll take lots of pictures to show you what we walked up to it definitely was underwhelming. The yard is all dirt no grass with a shotty fence that will absolutely not contain our wild pup. However, despite the ugliness the outside the inside of the house is quite quaint. The paint could use some work, but nothing that a few posters and picture frames didn't cure.
This is a long enough blog. I am sure if Stacy is reading this she is thinking "ok this is too long, I don't have all day to read one post" Right Stacy?! haha
Until next time, which I promise wont be a weeks time....
Much love,
Me
Friday, June 3, 2011
The long haul
Well it will be hard to type out the WHOLE story on my phone but boy has it already a long trip! We are in Bakersfield, CA which is just north of LA and about 4 hours south of Monterey! We left at 8:30 am from Phoenix and got here around 8pm last night yikes. We had a few bumps in the road...Kael losing my bike, windy terrain ripping our tarp, a detour, and having to drive a whopping 55 mph the entire trip which of course drove me bonkers but I did get GREAT gas mileage!! Haha
We are about to head out to Monterey and I will explain all the highlights I just mentioned in detail!! We are just very excited to get to our new home!
Until next time...much love,
Me!
We are about to head out to Monterey and I will explain all the highlights I just mentioned in detail!! We are just very excited to get to our new home!
Until next time...much love,
Me!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
It's so hard to say goodbye
I am pretty sure I said "Goodnight Finn, I love you!" 5 times when I put him down for his snoozer (for those of you not in the Thomas/Walsh/Brown clan that means nap time) today! My bestie is just the cutest...and no I am NOT biased! Maybe him and my first born will be soul mates ;-) haha
Anyway! I am sitting in the Minneapolis St. Paul airport now waiting for my flight back to arizona. Earlier today Kelsie came over to spend my last morning with me and Finn and we had quite a morning! Stacy, Jim, Korri went to Korri's well child appointment so Kels and I were babysitting Finn. (for more details on Korri's appointment see Stacy's blog short story is she is a healthy but little peanut) Finn, Kelsie and I made a mess decorating the t shirt we tie dyed for Finn last Thursday so now he has a shirt like our scrubs! I will upload photos here when I get my laptop from home but if you want to see a couple, check out my Facebook!
It has been such a fun week!! I am so glad I got to make it out! Such a busy 2 wks and it's only half way over! When I get back to az I'll be having dinner with mom and friends, spending the night with kaels mom, and well be up bright an early tomorrow for our 12 hour drive to Monterey!!! So glad I got this nice vaca in before chaos begins with summer session Arabic. Yikes!
Well I am going to snag a snack then bored! Until next time,
Much love,
Me!
Ps: Stacy tell the babies I love and miss them already!!
Anyway! I am sitting in the Minneapolis St. Paul airport now waiting for my flight back to arizona. Earlier today Kelsie came over to spend my last morning with me and Finn and we had quite a morning! Stacy, Jim, Korri went to Korri's well child appointment so Kels and I were babysitting Finn. (for more details on Korri's appointment see Stacy's blog short story is she is a healthy but little peanut) Finn, Kelsie and I made a mess decorating the t shirt we tie dyed for Finn last Thursday so now he has a shirt like our scrubs! I will upload photos here when I get my laptop from home but if you want to see a couple, check out my Facebook!
It has been such a fun week!! I am so glad I got to make it out! Such a busy 2 wks and it's only half way over! When I get back to az I'll be having dinner with mom and friends, spending the night with kaels mom, and well be up bright an early tomorrow for our 12 hour drive to Monterey!!! So glad I got this nice vaca in before chaos begins with summer session Arabic. Yikes!
Well I am going to snag a snack then bored! Until next time,
Much love,
Me!
Ps: Stacy tell the babies I love and miss them already!!
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