It's been SO long since I last posted that we've had lots of changes happen in our lives! First of all, Anthony is now an officially licensed chiropractor in the state of California! He is working at Tustin Chronic Condition Center and is learning a lot. They focus on patients with chronic conditions such as celiac and hashimoto disease. He's been amazed to see the changes in his patients who come in for their first visit in constant pain and within a month they are like totally different people. His next step is taking the x-ray exam and getting licensed in that as well and then he will start focusing on certification courses to become certified to treat these conditions. Apparently a doctors education is NEVER complete! (I added a link to his office website at the bottom of this post if you want to check it out.)

I have also started a new job since my last post. I am still with Mercer, but am working as a Consulting Analyst in the Newport Beach office. The job is very different from my previous position, but I'm catching on pretty quickly. I work with a lot of great people so that definitely makes working more enjoyable! During my first week we had a team meeting during the workday that included beer and wine. I decided then and there that I was going to LOVE this place! :)

We also got a new car a few weeks ago. We had to get a second vehicle since I was getting a different job. We were really wanting to get a Jeep (Anthony was REALLY, REALLY wanting one), but we couldn't find one in our price range. So we decided if we couldn't get a Jeep, we at least wanted a convertible to enjoy in the amazing California weather. We ended up getting a Solstice, which neither of us ever even imagined owning, and we absolutely love it! The day after we bought it, we spent the whole entire day driving around through the mountains and along the ocean just taking in the amazing views and open air!

We have lots of friends/family visiting over the next couple months, so I will try to post lots of pictures of all the fun stuff we do!!

http://www.tustinchronicconditioncenter.com/

Visitors!

We had our first visitors the first week in February. On Saturday our friend Arnie was in town, so he stopped by for a night to hang out with us. It was great to see someone from home! Then on Thursday my parents arrived and stayed through Monday morning. While they were here we showed them around Irvine and our apartment complex, went shopping at the Spectrum, tried out lots of great restaurants, went on a whale watching boat ride (although we only saw dolphins and sea lions...no whales), and stopped by the grand opening of Tyler Marolf's Los Rios Rock School. It was so great to see them, and it was perfect timing because I was starting to get a little homesick. Seeing my parents helped a lot! Tears were shed when we took them to the airport Monday morning, but I know they will be back again soon! (Hint, hint!)

Anthony spent last week shadowing a chiropractor in Santa Ana. The doctor he worked with does treatment plans for a lot of MMA fighters and has a lot of interesting patients. Santa Ana is about 15 minutes from our apartment (traffic pending) so that isn't a bad drive. He is looking for someone to buy his practice, but at this point that isn't really what Anthony is looking for so this probably isn't going to turn into a long-term position. It was still a great experience for him to see how the office worked for a full week though.

More people are finally moving into our apartment complex, so hopefully we'll be able to meet some new people soon. We think someone is moving in directly above us today so it will be interesting to see if it's really loud in our apartment or if we don't hear them too much. I'm hoping we don't, but with hardwood floors I'm guessing we'll at least hear them a little.

We're definitely missing everyone back home, especially our families and those adorable nephews of ours! Thank goodness for Skype and Face Time!! We're looking forward to the weekend of St. Patty's Day because three of our friends will be in town visiting! That should be a FUN weekend! :-)

Our new place!!

We are finally all settled into our new place!! We got the keys Monday morning and then spent the day at furniture stores stocking up on the essentials. We got a new bed frame and mattress, two night stands and lamps, a desk and chair since I will be working from home, a couch and a loveseat, as well as a lot of smaller items. We still need quite a few things before we will be satisfied with our place like some wall decorations, curtains, a rug for the living room, end tables, a coffee table or ottoman, and a few smaller things so I think we have a few more shopping trips in our near future! Our place is kind of small, but for just me and Anthony it is really the perfect size! We love it and are so happy to be settled in so quickly! We definitely appreciate Tony and Jen letting us crash with them for the first week here while we searched for the perfect apartment! :)

 

We had our cable, internet, and phone hooked up yesterday. The phone still isn't working so someone is coming tonight to hopefully get it going. Our new home number will be 949-748-3837. We have unlimited long distance (and our cell phones don't get the best reception inside our apartment) so if I am calling you it will most likely be from that number. We can start using Skype and Face Time to chat with everyone back home now too so I'm very excited about that!! We are planning to Skype with my parents tonight so we'll see how that goes!

I took a bunch of pictures of our new apartment that you can see below. It's so weird moving into a new place and not having friends and family stop by to visit and check it out.  Just one more thing to get used to living across the country from everyone! Thank goodness we have Tony and Jen here or it would really be strange not knowing anyone at all!! Luckily our apartment complex is huge (basically the entire population of Wilton could live here) so I'm sure we will start meeting people soon in the common areas around our complex.  

 

It's 3:30 right now and the temperature is 82 degrees. We are absolutely LOVING the weather here!! Although it sounds like the temperatures haven't been too bad at home either, I still prefer the 80's to the 50's. :) We're hoping to go to L.A./Hollywood either this weekend or next to do some sightseeing, so we will definitely post pictures of that afterwards! We also have our first visitors booked to come see us!! My parents are coming February 2nd-6th so I am really looking forward to that!!!

 

Well, I guess that's it for now. We miss everyone a lot and love hearing from all of you so please keep in touch!!!

 

 

Go Hawks!!

Sorry for the delay in updates. We've been so busy the last few days! We got to Tony's around noon on Tuesday. We drove for 31 hours, only stopping for gas and food along the way. It was no fun being in the car for so long, but we were glad to be here early on Tuesday instead of late that night. I think after three days I'm finally caught up on sleep and feeling normal again. I'm still not used to the time change though. I keep thinking it is later than it actually is.

Over the last few days we have been looking at lots of apartments and we've finally picked one. We will be moving into The Park at Irvine Spectrum on Monday. Our new address will be 9316 Spectrum, Irvine, CA 92618. I've spent two hours today getting everything updated. I scheduled to have gas and electricity turned on Monday, enrolled in renters insurance, updated our mailing address on all of our accounts, and am currently trying to decide on a cable/phone/Internet company to use. I forgot how many little things have to be done when you move! Next week we're excited for the task of buying furniture and decorating our new home!!

Our apartment is about 15 minutes from Laguna Beach, so we drove down there yesterday to check it out. It's absolutely amazing! This weekend we plan to spend a lot of time at the beach because the temperature is going to be in the high 70's! We're loving this California weather!

Anthony has interviews with two doctors today and one tomorrow, so hopefully he'll have a job lined up very soon.

Tonight we're going to a bar to cheer on the Hawkeyes! Hoping for a win to end the season on!

That pretty much sums up our last couple of days. Once we get settled in our apartment next week I will do better about updating this more frequently!

Go Hawks!!!!!!!

Pulling an all nighter!

We're currently 1206 miles into our trip and have about 700 left. In 19 hours we've driven through Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and now we're in New Mexico. We've loaded up on 5-hours and energy drinks to keep us going. We each did a 6 hour shift of driving to start, then we each did 3 more hours. Now Anthony is driving again so we'll see how long he can last before we need to switch again. Since we're down to 11 hours left, it seems pointless to get a hotel room now. We'll see if that changes a few more hours in though!

We didn't see any exciting sights today so that was a bummer. We did drive past multiple landfills though, so that provided some lovely smells in the car. I'm still hoping to see a few crazy attractions before the trip ends though. A few I have my eye on in Arizona are a tree shaped like a giant bra, a two-story tall muffler man, Finger Rock (which is a giant rock flipping the bird), and the world's largest cow skull. Exciting stuff!!

It's currently 13 degrees here in New Mexico and has been fluctuating between -1 and about 20 degrees. It's definitely got us missing the 40 degree temps we left behind in Iowa! We've seen quite a bit of snow/ice here too. Hopefully we'll be through all that soon enough. We're definitely ready for mid-70's and sunny in California this week!

That's it for now. Hopefully the next time I post it will be from the hot tub at Tony's place!!

Roadtrip!!

After cramming everything we could possibly fit into our car (see pics below) we are finally on the road to sunny California!! We left home at 8 this morning after a few tearful goodbyes with our family. We are so thankful for the help our parents have provided in making this move a reality as well as the love and support they have given us throughout our lives! We're looking forward to this next chapter in our lives, but we're going to miss everyone a lot too!

We have 30 hours of driving ahead of us. The plan is to drive as far as we can today then do the rest tomorrow. Hopefully stopping a few times along the way to see some quirky sights like the worlds biggest ball of twine or some other equally ridiculous attraction!

We'll keep posting updates as we go!