Sorry No Pictures...

I've been holding off posting because we don't have our camera right now. It is packed away waiting for us to move into our new place! I know pictures make posts more entertaining, so I'll let you know about something that I would have taken a picture of had my camera been available. But first, an update -

Chelsea and I flew down to Orange County on the 21st to start our search for a place to live. I was so blessed to have my mom with me. I don't know how I would've juggled my suitcases, a car seat, Chelsea, and the heavy responsibility of driving EVERYWHERE looking for our perfect place. My mom made it so much easier.

Matt and my dad embarked on the long drive down here the day after. Everything went really smoothly and we're so glad they made it safe.

We have been so fortunate to stay with a family I knew from my mission days. They live in Yorba Linda and have a beautiful house that they've so graciously opened to us. We are so grateful to them. It's been nice having a nice comfortable home to be in and Chelsea has especially liked their black lab, Ace, and their swimming pool.

I was expecting the search for our new place to be much easier than it was. It was much easier finding a place in Utah where you search for vacancies, tell the people you want the place, sign a contract on the spot and move in that day. Here you search tons of vacancies all over the county that cost on average $1000 more a month to rent than it does in Provo then once you find a place you fill out an an application, the landlord does a credit and sometimes a background check, and then they tell you if you are approved. The soonest any of these places was available was September 1st. After searching for what felt like forever, we found our place! It is on the high end of what we wanted to pay, but it's a duplex with a washer and dryer, a refrigerator (that may sound weird to you, but I would say 90% of the places we looked at did not come with a refrigerator), and they gave us a six month lease with month to month leasing after that; which was good since Matt's company told us we will be here 6 months to a year before they move us to Fresno. To top it off it is in Old Town Tustin which has so many families our age and is a great place to live. The only down side is that we can't move in until the 5th; but the Romney's have been so generous and are letting us stay until then.

We went to our ward on Sunday and WE LOVE IT! There's an apartment complex in our ward where so many young families live. If we had known about that complex we probably would've moved there since it's quite a bit less expensive, but that's another story. Anyway, everyone is SO friendly and Sunday School is the best. They have a young married Sunday School class (and luckily for us outside of Utah young has a little bit different age range :) ) where the chairs line the outside of the room in a circle shape and the kids can crawl around and play in the middle. I think this is the first time I have been able to stay during all of Sunday School without Chelsea getting cranky in quite a while. I'll tell you what though, I'll have to bring some better toys and some good snacks. Chelsea was lucky to make some new little friends who were willing to share. The best part of our ward is that it meets in the same building as Orange 3rd ward, which was the last ward I served in as a missionary. I have such good memories there.

Living in my old mission area has been great. I admit, sometimes I feel guilty listening to the radio while I'm driving or watching movies at Sister Romney's house since I'm so used to doing mission work when I come over, but it's really been great. It's been a great reminder of all I learned during that time and all I want to be for my family and for my Heavenly Father. I love the people here and this will always be sacred ground to me.

Matt started work on Monday and we're really excited for him. I was able to tour his office and it will be a great place to work. There are so many nice people and it's a very professional environment. That brings me to my picture without a picture. Monday morning Chelsea and I said goodbye to Matt as he drove off to work. We came beck in the house and I put Chelsea down while I finished cleaning up breakfast. It was quiet, which can be dangerous, so I went over to the front door where I had set her down. She was sitting on the first stair that goes up the stair case just staring at the door. She was waiting for Matt to come back. It was so cute. The rest of the day she kept calling for, "Da-da." We love our little Chelsea. She's so cute.