We are in Vista!

Monday morning we woke up and got ready to leave Ashley and Will's house.  Will had work and Ashley had some teacher meetings that she had to go to too.  Once we were ready to go we met Ashley at a school to give back her house key.  Then we were on our way.  Nervous and anxious!  On our way from Tracy to Vista we stopped at Alan's grandpa Jim's house.  Grandma and Grandpa Atherton were there visiting so we got to see them too.  We spent a couple hours visiting with them and then we were on our way again.  We had hotel reservations (La Qunita) made for the whole week at a place pretty close to where we hoped to find a place to live.  After getting all checked in we went swimming and Alan made some phone calls.

Before Ashley had to leave for her meetings in the morning.

Breakfast at the Howe's

Popsicles at Grandpa Jim's.

Tuesday morning Alan got up and looked for places to rent.  We felt like we needed to wait until we were here to find a place and make calls because houses would come up and be gone the same day...or soon after.  We all went and had the breakfast in the office/ lobby area.  After we ate we all hung out in the lobby while Alan looked up some places.  The internet in our room wasn't working.  When we couldn't take it any more I went back to the room with everyone and Alan stayed in the lobby to look up some more places and make some calls.  He found several places that we could go look at and others we could just drive past and we had appointments to go see them later in the week...or the next week.  He came back after a bit and said we had to go right then, so we threw on our shoes and ran out the door.  We drove past a few that were on our way. Then we went and looked at a condo in a neighborhood where some of his coworkers live.  It was nice enough, but smaller than another one in the same neighborhood (and rent was more than the bigger one too) so I wanted to wait and see the other one before acting on the one.  It was getting to be lunch time so we went to a store close by and bought some fruit and bread so we could have lunch at a near by park.  We had just started making and eating our lunch when the lady from the other condo called and said it was time to look at it.  So we hurried and packed up our half eaten lunch and went over to see it.  She was very discouraging and the condo we looked at was listed as a 3 bedroom but was really just 2 bedrooms with a study.  She told us with our family size it wasn't going to work out...even though it was twice as big as Wymount.  We went back to the park and finished our lunch.  Then back to the hotel so we could look up a few more places to at least drive past.  We decided we had to broaden our search a little to include 4 bedroom place so we would comply with the laws once we have the baby...and look in a broader area so we could afford the 4 bedrooms.  We hadn't been looking at them before because bigger generally means more rent.  We drove past a couple more places that evening, but I didn't love any of the neighborhoods...especially at dusk!  We got a little caesars pizza and took it back to the hotel to eat.

Lunch at the park.

Warming up after a quick dip.

We'll never be done in here!

Getting ready for bed.

Jared's already out.

Wednesday morning Alan got up early to look up more places and eat before the rest of us...so he could help the rest of us eat.  He found a place or two to try calling.  After we ate he made more calls and looked up some more.  We hadn't been looking on Craig's list at all to try to avoid any scams, but decided we better start looking there because of the other sites we were looking at like zillow the places were just going too fast.  Alan looked on Craig's list for the first time that morning and saw a property listed that he recognized.  It had been up on Zillow a month before when we were kind of looking just to get a feel for things and how much rent probably would be.  He wasn't positive it was the same place, but if not then really close to it.  After we had eaten breakfast I took all the guys back to the room to hang out.  Again after what seemed like forever with these guys in the small room Alan came back and said we have to go right now.  This house just came up with 4 bedrooms and the guy is at the house right now and more people are coming to look at it later.  We jumped and ran again.  We got to the house and had to let ourselves in.  The guy was in the back yard.  We walked around the house and talked to the guy for a bit.  He said if we wanted to start the application process then just print out the standard CA rental application and email him our credit score.  We said ok and left.  We still weren't sure that this was the right place, but it seemed like a good possibility.  We decided that we would start the application process so we went to one of Alan's coworkers/ friend's house to use their internet.  Alan couldn't find the right form so he called the guy back.  The guys said oh I actually have the form here with me at the house you can come back and get it.  Alan's friend's wife offered to let me and the kids stay at their house and walk to the park while Alan went back for the form.  We decided that would be good so Alan went back to the house for the form and I went to the park.  Alan came and found us at the park with the form.  He said the guy told Alan that he liked our family and our credit score was good so if we wanted the house it was ours.  Aaaaahhhhh!  We had to decide right then.  Our friend said she could keep our kids and walk them back to her place if we wanted to just go and she had already offered to feed us dinner that night.  Alan and I went back to the house...we took Connor and he fell asleep.  It all seemed to happen so fast, but it also all seemed like the right thing.  Everything was just falling into place.  We signed the year lease and paid the first month's rent.  He gave us the keys and said we could come move in anytime, but the lease would start on Friday.  We had a place to live.  It was a little crazy how it all happened, but it still feels like the right thing (almost 3 months later).  One of the things that was a little sign for me to know it was right was there are bird of paradise flowers all along the front walk.  At the time there was 1 in bloom on all 4 or 5 plants....they just hadn't been getting enough water.  But that one bloom was comforting to me.  (We had bird of paradise flowers as part of our centerpieces at our wedding reception.)  It took Alan a day or two to notice the bloom, but I had noticed it right away.  As we drove away there were a whole new set of feelings.  relief mostly at finding a place, but knowing there were still a ton of things left to do.  We went back to our friends for dinner and to get the rest of the kiddos.  Then back to the hotel to sleep.

Jared had to finish building before eating dinner.

Thursday first thing after breakfast we went over to Jared and Lauren's new school and got them all registered.  There were quite a few papers to fill out for each of them.  The class lists hadn't been posted yet.  They were going to be put up Friday afternoon.  When we were about done there some friends called to see if we wanted to go with them so they could show us a good store to get produce at...Frazier Farms.  We ended up just meeting them there.  We did buy a few things to eat for our lunch there..oranges and celery I think.  Then we drove past Alan's new work.  We all went in and got a tour of the building and met lots of people (none of whom I really remember...unless I had met them before...I'm sure Alan knows all of them).  Then it was about lunch time.  We weren't feeling as stressed at lunch as previous days (and people kept asking us if we had been to the beach yet) so I had the great idea to go eat lunch at the beach....it really wasn't a good idea!  We weren't dressed for it and couldn't really get in the water and I didn't want everyone to get all sandy.  Of course everyone wanted to get in the water and keeping sand out of our peanut butter sandwiches was a challenge with the blowing wind and sand kicking kids and then sticky hands from the oranges.  It was still fun, but also a little stressful.  We went back to the hotel and got to go swimming again.  We had some other things to work on.  Alan made calls to get water, power, and garbage and all that good stuff switched into our names.  I think we ate Carl's Jr again for dinner this night.

You make a mean saaaandwich!

The sunset from the end of our street.

Friday was the big moving day!  Our truck was coming between noon and 4.  It got there right before 4.  We had spent the earlier part of the day checking out of the hotel and getting a few cleaning supplies and cleaning our house.  We worked on it all day!  All the floors needed mopped and the baseboards wiped and window sills...and pretty much everything was gross!  We worked hard on it all day.  Some guys from the Elders Quorum came by at 6 to help us unload.  A few came a little before that too.  (One of Alan's friends who is also in our ward called and got it all organized for us on Wednesday before we had a chance to call anyone.  We got a call that said people would be by at 6 to help us.)  Alan got the truck opened up and once people started hauling it in it went fast.  They were all done by about 8.  It was pretty amazing to have so much help.  One of the neighbors on the side of us brought some snacks over for the kids to eat while it was going on and after a while they went and played at the house across the street that are also members.  The kids were able to sleep on their mattresses on the floor that night and Alan took the time to set our bed all the way up for us.  I thought I would have to sleep more of the move on the floor, but I only did twice for the whole 3 weeks.  That was pretty amazing I thought.  We were exhausted at the end of the day, but happy.

There were a ton of spiders all over the house....I mean are a ton.  This guy is a pretty tame looking one compared to some.

The tuck got here and just opened up.  Lauren looks ready for the show to begin.

Cleaning cleaning cleaning!

Helping mop...or soaking the whole floor :)

A couple of pictures from the inside before any of our stuff was moved in.

The truck is unloaded!

Saturday was another day filled with amazing blessings.  First thing in the morning Alan went and helped for a little while with a family moving out.  He brought home some chairs they were getting rid of, a microwave (ours is on its way out), and some very much needed lamps for bedrooms upstairs.  After getting home from that Alan's goal for the day was to find a fridge, washer and dryer.  Since we didn't have internet he would go park outside his friend's house and use theirs (with permision) to search for the things we needed.  We figured we would need to rent a uhaul for the day to get all the big things here.  First he was able to find a washer and dryer.  He went and checked them out and they were good.  They were still in the back of a truck.  The people said they could just deliver them for us since they were already loaded in their truck and it wasn't too far.  Next Alan worked on finding a fridge.  Another friend and his family stopped by just to see what they could do to help.  He went with Alan to check out the fridge and she stayed here with me and helped me clean up around here some more (which is what I had been working on all day).  When Alan got there to see the fridge they decided it was a good one.  They said they would go rent a truck and come back for the fridge.  The people selling the fridge said they had to leave in about 30 minutes to meet some friends.  They had a truck and we kind of lived on the way...so they would just deliver it for us.  We didn't have to rent a truck after all.  Alan's friend helped Alan get it all set up and made sure it worked and they invited us to their house for dinner.  We had to go school shopping for Jared and Lauren's school supplies and to get a few things that we would need for Sunday.  We took the kids over to their house while we went to walmart (Jared and Connor went with us...Jared wanted to and Connor was sleeping) and they made dinner.  We got to eat a yummy dinner when we were done shopping.  After we left their house we tried to drive past the school to see if we could see which classes Jared and Lauren were in (I had totally forgot on Friday since the lists were posted the same time the moving truck arrived.)  The school has a gate all the way around and it was locked.  It didn't really matter since we don't know the teachers.  I just thought they might be able to meet someone at church who was in their class.  We were super grateful for everyone's help the whole day!

Even with all our cleaning the place was still filthy...and a dirt back yard doesn't help much either.

He had to get a quick bath in the sink before we could go eat dinner.

Sunday we went to church for the first time in our ward.  Everyone was very welcoming.  We got there just a few minutes before it started and have to sit in the overflow.  There were a lot of people there for a missionary farewell.  It was also the sister missionaries' first Sunday in our ward.  Connor had a little of a rough time in nursery so I went in there with him.  That evening another of Alan's friends invited us over for dinner.  We felt very blessed the whole week with they way things fell into place and with how willing everyone around here was to help us.  I really feel like we must be doing the right thing at this time to have everything work out how it has.  We were exhausted, but blessed and happy.