Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Not only is the title of this blog post a song but it is also an invitation to anyone who know the way to San Jose to come visit us! But really though. It is beautiful here and I would love to see all of our friends and family out here at least once. Just to give you a heads up of what it is like living in San Jose, I will give you a list of my favorite things: 1. It is a requirement to sing “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” whenever anyone says San Jose. 2. The majority of the employees at the Wal-Mart across the street can only say, “Ummm… No English. Ask him” then points you in the furthest direction possible. 3. It is custom for your neighbors above you to find 3am to be the perfect time to watch TV, take showers, and stomp above your bedroom. 4. The office at our apartments ran out of keys for the pool so you have to jump the fence every time you want to go swimming and people stare. EVERY TIME. 5. No husband. So that basically sums up San Jose! Just kidding. Although that is a great description of part of San Jose, it does not cover all of it. First of all, it is great that I have a job. My first few days here I didn’t have one. I watched Judd get up every morning at 7am and leave dutifully for his job. I would go back to bed. Wake up in the late morning. Sit around the apartment. Go to the pool. Run around Pleasanton (the city where I actually live) and sleep. Then Judd would come home at 10pm and we would go to bed. To say the least, without my job I would feel like a bum and would probably go crazy. Plus Judd said that I anything I make this summer I get to keep so if that isn’t motivation to get a job then I don’t know what is. I work in the Alterra office and enter paper work all day. I actually don’t mind it since my coworkers are fantastic! There are four of us girls who work there and our two managers. To say the least, I haven’t been bored yet which is a first for me when it comes to work. When I am not at work, I have taken it upon myself to learn how to cook. And let me tell you, Judd has not been disappointed in anything I have made him yet. Considering that I make him breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, I would say that I am on a roll. Cooking is actually pretty fun it turns out. Sorry Mom, I should have trusted you when you said that years ago. It is like a little adventure picking out what I want to make every day and then going out to the grocery store to search valiantly for the items needed to create my concoction… Uh… I mean dinner. Maybe it isn’t as adventurous as it would seem, but I have fun with it. Another skill that I have been trying to learn is sewing. Thanks to my sisters for buying me my first sewing machine ever! I love it! And thanks to Billy for picking it up in Utah and bringing it out since I forgot to bring it when we first moved here. It turns out I really like sewing. Sometimes I wish Betsy Oborne, my achievement days leader, was here to help me but luckily I have older sisters who sew! I may or may not be in the process of making a baby blanket for one of them….. It is pretty funny that I am trying to be so “domestic” all of the sudden. I was talking to my mom one day and was telling her all about my new skills when she bluntly asked me, “What happened to you?” I laughed it off until my best friend Becca asked the same question and when Judd came home from work and asked me as well. The truth is, I have been asking myself the same question. I guess I needed to learn these skills sometime in my life so why not now while I am in a strange city and 748 miles away from my home, friends and family? At least when I don’t feel like being domestic I have Lizzie. Thank goodness for Lizzie! She has been keeping me sane and is always up for going on an adventure! It is nice to be able to say to someone, “hey let’s jump in the car in five minutes and go somewhere.” We haven’t been on too many adventures yet but we keep brainstorming and planning for days when we can go to places like Carmel, California to see a beach and John Muir Park to see some redwoods. And even on days that we don’t run somewhere out of the city it is still nice to have a pool buddy. I think that I have basically told her my whole life story by now. Thank goodness she is a good listener! Living here is different but I am learning more about myself every day. For example, I have learned just how lazy I am. But I have also learned that I love looking up recipes for homemade oreos. I still haven’t made any yet but I plan on it. It could be a problem that Judd doesn’t really like oreos but for some reason I am okay with that. That just means more for me! Anyway, I just want to say that seriously if anyone has any plans to come to San Jose or San Francisco please come visit! It would be great to have you. On a completely unrelated note, I will be blogging about my wedding soon. Until then, thanks so much for all of the help, love, and support we received! Our wedding day was a complete dream and it could not have been more perfect. On another completely unrelated note I found this article the other day http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2124246/Samantha-Brick-downsides-looking-pretty-Why-women-hate-beautiful.html. The woman in the story is saying that being beautiful is hard. This is basically how I feel every day. Just kidding. I had to beg Judd to marry me. He was sitting on the fence about it because he wanted pretty children and knew that his chances were extremely low if he mixed his genes with mine. Luckily my charm was able to convince him even if my looks couldn’t. Anyway, read the article if you get the chance. HILARIOUS.