Whew!

I know, I know, I haven't updated in a while. Six days. And they've been six pretty crazy, life changing days. So here we go!

I now live in Los Angeles. Technically west Los Angeles according to this guy we met at church Sunday. But let me start at the beginning.

We drove into LA on Wednesday. We had an uneventful drive, the U-Haul made it thanks to Dad's awesome driving, and we arrived at our house right on schedule. The landlord met us, handed off the keys, and we started moving in! We got the truck about half unloaded Wednesday night and then decided we needed fans. More fans than we already had. See, our new house is great, lots of windows, screens, etc. but there's no AC. It's fine at 3am but mid-day it's a bit warm, okay, HOT. So we got out the directions I'd printed prior to our arrival and wound our way into eastern LA where I'd found a Target. We scarfed some snack bar pizza, got two tower fans, and headed home, exhausted. BUT the best part about Wednesday night was we had beds!!! (Little known fact at the time, while it only took us about 20 minutes to get to that Target, we have a Target about 10 minutes away from us, and it requires no freeway driving, needless to say, this is now "our" Target.)

Thursday we got the rest of the truck unloaded and returned by 11am which was pretty impressive since we feared we might not get it unloaded by Friday return date. Then I went with Ang back to the LAUSD offices downtown so she could do some paperwork (oh the paperwork this city has required of us, it's ridiculous really). Then Thursday night we ventured out to a Super Walmart. There are not a lot of Super Walmarts in LA. This one is about 35 minutes from our house, or so said the directions I printed. But when you head out at 4:30pm, it takes about an hour and forty-five minutes. Regardless, we found a Chili's, a Barnes and Noble, and a Super Walmart. We were a little rushed as it closed at 10pm (whatever, shouldn't "super" indicate 24/7 service?!?!?!) but we managed to drop 400 dollars or so and get some food for the fridge that had been delivered that afternoon.

Friday we unpacked more boxes and Ang and I headed out to the DMV. The first of two trips that would suck the life out of us. Three hours in we had to leave because Ang had a physical appointment for work and that found us on the 10 freeway on Friday afternoon. That's loads of fun! But Ang and I have been getting our share of driving experience here and let me just say it's going pretty well. We hit "our" Target on the way home and got some curtains to help with the heat and to spruce up the place.

Saturday we took a bit of a break and did some fun stuff. We made it to Office Depot before 9am for Teacher Appreciation Day. Can I just say they do Teach Appreciation right here in LA!!?!?! We got some great goodie bags and a hot, catered breakfast. They had fruit salad with raspberries the size of walnuts! Yum! Then we decided to check out the La Brea Tar Pits which are just a block from Office Depot, and about 10 minutes from our house. If you know nothing about the La Brea Tar Pits, as I did before Saturday, you should check them out when you come visit! Basically, they're giant pools of tar where archaeologists are, right now, excavating for bones. Bones that belonged to ice age animals. It's pretty freakin' cool. So we spent some time there then headed up to Burbank where we found IKEA. And yes, IKEA kicked our butts, we were all exhausted after leaving but we got some great deals. We headed back to Abbey Place and worked for a few hours. About 9pm we decided to head to Santa Monica to check out the Pier at night, the 3rd Street Promenade (kind of like a big street fair), and have some dinner. We drove along Rodeo Drive on the way. 9:30pm is the perfect time to drive it can I just say, we had the street just about to ourselves. Of course the stores were closed but you know, it's not like we're shopping there anyway!

Sunday we headed back to Hollywood United Methodist Church where we heard what I thought was a really good sermon on Kevin Smith's Dogma. Next week the sermon's on Groundhog Day so I'm interested to hear that as well. This week we stuck around a few minutes after the service and met a few people including a girl who just moved to town from Texas, Emily. She seemed really nice and hoped we'd see each other again this Sunday so that was cool. Also Angela formally met Pauley Perrette which was pretty cool. Then we took my dad down to the Hollywood Walk of Fame to look at the stars (and the weirdos - people dressed up as characters just hanging out, there was Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Carribean, Charlie Chaplin, some sort of tree man, very weird!), hit Target again and headed home to unpack more.

Today was another 4.5 hours at the DMV where I managed to fail my written driver's test the first time around (seriously?!?! why do I need to know that the penalty for a DUI is 6 months jail time and not 12, I mean, come on, aren't there lawyers who figure that stuff out?!?!?!). Then I managed to get lost going downtown to get Ang at the LAUSD office building and found myself in Little Tokyo. A 15-minute drive turned into a hour and 45 minutes. Yeah, it was a good day. But you know, it's not bad all together. The house is great. We're getting minor things worked out and tomorrow when we get the ant spray and fumigate the house and finish unpacking I'll take lots of pictures. (Yes, we have ants and yes, I am frustrated by them, and yes, they are in my bed, and I'm trying very hard to be okay with that and not cry or scream.) There's tons of storage here and room to move and place things and it feels like a home, not just an apartment which is pretty darn great. We've got curtains up and dishes in cabinets and some things going up on walls. So yeah, LA is coming together for me. Now I'm going to get some sleep and try not to think about these ants.