Almonds and Avocados….Where Have You Been All My Life????

I recently discovered that I actually like almonds and avocados.  In fact, I would say that I love them.  What??  How is it that I spent 35 years of my life avoiding these foods?  And now, since doing all of my research on eating healthy, I have discovered that they are so good and good for you.  We have a bowl of almonds sitting on the dining room table and all family members eat them throughout the day.  What a good habit!  Avocados are in season right now in California so we can pretty much get those anywhere and at a very cheap price.  I am just so proud of all of us for getting risky with our foods.  Just the other day Dan came home from work and I asked him what he had for lunch.  I was expecting the typical meat and potato answer.  But instead he told me that he opted to have the mixed vegetables with his meal (like zucchini and carrots and green beans). Crazy!

Our first dinner that I cooked in the new apartment was a new recipe that I found in a running magazine.  Even if you don’t run, buy one of those magazines because I have gotten some pretty good meals from them.  The recipe below is just for Fettuccine Alfredo, but I added chicken and vegetables to our dish.  It adds a whole new twist to the typical Fettuccine Alfredo.  This one takes a bit of getting used to with the taste, but you can experiment with seasonings to have it taste the way you want.  When I made this, I sautéed zucchini, fresh tomatoes and green peppers.  I wanted to add spinach in there but didn’t have any.  That is on my next grocery list.  It is such an easy thing to add to a pasta dish.

Rocco’s Fettuccine Alfredo

8 ounces whole wheat fettuccine

1 tablespoon butter

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp cornstarch

Pinch of ground nutmeg

¾ cup low fat, low sodium chicken broth

¾ cup grated Parmigiano cheese

¾ cup 5 percent Greek yogurt plain

Salt and pepper to taste

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.  Add fettuccine; cook according to package directions.  While pasta cooks, melt butter in a large nonstick sauté pan over medium heat.  Add garlic and cook two minutes.  Combine cornstarch and nutmeg in a small bowl; whisk in chicken broth until smooth.  Pour into sauté pan, raise the heat, and bring sauce to a simmer, whisking occasionally.  Whisk in ½ cup of the cheese until melted.  Remove pan from heat.  Whisk in yogurt until smooth.  Toss fettuccine with Alfredo sauce.  Season with salt and pepper.  Top pasta with remaining cheese.  Serves four.

Final Farewell

On our last day in Porterville, we spent the afternoon with our friends and then said our final goodbyes.  We will miss them very much!

The girls playing with Neva's toys

 Our attempts at a group shot with the kids

Jennifer and baby Kaylee

 Sweet Neva

Leaving Porterville

God is good! That is all I have to say. The first move went smoothly on Thursday. Mya and I drove to Stockton for the day and were at the new apartment when the furniture arrived. We had a few hours free in the afternoon so I took her to the mall to get her ears pierced. She was so brave. Of course I promised her she could buy some princess chap stick if she followed through with the ear piercing. She was so proud of herself. It was so fun having a whole day with just her. We had some meals together and just enjoyed the quality time. It is the little things that make Mya so happy. On the way home at night we stopped at a Subway for dinner. She got the kids meal (ham sandwich, apples, and juice) and they put it in an adorable, girly bag. Se felt so special.....and it sure beats getting a kids meal at a fast food restaurant. The girls have done so well with understanding about healthy foods. A ham sandwich is something Mya gets excited about.

Our second move was on Friday. I took Dan to work at 5:30 am so he could get off early in the afternoon. Then that morning I loaded up the rest of our stuff in the apartment....bedding, toiletries, clothes, toys, etc. I stuffed the trunk full and shut the lid so fast so nothing would fall out. It was quite comical. I was bummed to have to pack by myself because I am really bad at packing things in a small space. Dan strategically puts things in so more things will fit....but I tend to just pack it in until it is full. With this job, Dan doesn't have any vacation days so I had to do a lot of packing by myself. But at night he helped as much as he could. He did scrub the whole bathroom for me on our last night in the apartment. Thank goodness! Once things were all packed, I took the girls to breakfast for a final farewell at our bowling alley restaurant. We will miss the pancakes there! Then we spent the afternoon with our friends Jennifer and Neva. I dreaded that final goodbye. It was very hard but we have all promised to spend some weekends together while we are living in Stockton. They have never been to San Francisco so I know we will be able to lure them up this way for sure. Friday night we arrived at the new apartment and spent a couple more hours unpacking all the little things. We finally fell into bed around 10 pm and slept very well.

So how is the new apartment? Well.....we are pleased. We will miss Porterville and the people we met so very much, but there are a few things that we were ok to leave behind. We left the poor air quality, the rooster that crowed every morning starting at 5am (strange...our apartment was in the city), the apartment bathroom that was just yucky, the paper thin walls of our apartment (we could hear our neighbor's conversations at night), and watching neighbor kids roam the apartment complex for hours with no parent supervision. The new apartment is a bit smaller than the last one, but we love the rented furniture and the carpet is very clean. We have a living room window that overlooks green grass and a quiet community. The walls are thick and the apartment is very quiet. There are some drawbacks here too, but we have learned to adjust to those. I spoke negatively about the previous apartments but there are many things we enjoyed about it too. So we are finally settled and learning the lay of the land. Tomorrow we try out a new church and have lunch with our friend from Ohio. It should be a nice day and the temperature will be in the 70's.

I still promise to post pictures soon. I haven't had a minute to get the camera out let alone drive to a Starbucks alone to post pictures on the blog. Stay tuned.....

Change

I had to laugh because I saw a quote on Facebook that fits our situation so well. And it relates to my previous post titled "transition." The quote is....."People love change, they just don't like transition." That is so true. The transition of moving is what causes the most stress. There are so many unknowns and so many details to iron out. Once those things are in order the actual change isn't bad at all. In fact, I love what we are doing and I love the adventure part of it. If we wouldn't have done this we wouldn't have seen this part of the world. It has been a wonderful experience so far. And I can finally say that I am excited about our move. Change is good...transition can be hard.

Tomorrow, Mya and I are taking a trip to Stockton to deliver a load of stuff to the apartment. We are also going to be there when the furniture arrives. Dan orchestrated the furniture rental and was able to talk them down in price. Today he finalized those details. It will feel good to unload and organize and get things set up. We already have plans to attend our friend's church on Sunday and then have lunch with them. Things all came together. And tomorrow...I get to take Mya to get her ears pierced on our way home from Stockton. She decided on her own so we will see if she will follow through with it. Hopefully I will get pictures of the apartment on the blog soon.

Transition

Good news...we did find an apartment! It is in a nicer area of Stockton and the apartment complex is like a little resort. We have a fitness area, 3 pools, hot tub, tennis courts, and laundry facility. We are hoping for the best! One of the hardest parts of moving to a new area is not really knowing what it will be like until you actually live there. From experience, I did know to get a top floor apartment so we don't have neighbors above us walking across the floor. They sound like elephants in an apartment complex. The other good news is that the location is great for weekend traveling. Stockton has a marina with boat rides, tons of parks, and then we have San Francisco, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, and the bay area with beaches all within an hour of us. Of course I will be joining the MOPS group too. That helps me learn the area faster. Always talk to the locals. Learning the layout of this city will be harder for me because the population is 250,000. But that is where me and the IPad will become best friends. We are excited that Stockton has 3 Targets, Chipotle, Olive Garden and Jamba Juice. Thank goodness!

Here is another cool story..... After Christmas time (early February) we got a package from our tenants in our house back home. In the package was months worth of mail, including our tax stuff. Tucked away in that stack of mail were Christmas cards from friends. One caught my eye from a friend that Dan knew in high school. His family's address was Ripon, California. And he is the associate pastor at a Grace Brethren Church. I put the address in the GPS and saw how close they were to Stockton....... 20 minutes. So now we have a church to attend right away. Isn't God cool?

The only thing we don't have figured out is our rental furniture. We spent about 2 hours in the Rent A Center store after apartment hunting for the morning. We were all tired and hungry and grumpy. We got our application processed and got the final rental estimate. It was way too high! So we walked away from the deal and returned to square one with furniture. After feeling bummed, about a half hour later, the store called us and said they would try to lower the price for us. Dan is getting good at this wheeling and dealing thing. Not me...I just wanted to rent the furniture and check it off my list. So now we are waiting to hear back from the
store. I am learning and trying so hard to give up the desire to want to take the reigns on everything. I tend to get a bit high strung when it comes to the details on things. God is teaching me some tough lessons with this adventure.

Today was our last Sunday at church in Porterville. It was bittersweet. The pastor did a little presentation for us and gave us a framed thank you note. It was very thoughtful. I have such mixed emotions about this move. I made friends here and now we are leaving them. We are moving to a new area and I find myself feeling scared. And of course there is excitement thrown in there too. What a mix! I am praying for contentment with the move so I can enjoy this precious time with my family. I pray for my high strung disposition when stress and little details are involved to fade and turn to pure thankfulness for what I have.

Here We Come Stockton!

I am loving the free WiFi at the hotel tonight.  After Dan got off work today we drove to Stockton to stay the night.  Tomorrow we begin the adventure of finding an apartment and next week we move!  The girls enjoyed the evening of pizza and swimming at the hotel.

Cycling

Funny story first.....I was driving in the car with the three girls the other day. Mya was in her typical thinking mode. You can just see it in her face when she is really thinking about something. Then she will usually say, "Mom...I been thinking something in my mind." So this particular day she was thinking about how the world just might be all pretend. She said, "I was thinking that all of this stuff (meaning our world) is probably pretend." I asked her what she meant. She said she thinks maybe people are out there watching us on their televisions. We have been talking lately about how the movies she watches are pretend. I had to try very hard not to burst out laughing. We concluded this enlightening conversation by talking more about the truths of God and how and why things were made.

I have been taking spinning classes at the gym in Porterville. In January we had a free month membership and decided to buy the membership for February. I had never taken spinning before. It is fun and very challenging at times. A couple times during the workout session you simulate climbing a hill on your bike. You increase the tension on your bike and work real hard until the song is finished...or in real life the hill would be done. My February has been like bike riding up the hill. It started off easy and fun, the tension was low. But then the tension got cranked up a bit. That tension meaning home sickness set in for me. The climb on that hill started to get harder and harder. I had to work harder at contentment and keeping a positive attitude. I failed a lot. The nasty stomach flu was spreading like crazy around here. It seemed like over half the members of our church caught it. And it was the violent kind...like Dan had at Christmas. So not only was I homesick, but I became terrified of the stomach virus. I worried about it constantly....I am terrified of throwing up. Fear can be such a crippling thing and Satan loves it! It consumed my mind and I had to do lots of praying. Worrying like that made me miss my home even more. I was guilty of having a heart that wasn't thankful for my current circumstances. The girls were sick off and on all month so I had to stay inside a lot more than we typically would. I finally let Dan and God work with me on this so I could get out of my slump. Now that we know where we are moving and the details are falling together I can finally see the top of the hill. I feel like I can catch my breath and finally relax. Can you just imagine that feeling when the work has been done and you can just coast on the bike? Yes, things will be a bit crazy from now until we move, but I am feeling excited for our new adventure. It will be good to move and see a new area.

Tomorrow (Friday) we are leaving for Stockton to find an apartment. We have one picked out so I am hoping it will work out. We are staying in a hotel with a swimming pool which will lift the kids' spirits. They have been wanting to swim so badly with the weather warming up. It will be a fun little trip for all of us. Once we find out where we are living I will post pictures. Our actual moving date is Friday, March 2nd.