a few more pictures from the trip. we're in indiana, we all survived. only got pulled over once (and it wasn't while i was driving). cali enjoyed the ride and was thrilled to not have to get back into the car.

so we're on the road. last night we stayed in huntington beach at my great aunt eileens house. i love her. she's hysterical. she's 4'11", 92 pounds, and nothing but trouble. she's amazing.

we hit the road this morning around 930am and headed out to phoenix ( a little detour) for dinner with my grandma that i don't see nearly as often as i want to. it was interesting, we woke up around 7am to repack the car and get everything we could into the vehicle and try not to make cali sit in beckys lap. i don't really understand it but they both wanted their own seats.








we're now at the hotel, and on hbo - which i don't think i've ever seen before in all honesty - there is a show on right now and the title is, "atlantic city hookers, it ain't e-z bein a hoe."

and on that note... it's off to colorado tomorrow.

let me start this by saying that from my day at work today, i cannot stand working in a small room with a loud breather. i think this is my new biggest pet peeve. loud breathing. stupidity man.

so, i just had to say goodbye to meredith. this is never anything easy. i love this girl. she is seriously my closest friend. she's amazing. she knows everything about me and still likes me and that in and of itself is phenominal. we've laughed... a lot. cried... a lot. and seriously made some of the best memories of my life. it's incredible. i have a few close friends and she's one of them.

this is my favorite recent story about meredith. she moved here something like 5 years ago and when she moved here she instantly had a big group of friends. it's just meredith, she can make friends anywhere. so, she has all these new friends but at church it somehow got started that two of her new friends were actually her cousins. this has gone on for years now. people still think their cousins and they just haven't had a reason to correct it. it was funny at first but how do you stop that after so long? so, cut to today. she met mike, her fiance at church as well and she's known him for years. he's also friends with her 'cousins.' so meredith and mike are at a restaurant the other day checking out catering options for the wedding and one of the 'cousins' works there. so, the manager says, 'family members get a bigger discount.' she turns to go get something from the back and meredith turns to mike and says, 'you know that we aren't really related, right?' and mike gets this look on his face like he was just told the world was flat and says, "what?!?" he had no idea they weren't related. turned into a huge laugh for me, mike is not so entertained.

here's another story that happened this morning. meredith is a workout queen and she and her roommate go to the gym at the ministry where she works every morning and the head guy was in the gym this morning. meredith always brings someones ipod to listen to while working out. so, she, her roommate and their high high up boss are in the gym and she's hooking up the ipod and it's already plugged in and she's trying to find something to listen to and all of a sudden it starts playing... did i mention she's a second grade teacher at world impact in a christian school in south central LA?... the first words out of the very very loud speakers were, "hey yo hey yo, it's an f***ing emergency. get the f*** off the premesis b****." and as she scrambles to get the ipod turned off and off the speakers her boss just laughs and she just stands there trying to find the words and just keeps repeating, "i swear it's not my ipod. i swear it's not!" this could only happen to meredith!

little bit of this... for now

k

this is going to be so much harder than I thought it would be. So much harder. Its finally hit me that I'm leaving and everything inside me hurts. I'm not ready to leave.

well, it's official. the route has been chosen. so, we're gonna do it in about four days and it should prove to be a fun trip. i'm excited to see colorado in the winter. i love the mountains mid winter. i've been there every other year for the last six years... all in december... strange.

so, family in phoenix, staying over night in flagstaff, staying overnight in colorado springs and then staying over night in aurora nebraska with the gus gang, then the following day we'll make it home.

any suggestions along the way? we'll miss sedona, sadly. it'll be dark by the time we pass by there. wanna see the grand canyon and then i love colorado springs. i plan on visiting the harley dealership, per my brother.

now that that part of the move is planned, it's time to finish packing and attempt to fit everything i own into my vehicle. we'll see how this goes.



on beckys blog she mentioned if weather is bad we'll head east... i'm really hoping that doesn't have to happen. i want to see colorado, i want to go to nebraska... i could do without the nothingness of iowa but i really want to see the mountains. that and i've done that drive before, the southern route of the states and it sucks. no joke. theres no sugar coating it's just bad. i remember seeing tumbleweed in texas and not knowing that was real until right then.

it's funny that i know which routes to take. this will be my third time driving across the country again in the last six years. that just seems wrong. we're best western-ing it along the way so i'm sure you'll get mobile updates!

now... back to packing

meredith and i went to vegas. here are the pictures