Our Home!!!

Thanks everyone for joining us for this exciting blog post!!!  To give you a background, we arrived on Wednesday and that first night we stayed in a Travelodge.  Brian decided that for the first night we were here we all needed a great nights rest.   The Travelodge was great.  It was a large room with a kitchenette.  The kids got a bath and we got some food and got into bed.  Brian went to bed as soon as the kids did and slept about 10 hours that night, which was the longest he had in so long.  I went to bed after doing some research looking for houses. 

So we looked.  And we looked and looked and looked.  Most people didn't want to rent us a place!!! First of all, people out here don't want to rent without an interview.  Secondly, a job is your FIRST criteria for renting at all.  Not cash.  What?!  What kind of backwards place is this?  Money… actually money doesn't actually buy anything?  But we kept trying.  I remember there was a man I had called and talked to who had told me "how renting works" out here.  He said he was making some updates to his rental but it would be ready later in August.  So I called to check in with him and he said that he had finished his rental but hadn't put it on the market yet.  JOY!  Well then we had to tell him ALL about how we don't have jobs and were prepared for him to hang up on us.  He didn't but did want to do heavy background looks on us, which obviously we were fine with.   He was a police officer here in Redding for almost 30 years.  So he was a very to the point and direct.  After he did all the checking into things, he said we got the house!!! He told us on Friday night and we signed on Sunday afternoon and we are so excited to show you.  So here we go!

The front of the house!  I realized I didn't take a picture of the entire front but I will try and edit the post later- for now you could Google satellite map it if you are really wanting to see.  :) 

 Our address is:

1786 Lazelle Ct 

Redding, CA 96002  

This is our living room.  Right as you walk in the door and look left, this is what you see.  This picture doesn't really do it justice.  It is a nice size room.  

This is the dining room taken from the living room area.

This is the kitchen!  :)

From the dining room looking into the living room.  We love how all this living space is all one area.  We really wanted that in a house.  :)

So if you walk in the front door and turn RIGHT after a few steps you will go down this hallway.  

As you go down the hall the first door on the left is the bathroom! This is a picture of the main bathroom:

The cabinets and sink have been updated.  It looks so nice.

Back to the hallway and taking our first right is the first bedroom.

 And here it is:

As you go back into the hallway, the last door on the right is another bedroom.  Here is a picture of the back bedroom:

And on the back left corner of the hallway or the back right of the house is the master bedroom.
I did my best but my camera didn't want to squeeze all the bedroom in.  I will have to try again with maybe a different camera.

Master bathroom! Again, updated sinks and cabinetry.

The backyard.  This area is AWESOME.  There is a concrete pad perfect for outdoor furniture as well as a raised bed for planting things.   Not to mention it is a huge yard.  And there is still a good bit of space behind those bushes (which will make for great hide and seek).  

The only thing missing here is our expansive two car garage.  It is seriously huge and awesome.  It has so much space, two work benches and washer/dryer space.  Pictures to come.

 So when we knew we would be moving into the house Sunday, we decided Saturday we would go yardsaleing (I am making this a verb) and craigslisting (I am also making this a verb).  We found tons of amazing treasures.  Obviously one of our first needs was a fridge.  Our first yard sale we found an older looking ivory one, but I told Brian if the price was right we could get it.  The guy only wanted $20 for it!!! Sold!  It isn't the most amazing fridge but it was CHEAP, but it needed cleaned.  Like BAD.  Ew.
Here are the before and afters of the cleaning.

Before:

After!!!

The whole thing after.  What an improvement.  We are really happy with our $20 fridge and it is working great and making food cold as we speak.  :)

At the same yard sale the guy had a bunch of random stuff.  Including a few gems.

 This coffee table was so fabulous to me.  I know it needs love but the mod look with the silver post tops just was too much for me to pass on.  This will either be restained or painted--- we will see.  But or $5 (yes, $5!!!!)  how could I pass?

Then I saw this beauty. My grandma had one of these table so I was immediately drawn.  Then when I saw the detail work and fixtures I had to have it.  I asked how much.  $2   I was in heaven.  A solid wood side table for $2?!  YES! Yes yes yes.  I am so excited and I can't wait to show you before and after pictures.

 Other items we got but aren't included in pictures yet are:  Fabulous kitchen table, sectional couch, washer and dryer, mattress (we bought new!), file cabinet, a basket for shoes and some motorcycle tags from California that looked really cool.  :)

Well that's all for now.  And all the update I have time for as we are SUPER busy!  We have a lot to try and get done this week before Brian goes to school but I had to share this with you guys!
We miss you all.  Please feel free to write us at our address above! We would LOVE to get mail here.  How fun! :)

Love you all and blessings to each and every one of you!

Cali Trip: Day 5… LAST DAY!

So here's what you have all been waiting on… our accommodations in Wendover, NV:

That's right a tent! It was so fun.  Hailee actually had been asking to go camping for a long time but we hadn't really had the opportunity. But here it was.  We wanted to save money on getting a hotel several nights so we decided to check into a KOA campsite and set up a tent we had bought.  Tent is a funny word though; this thing is more like a small house.  It is a 14x14 tent size.  We got there late but we were still set up in about 20 minutes and Here is what the inside looked like:

Is it camping or "camping" when you have a really comfy air mattress and still feel like you are at home?  I mean I think the pool, great showers, convenience store and such were enough to call it "camping". 

You can tell Hailee was SO happy to have camped.  We actually all slept really well.  Since we didn't get there until late we decided to not stake the tent in because it might be loud.  That was our only mistake really.  At 2am we awoke to the sound of heavy wind (something we don't have too much of in GA- or at least not like this) blowing in the sides of our tent.  It wasn't collapsing or anything it was just that the sides weren't staying stiff and really it was more of the noise of wind blowing the canvas loudly that was bothering us.  So Brian went out and fixed that problem by doing what we should have done in the first place.  My hero.  :)



Nevada mountains.  Really beautiful.

This photo was seriously taken about a couple hours after the first, I think.  Well that's about how sure I am- it seriously looked about the same the whole 4.5 hours of Nevada.  It's gorgeous and all but I would seriously call this the most boring part of our drive.   Thank goodness I got a nap while Brian drove.  ;)  Hehe.

Um What?!?  Spelled it wrong.  That is DEATH STAR.  Right Star Wars fans?

So in the morning we woke up, broke down the tent and got on our way.  Brian took the first leg basically across most of Nevada.  At first we thought everything was beautiful, which it was, but quickly we noticed the beautiful scenery was the same.  Then more of the same.  Then even more of the same.  There were very few towns.  At some points there were some small gatherings of houses  but I wouldn't consider them a town, really.  

Close to Reno we stopped for lunch and to switch drivers.  We got off for lunch and didn't want anything too normal.  We knew there were some chains here that aren't available back home where we are from so we tried to look for one of those.  We drove for only a minute until we certainly found one:

Although Weinerschnitzel is actually NOT at all what this place offered, being the traditional German dish, but still looked interesting so we tried it.  As Brian described it, it just looked like a gut bomb:

It was very good, but very messy.  So we got back on the road and it wasn't long until we were in California!!! Hooray!  The scenery didn't change immediately but really, it wasn't long until it did.  Green started popping up everywhere with trees, and trees wasn't something there was in Nevada.  We kept going along and got to a town called Susanville.  When we got there we noticed there was a lot of fog.  That is when I had realized it wasn't fog at all.  I had been checking on some of the pages of people who live up here already and remembered they had been commenting on the fires in CA.  Evidently the fires are mostly out but there is a lot of leftover smoke leftover.  (Don't worry they aren't where we are.)  Here are some pictures of Cali:


Tourists?  Haha.

At the start of California.  Looking like Nevada, but now with cows!  (Did I just come up with a slogan?  You are welcome California.)

Big change here once we got closer to Redding, CA.  Green trees!

There are green trees, however the grass is mostly dead because of how hot and dry it is here.  They said things green up in the winter.  (Winter?!?!) It rains in the winter so I guess that is when it gets watered the most.  

WE ARE THERE.  Or here?  We are here?  Yea whatever- after 4 days in car with kids… I don't even care what the grammar freaks say.  

Hailee looking cool and also happy because we told her we were there.  

We kept driving and got into Redding around 6pm Cali time, which is 9pm where we are from.  I called to talk to my sweet nieces and sister.  It was so awesome talking to them.  Refreshing, really.  We then found a place to stay for the night at the Travelodge and then got in a called my parents.  Brian grabbed dinner while I gave the kids a bath.  We ate, then all crashed into bed.  

We slept very well last night.  Today our goal is to find a place to live.  We would like to find somewhere by the weekend.

Praise requests and prayer requests.  Please join us in rejoicing and in prayer for the these things:

God we praise you for:

-Our safety in getting to Redding, CA. 

-Our kids having a great trip our and being so well behaved. 

-Wonderful places to stay and rest along our journey. 

-Our van doing such a great job getting out here.

Prayers for: 

-Finding the right house for our family.

-Getting adjusted, unpacked and familiar with the area.

-Finding Hailee a school to go to.

-Finding jobs, we have some leads but would like to find something firm. 

-Health for our family.

-Our kids to understand and be adjusted to the big change of being away from most family.  

Thank you everyone for sharing this journey with us, praying with us, loving on us.  Once we get a place, get in and settled we can start to schedule Skype dates.  We give God all the glory for everything he has done in our lives.  Thank you again.

We will be continuing to blog on what is going on in our lives.  They might just not be as frequent because of all that we have going on.  We will do our best though! :)

Love and God's blessings to you all,

The Walker's 

Cali Trip: Day 4

Ahhhh bacon.  That is the smell I (Robin) woke up to this morning.   I got up at the Boudreau's and Melanie was cooking bacon.  Carly, her daughter, was helping with breakfast by cooking the pancakes.  Before long everyone was in the kitchen and we enjoyed a nice morning with everyone together.  Chuck prayed for us this morning and he left for work and took Collin, their son, to school.  

We packed up, gave hugs and got on our way, but not before the kids jumped on the trampoline and got out some of that energy!  It was so wonderful again seeing them and I look forward to many more connections between the Walker's and Boudreau's in the future.  

So we drove north to Denver and then got on 70-West.  I can't believe how amazing this stretch of land is.  We took so many pictures.  The land is so beautiful!  At one point we were up over 8500 feet.  Perhaps more but that is the highest number we saw on a sign.  We kept driving by these adorable, old looking towns.  We loved how quaint and simple they looked amongst the vast beauty of the mountains.  One of those towns where people just hang on their porch but instead of seeing some streets or anything mundane they get to wake up to a tall gorgeous mountain every day.  Wow. Brian and I said that we almost, just almost stopped right there and moved in.  Haha. 

At lunch we stopped in Vail, CO.  Best choice ever!  It was such a cute town.  Nice and obviously a tourist kind of spot.  The first thing we saw when we pulled off the interstate was this sign:

Ack!!! Bears? All their trash cans were put in these huge metal brown boxes.  I guess I get why! Haha.

Just eating lunch beside a mountain, no big deal.  

My hubby and I having some local asian in Vail, CO!  It was so serene.  Ahhh.

 Brian and I snapped this quick picture before getting on the road:

Basically the rest of the day was just driving driving driving.  (Of course)  We got through Colorado and it was beautiful.  The kids loved going through the tunnels in the mountains.  They would raise their hands in the air when it was time to go through one.  Nathaniel kept yelling, "Mountains?!" and of course we would say, "Yes, buddy, mountains!"  We enjoyed the sights quite a bit as you can see: 

As if in a quick blink, we got into Utah. Interesting the change seemed to happen somewhat gradually but also it was sudden that you noticed quite a difference in how everything looked.  It was so beautiful as well.  We didn't really stop for dinner, just ate dinner in the car and kept on the road.  Next we got into Salt Lake City.  I think the show Sister Wives (about Mormon polygamists) is fascinating in such a weird way, so I told Brian we should stop and look for a spouse of some sort.  Brian said we didn't have room in the car.  (Which is true…)  HAHA. 

The other cool thing was when we were in Utah it started raining.  Shortly after the sun started to come through also and that's when Brian almost screamed at the sight of a rainbow.  We had to pull over.  Brian showed Hailee the rainbow and then turned around and saw beautiful sunbeams!  So we took some pictures and we got on the way.  We loved the rainbow and sunbeams because to us it was a sign of God's promise to Noah and it seemed like God was showing us he is remembering our promises and showing us he is going to be faithful to bring them to fruition.  

We left Salt Lake and it was getting dark.  So sadly on the way to Wendover we didn't get to see too much.  We even kinda missed Salt Lake.  I mean we knew we were passing it but it was too dark to really see or take any pictures.  :(   Sorry.  We passed through the Salt Flats on the way to the place where we are staying.  Which will remain a secret until the next post!!!!!

*Evil sounding laugh inserted here*

Fun aside for the day:

So I feel like I've been chasing the sun the last few days.  Driving west all this way and the days seemingly get longer and longer.  I told Brian it was as if I drove fast enough that the sun would never set and we could just keep driving with the sun all day.  Then I looked over because he was quiet.  That's when I noticed the nerdy look on his face.  (A face I have come to know and love through the years…)  I said, "Alright give me the data, how fast would we have to be going…"

Without hesitation he said, "Well I mean the earth rotates once every 24 hours.  That's how we get one day, so we would have to travel 1/24 the circumference of the earth every hour.  Since the earth is about 25,000 miles in circumference, we would have to be going over 1,000 miles per hour."

That is my awesomely smart husband.  He really is so quick on the draw.  I might have gotten there eventually- but it was as if he had already had the answer before I finished my thought about "chasing the sun."  Super smart dude.  

Can't wait to see you guys tomorrow for our last day of our trip and our ARRIVAL in Redding, CA!!! To say I'm excited would be an understatement.  Get me OUTTA this VAN.  Haha.