Rollin' in to CA.

This is how California greeted us!

                                                                  

We rolled into California Sunday (Easter) afternoon, and stopped in at the pastors’ house to meet him and the family. David and his wife Wilma have 6 kids. Such a cool family. They were getting ready to road trip to LA that night, and still hung out with us for a few hours. We really enjoy them. That evening a couple from the church we'll be going to (The Fields, check it out: http://www.thefieldschurch.org/) was hosting an Easter dinner close by, so we went! Enjoyed dinner and meeting folks, and spent the next 2 nights at their home.

Monday was our last evening together before I left for Knoxville. Beach. Beautiful sunset. Sushi. Talking. Laughing. Walking around Carlsbad Village. Couldn’t have asked for a sweeter evening.

Darren started his new job this week! I flew back to Knoxville earlier this week to finish classes and graduate. I will head back to California in 3 weeks. It was so hard to leave. But! We had suuuuuch a blast road-tripping together and experiencing these new things together. It’s hard to complain when we note how kind God has been in taking care of us. 

And so our 3 week countdown begins!

(I, Emily, may or may not have changed my laptop background to a picture of Darren’s face.)

Grand Canyon!

Picking back up! Last Friday we continued our drive into New Mexico:

the Rio Grande River:

mountains in Albuquerque:

and into Arizona!

We spent the night in Flagstaff, AZ, and woke up early to head to the Grand Canyon. We liked it :)   In San Diego, we'll only be ~ 8 hours from the Grand Canyon. Very excited to go back and hike more!

Driving through Texas

Well! 1 week ago today we packed up our apartment into our Penske truck and were ready to head out of town. One week has never been so full! Here are some pictures. We enjoyed the road trip so much...full of sunshine, blue skies, music, conversations, coffee, fast food and cheap hotels! (Complete with Darren singing along to local Mexican radio stations along the way...) Such a good time.

One whole day: driving through Texas.

East Texas:

Middle Texas:

Southwest Texas, nearing El Paso:

More coming!

Out West

Well. Driving out west. It's been rough. Beautiful forests. Gorgeous mountains. Spanning desert landscapes. Golden sunsets. It's been tough, but we're making it.

We've spent the last few days driving from Knoxville, TN toward our destination of San Diego, CA. Days 1-3 were spent driving through Tennessee, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, discussing what our new lives in Cali will look like with a new church, community and jobs. We're excited to dive into the new church and community though, we'll probably be posting a bit on what we're learning and experiencing. We've been driving around 10 hours a day and spending our nights with friends or living it up in hotel rooms. But tonight is different. We're doing the Motel. Not just any motel, but the Stagecoach Motel, placed smack-dab in the Middle-of-Nowhere, AZ. Here's a glimpse...

We spent last night in Flagstaff, AZ and woke up bright and early this morning to set out for our day trip to the Grand Canyon, where we spent the day touring the South Rim and meeting people from all different nationalities. When our time there ended, we traveled a couple of hours to our current place of rest, the motel above... Now. Don't get me wrong, the Grand Canyon was grand and all, but, when we got to this motel, we were greeted by a wonderful old lady who has traveled the country with stories to share. Upon paying for our room, we headed on over to our room to drop our stuff off to hurry on over the Pizza Joint on the motel grounds. We opened the door to a Garth Brooks cover song being sung by two authentic westerners. We proceeded to order a couple of Keystone Lights while enjoying these two countrymen playing Elvis, Brooks and Dunn and Willie Nelson covers until their hearts were content. Good times. If we were going to be around for a while...we'd frequent this place for sure!

Well it's late, just thought we'd get this blog started. Should be fun, we'll try to keep it updated as frequent as possible for our friends and family to check in and see what we're up to and learning.

Darren and Em