Texas stole my girlfriend!
I can’t believe that the one thing that’s bigger than me in this world, the state of Texas, has stolen my girlfriend. It’s sad, really. From what I hear, she’s having a grand ol’ time in Houston with her dad and step mom, but I am really starting to miss her over here in Palo Alto. Luckily time’s going by pretty fast - Stephanie come back home to the cottage!
Oh, and bring me an armadillo…please. 
Yep, I’m a beach rat :)
I think for the past 7 days that we have been in California, I have asked to go to the beach at least 500 times Haha, I can’t help it, Im absolutely addicted to the beach. There’s just something about the sea breeze, seagulls, soft sand, and crashing waves that I can’t get enough of. Lucky for me there’s a beach just 20 minutes away from where we live in Palo Alto, and it just happens to be considered a surfer’s paradise with it’s uniquely large waves caused by a man-made breaker within the waters. Seriously, check it out on Wikipedia they don’t lie 
So, we headed out to the beautiful beach and found a great little restaurant and pub that overlooked the ocean to have a delicious dinner. I can’t wait to have people come out and visit us so that we can take them to places like this! Every day we find something new and it’s always an adventure as we slowly but surely discover our new home and surroundings.
Yep, we live in a cottage in California
It’s true - Stephanie and I call a small cottage in California home and sometimes I even feel like we’re living in The Shire, but it still amazes me every time that I tell myself that we live there. The weather, the other space around our cottage and the people who live around us are all equally amazing and when you put it together it does seem a little far-fetched sometimes that we actually live in this place.
As I was getting ready to leave for lunch a couple days ago I realized that most of you have never seen where Stephanie and I now call home, so consider this your own little private behind-the-scenes tour of our new place. If you ever want to come visit, just let us know - we’re ALWAYS up for meeting someone new.
Check out the pics below and be sure to click on the PhotoCrank button on each one so that I can tell you all a little about each one . Any questions, just let me know and feel free to Crank your own questions if you’re feeling frisky.
Palo Alto adventures: Eating at Plutos
We have officially made it to our new home in Palo Alto, CA and in fact - I am typing this from the living room of our new cottage. I have a couple of videos to post from the last day and a half of driving, but I wanted to go ahead and give you all a glimpse of what Palo Alto is all about.
Stephanie and I headed to a place called Plutos today, which is located right on the main strip (University Avenue). Although they yelled at me a few times to put away my camera, I still somehow came away with some sweet footage of this awesome and very tasty place to get your grub on. Check out the video below or click here to enjoy it over here on YouTube
More videos coming soon and once we get settled in you’ll be hearing a lot more from us here on the Internets..enjoy!
Cali Road Trip: Hitting the road
I am writing this from Columbia, Missouri at Stephanie’s grandmas(I love stealing wi-fi) and we are getting ready to head towards Denver tonight. We have about 11-12 hours to go today so I need to get off of this laptop so that we can get driving. Every mile is a minute, here we go!
On the road again…
Cali Road Trip: Packing and saying goodbye
Steph and I were almost ready to hit the road, but first we had to pack up and say goodbye to our homies. Ever try to pack your life into one car? Good times.
Stay updated each day, we are attempting to do one of these during the entire trip….attempting.
Saying goodbye to my home-away-from-home
I have been saying goodbye to many, many people the past few days (when I’ve had the time) and I’m sure that more than a few people are still going to have no idea that I’ve left. With so much to do in such a little amount of time, it’s been hard to communicate the message to everyone so it’s basically inevitable that some people will fall through the cracks.
But, thanks to my habit of heading there at least once a day, one group of people who I have not left in the dark on me jetting out of Indiana are my Subway ladies. Considering that I see them more than my family, I thought that getting some video of the goodbye was only appropriate so that everyone can see the bonds that I’m made with my favorite sandwich artists. Check out the video below or watch it over here on YouTube.
Stephanie says goodbye
Although Stephanie and I are both very excited to head out to California, that doesn’t mean that we aren’t saddened by the fact that we’re leaving many, many wonderful friends and family behind. Yesterday we headed up to Chicago to see a couple of Stephanie’s best friends in the entire world so that she could hang with them one last time before we make the big trek out to the West Coast.
You know, it’s not real easy to explain, but I’ve had such a weird feeling the last week or so whenever I actually take some time and think about the people that I’ll be 2,000+ miles from in less than a week. On one hand I get really sad due to the fact that I’ll rarely see many of the people that are currently in my life here in Indiana/Midwest. But, on the other hand I feel that thanks to the web I’ll still be able to stay in touch with most of the people and that it’s not that big of deal. I don’t really know how to explain exactly how it feels, but it seems to become more apparent each day that we get closer to leaving.
But, of course we’re both getting more and more excited with each day as well. Just think…this time next week we’ll actually be settling into our new cottage in Palo Alto. Wow, this is going to be such an adventure….I’m so glad that you’re all taking the journey with us.
Thanks, Craigslist! We finally found a place…
I am VERY happy to announce that after many, many hours of Craigslist, phone calls, emails, etc. we have officially nailed down a place to live out in the beautiful city of Palo Alto, CA. I think that it was well worth the wait considering that we snagged one of the best places that I could ever imagine us living in.
It’s a cottage that is literally 2 blocks away from the main strip in downtown Palo Alto and the landlords seem super cool to boot. I’m pretty sure that the interviewing process for this place was more intense than any job interview that I’ve ever had to go through in Indianapolis, but they were very adamant about getting the right type of people in there. Considering that the cottage is located directly behind their house who can really blame them, right?
Well, the good news is that after speaking to them on the phone several times and after sending them many of the videos from around Indy that Stephanie and I have been creating - we’re actually going to be moving into our new place in a little over a week! I can not wait to met our new landlords and their family, I think that they’re going to be a lot of fun and will soon become our Palo Alto foster parents before you know it.
This whole process has moved along very fast and it has been a little crazy, but it just seems like it has all worked out for the best. I think that the fact that Stephanie and I are going to be living in this cottage is yet another example of this and hopefully the trend of everything going our way will continue as we make our way out west. What an adventure…
Oh yeah, be sure to check out the video below or over here on YouTube to get a better idea of what it’s like trying to find a place to live out in Palo Alto, CA while still living in Indianapolis, IN. We repeated this same process about 60 times in less than 4 days. Good times.
Heading to Cali Series: Getting rid of Steph’s car
Wow, does it feel good to actually break the news to the world about Stephanie and I heading out to Palo Alto, California. I have held back until now for a few different reasons, but now it’s officially time to let everyone know that WE ARE MOVING TO CALIFORNIA!
Whew…there, I finally said it and in about a week I’ll be living it as we pack up and drive on out west to our new cottage out in the warm and beautifully sunny streets of the computer nerd capital of the world. I’m sure that I’ll fit in just fine, but there is plenty of nervousness going on even though this is something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time now. I know that it will work out perfectly with Stephanie and I fitting in like we belonged there from the beginning. I guess it’s like I always say: ‘If you don’t get nervous about it, then it’s probably not even worth doing.’
So, as we move along the super accelerated schedule of moving out there we have a a type of ‘mental list’ of things that we need to take care of before we get out there. One of the first things we decided to take care of was what we are going to do with our cars. Stephanie drives a 2007 Civic si and I was driving a 2007 GMC Envoy Denali and we have decided that we need to not only get down to one car(with one cheaper payment), but we also needed to get into something a little more gas efficient.
But, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, the first thing we had to do was get rid of Stephanie’s ride. We were told to go get her car appraised at Carmax so that we could see what it was worth. It was my first Carmax experience, so of course I decided to make a video about it and you can check it out below or over here on YouTube. This is the first of many more Moving to Cali Series videos that we’ll be making, so come on along for the ride!