California Anniversary.

Today is what I call our california anniversary.  Five years ago today, we moved west.  It's been a blessed five years and as much as we missed our family and friends, we couldn't be happier.

So much has happened in those five years.  More than we could have ever guessed or requested in our wildest dreams.  God has been so good to us here.  California is now home.

However, the way it all started you would have never had guessed that things would have turned out so good:  

1. We hated our first apartment.
2. We hated that we had moved from a darling house into an apartment.
3. Half of our stuff was jam packed into a storage unit in Oklahoma.
4. The first night after we crawled into bed I cried, "I don't even know how to get to Target!"
5. The trailer, used to move my car across country, was stolen off of the moving truck.
6. The moving truck was spray painted with graffiti.  I think they were gang symbols that said, "Welcome to California!"
7. The first friend I made died 3 months after meeting her of sudden liver failure.  It might have been the white wine that she offered me that she bought at the dollar store (may she rest in peace.)
8. We had no money.  Apparently the cost of living in California really is higher.
9. I missed Game Day in Norman so much it hurt.
10. Watching OU football on T.V. was the one thing that made me cry.
11. The Golfer was constantly gone.
12. It never, ever rained.  And when it did rain, it didn't really...rain.

The bright spots of that first year?  Disneyland, the beach, In-n-Out, and...that's about it.

But then things changed.  They got better.  We settled in.  We moved to a better apartment.  I met more friends that didn't have a hidden terminal illness.  The Golfer was hired as the head coach, etc., etc., etc.  And five years later the crazy thing is, I can't image us living anywhere else.