Matt, Christen, Derek & Rylie

Menlo Park, CA

After a week long trip across the country we finally arrived at our new home in California. We are thankful to all of you who prayed for us as we journeyed across the country. God was protecting us the whole trip.

We had a 26' truck and towed our car behind it. We were as long as a semi. It was very different to be a "truck." We had to follow all the trucker rules including diesel gas, stopping at the weigh stations, staying to the right of the highway in the slow lane and paying attention to the height of bridges. The truck was not the most comfortable thing to ride in, but we survived! Matt drove the whole way since the seat could not be moved forward at all and my feet did not reach the pedals.

We drove a day and a half, then stayed with Matt's brother and family for 2 days in Frisco, TX. We drove a half a day and stayed with Sean and Laura Cunningham in Lubbock, TX. The final two days of driving were 15 hours each.

Once we arrived in Menlo Park we could not wait to get rid of the trailer and eventually the truck. We ate dinner the first night in our new town at PF Changs to celebrate our arrival!!

Thanks to our great Family Group friends packing the truck was not hard at all. Unpacking was a different story!! Matt and I unloaded the truck by ourselves and it took about 10 hours. We were so sore and stumbled into bed that night, but we were motivated to get rid of the truck.

Menlo Park is such a great town!!! Our apartment is very close to everything we need. We are 2 blocks away from the downtown area and close to 2 grocery stores so we've been walking most places around town. Stanford is 0.8 miles away and the school I will be teaching at is 2.5 miles away. We'll be biking to work everyday. The weather is fantastic and we leave the windows open since there is no humidity!

Moving in this time was a little more challenging than moving into our condo in Gainesville since it is much smaller. After unpacking everything, we had to repack about 10 boxes and put them in a storage unit to make everything fit. It is definately harder to downsize. Our apartment is very cozy now.

Here is our courtyard.

Hallway as you walk in.