California Dreamin'?

I am DYING to get someone in my family to move to California. What I would GIVE to have family close by. Ugh. My sister, Jen, has six kids and lives in Texas. My brother, Jeremy, has six kids and one on the way. They live in Arizona. My other sister, Liz, has three kids and lives in Illinois and my parents are in Texas. Considering all this, my best bet for success would be uprooting my parents or Liz.

In an effort to "woo" Liz, we had them come stay with us for a little California visit last fall with their two kids Sam and Josh (she just had her third, a little girl). Anyway, they got the works! Disneyland, a cottage a few blocks from the beach, Halloween in downtown Huntington Beach, the list goes on... We thought for sure we could win them over.



As luck would have it...when they went to pick up their Disneyland tickets they got for a "deal" on ebay, the cops were investigating the place for fraud and they almost lost their tickets. Halloween consisted of skanky moms dressed in bunny ears and lingerie, dragging their kids from store to store along Main street. The short walk to the beach, turned into a few hours as we gave bad directions and they got lost...To top it off, when we got home one evening our street was lined with forensic police vans and red tape. Turns out our next door neighbor had a meth lab going on in the garage.

Dang you, California.

Needless to say, they still live in the midwest. Maybe we'll try again in a few years...

P.S. I was driving along the freeway today when that memory came flashing back and I had to laugh and knew it needed to be blogged for memory :)

Happy Choices are....

1. Refinancing a rental property from a 6% interest rate and 30 years down to a 4.25% interest rate and 15 years WITH the mortgage only going up $150 a month. Love that we can now plan on rental payoffs when Kris is only 45.
   
2. Getting epoxy garage floors so I can move all the boxes out of every room of our house and back into the garage in an organized fashion
3. Baby sign language videos and watching Tofer SIGN in his sleep. Not kidding. So cute.
4. New windows and doors to replace the circa 82 windows
5. Making homemade pizza for FHE and watching Tofer roll the dough with a pin and sprinkle with cheese (the chunks he doesn't eat first)
6. Watching General Conference - having a living Prophet on the earth
   
7. Paying for things with cash when you can so you don't let the temptation of "EVERYTHING NOW" spiral you into debt (minus house/car etc - i wish)
   
8. Hugs
9. Saying prayers as a family and watching your 1.5 year old bow his head and fold his arms.
   
10. Making cupcakes for the neighbors kids