Life Lessons

If there is one thing I've really learned over the past three years, it is take time to enjoy sunsets. You will most certainly feel God's presence, and see the world as it was made to be.

Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives

Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives is by far my favorite show on Food Network. Guy goes all across the country tasting delicious food, in the most unexpected places. Since becoming addicted to the show, James and I are making an effort to visit as many of these restaurants as we can, all over the country, where ever we find ourselves. (And for us…you never really know where that will be!) One of our favorite restaurants in San Diego was featured on the show, and we have been taking our visitors to enjoy the awesomeness that is Hodad’s in Ocean Beach. Hodad’s specializes in burgers, fries, and onion rings, as well as sunsets on the beach. The walls are covered with license plates, and we are thinking about donating James VTOpie plate to be added to the wall, as we now have California plates. Only a few miles from James in Mississippi is another place featured on the show called the Blow Fly Inn, where each meal comes complete with a plastic fly. They recently reopened after the hurricane, and I am sure the locals are thrilled. The red beans and rice were phenomenal, and I haven’t had shrimp that good since we moved from Texas! I have been craving them for months, and can’t wait to go and visit James again for some awesome Cajun cooking! The show maintains a list of these restaurants all over the country, so I definitely encourage you to check them out. I can assure you, you will be pleasantly surprised!

Assalam Aleikum

Tomorrow will be my 6 month anniversary working at the Language Acquisition Resource Center at San Diego State University. It is amazing how quickly time has flown by, and how much I have learned in such a short period of time. To be honest, I didn’t know much about Arabic and Persian cultures before I began working at the center, nor did I know that much about foreign languages. Of course I took my high school language requirements, and worked towards a master’s degree in teaching English to speakers of other languages, but the actual languages themselves, I knew very little about. I am the only monolingual in my office, but am making it a goal of mine to work on my Spanish over the next few months. My brain has been resting after 18+ years of school, but I really need to get back into the classroom soon! So what exactly do I do? After six months, it is still difficult to put into words what I do, since I do a little bit of a lot of things. You can check out our website at larc.sdsu.edu I work mainly with the critical language program, helping coordinate classes in Pashto, Persian, Arabic, Iraqi, Russian, Turkish, and Chinese. I have spent my last few months working with Pashto and Iraqi, but as the summer approached, I began working with the ROTC language program, where the main focus is summer intensive language institutes. Thankfully, the institutes began last week, so I have been able to take a deep breath and relax for the first time in a few weeks. One of the perks of my job is I am able to experience many unique cultural events, especially food. Last Thursday, I attended a classical Persian concert, which introduced me to very unique percussion instruments. And on Friday I enjoyed a meal from Afghanistan, in a traditional setting. I spend most of time doing paperwork, running around campus for signatures, and making sure Marine’s are using their parking permits correctly, but I also get to enjoy the finer cultural events that make the endless paperwork worthwhile!

Oldies but Goodies!

James wrote this a few months ago, and I just realized we never put it on the blog. So, enjoy a few observations made by James when our friend James was visiting...in early February!

A few weeks ago we were enjoying a rare rainy day in Balboa Park with our friend Tall James who had come to visit when he kept commenting on the cherry blossoms blooming in early February and how odd that was (he lives in Washington DC). Upon closer inspection, the flowers were in fact dogwoods, the VA state tree and flower. They usually bloom out east sometime in late March/April timeframe, basically around Easter most years. This brings up an interesting point. San Diego, with slight temperature variations, does in fact have seasons. These are not the typical four seasons we learn of through pictures in grade school, but subtle differences that you have to pay attention to.

With most days being sunny, 60-80 degrees, you quickly stop paying attention to the weather. Angela had a conversation with a student who is from a few hours south of here in Baja California, where they get more typical seasons. He has observed that the seasons here are more names, like the dry season with Santa Anna winds, or the rainy season. I would not characterize these periods as "summer" or "winter", as the Santa Anna’s seem to mostly be in the fall. Recently we have had a few weeks of scattered rain showers. Nothing really special for those from other areas of the country, but people around here were quite excited. Particularly on the roads, where I don't believe people know how to turn their wind shield wipers on. I actually saw snow, on a recent clear day at work. I could see snow covered peaks in the east, as the coast gets rain, and at 4000+ feet, they get plenty of snow. Hopefully the area will get more needed rain as we are still in a 3 year drought, but I thought the subtle seasons are worthy of note when we live in an area famous for its pristine weather... though we realize that we miss regular seasons. I am having a hard time realizing how time is passing, as Valentine's Day is generally much cooler for us...

James is on a boat!

As most of you know, James is living in Mississippi on the ship. Most of you do not have his address, and I know he would love to get a little bit of mail, so I wanted to share it with everyone. Please send him mail so he feels loved! :)

ENS James C Gouger
USS MAKIN ISLAND (LHD 8)
OPS/OZ
FPO AP 96672-1601

Come and visit me in San Diego! Our apartment is always open, and I'd love to have guests! You never know how long we'll be here!

Heads, Carolina Tails, California

"Heads, Carolina Tails, California.
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer.
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean.
Where? It don't matter, as long as we're goin'
Somewhere together. I've got a quarter.
Heads, Carolina Tails, California."

Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday that James and I were moving to California, and now we find ourselves, nine months later, living in different parts of the country, counting down the days until we will be together. We haven’t updated in a long time, which I’m sure you are aware of, so this is going to be a quick overview of our last two months. I think it’s enough to fill up a short post! As many of you already know, James’ ship is in Mississippi, and while he is technically stationed here, he isn’t actually here. He’s been gone for almost two months, and it feels like forever. I’m not very good at this whole Navy wife thing, though I do enjoy the many dresses I am required to buy! Still, by far, my favorite thing about the military. I have spent my last few months doing research and writing for my thesis project, which I can happily announce that I completed, received an incredible grade, and will be graduating with a 4.0 this weekend. It hasn’t quite hit me yet, except I actually have time to breathe and sleep, but I am excited to be done. I was very pleased with my project, and am now pursuing opportunities to use it in the real world, whether that be presenting it or writing an article. I am still working at San Diego State University, and have been very busy there. We are a national language center, and we host so many courses and programs and activities that I can’t even keep them all straight. So that takes up a ton of my time right now, as I work long hours, especially since we are gearing up for our summer immersion language programs. James is even busier than I am, working around the clock every day. When he first moved down there, he had an apartment (that was bigger than our real apartment!), but he now lives on the ship, so he lives and works in the same place. At least he gets to say “I’m on a Boat!” If you don’t get that reference, you are probably behind on your pop culture, but we love you nonetheless! I’ve spent the last few weeks traveling quite a bit, as I visited James , went to the memorials at Virginia Tech, spent a wine weekend in NC, and will be going home to the 757 for graduation. James and I are actually meeting in Charlotte and flying in together, which is very exciting. And…my brother got engaged last week and I am soooo excited to see my sister-in-law-to-be for the first time since she’s had her rock! Unfortunately, my brother will be in Spain for my graduation, so he won’t be able to make it. It should be a very exciting weekend, and hopefully when I come back, I will have some time to do some blog updates.

Spring in Southern Cali

Sending our love from California! Life updates to come soon...we promise!

Hoooray Beer! And Wine.

When we used to visit Tall James in Northern Virginia while in college, we used to call him our tour guide, due to his detailed knowledge of all the monuments in DC. He did his research on San Diego before visiting, reading in a magazine about a world renown brewery in north San Diego County. We visited Stone Brewery and received the best brewery tour we could have asked for. Angela learned the basic brewing process in an interactive 45 minute tour and then we were able to do a free tasting. The FREE part was amazing as everything out here costs money… The brewery was a fairly new facility and had an odd theme of gargoyles, but the beer was of high quality. They focused on darker, high gravity beers including a decent IPA and Russian Stout. Since we were in the area of the San Pasqual Valley that had several wineries, we took James to our favorite local one. Orfila winery was started by an ex-US ambassador, and creates quality wines from grapes grown locally and up north near Monterrey. Angela and I loved their Syrah buying two bottles, and James liked the whites, but decided he couldn’t fly easily with them. We hope to get up to Napa and Sonoma Valleys before we leave California, but had a great afternoon with libations with a good friend.

Winter Blues?!

Written during the East Coast snow storm...) While the rest of the country had a lovely snow day full of sleet, power outages, and slippery fender-benders, we spent the day at work. While at work, we had no need for extra layers, ice scrapers, or salted sidewalks. Though the simple beauty of freshly fallen snow escaped our gaze, we experienced a spring like day that is often the norm here. Mid 70s temps, gently cooling ocean breezes bring in plenty of sunshine. While we struggle at times with our actual jobs, days like today make the Mediterranean climate fantastic. If we could afford a view of the ocean we would catch the sunset every day with a glass of wine! We will only be here for one more year, so we are trying to experience the outdoor lifestyle in a place centered around a ceiling-less atmosphere. We love that we can go to the beach year round here!

Just flying in to say hello! Literally!

A few weeks ago, my parents were able to come out for two days to visit us. My dad had a conference to attend, and my mom came along for the ride. Even though it was so short, it was awesome to see family, and we actually did quite a bit in such a short amount of time. I didn’t really have time to take off of work yet, but I was able to leave a little bit early one of the days, and go in late on the second day, since I had to stay till 7:30 for a meeting. My mom took the trolley everywhere, which is nice, since she came to visit me for lunch on campus. I showed her the green parrots and all of the awesome plants and flowers that are everywhere. When my dad was done for the day, we went out on the town for dinner. You can’t come to San Diego without getting amazing Mexican food, so we spent our first dinner getting full on awesome chips and salsa, and then incredible home-cooked Mexican! My mouth is watering as I think about how awesome it was. It was an eye opening night for my parents, as we introduced them to the magical world that is IKEA, and we showed them the chair we were buying for our guests. (It turns into a single bed, and has an awesome mattress on it!) It still has yet to be tried…and we won’t be in San Diego forever! For those of you who haven’t been to an IKEA before, it is a massive showroom of household rooms, which always gives me great ideas for our future, one-day home that we will buy in the mountains of Virginia. The next morning, my mom and I woke up early and headed out to the place of my childhood, Pt. Loma. Pt. Loma is probably my favorite place in San Diego, as it has childhood memories, Top Gun shots, an amazing view of the city, the Cabrillo lighthouse, tide pools, Sunset Park, and Trader Joes. I mean, really…what more could you ask for? We visited the lighthouse first (which was my first visit since we moved here in July), and then headed down to old NTC (Naval Training Center), where Top Gun was filmed. It has since been turned into a shopping center and museums. I love that they left the architectural history and the naval tradition of the base, and have interwoven both of these unique aspects into everything about Liberty Center at Old NTC. It was a beautiful day and I was sad I had to spend the rest of it in an office that doesn’t even have any windows. But I enjoyed the sun and the view while it lasted. Though it was a short trip, it was a great one!

The new bling

My wedding band, while I thought it was great, has always been a bit oversized. I am by nature a jittery person and will constantly mess with small items. Angela thinks I am a tad bit OCD, and I have to agree now (since I lost my wedding ring). But I digress. I could always take my ring off with my left hand alone, meaning I became comfortable in subconsciously removing it. Angela would often chide me after seeing the ring fly across the room when I dropped it. In any case, I was waiting to pick Angela up from work the other day, and leaned across the car to the passenger seat to put away a magazine I was reading. I must have slipped the ring off subconsciously, because I heard it hit the ground. The problem was I couldn't easily find it. Angela arrived to see me almost under the car. She wasn't mad because my OCD was driving me crazy, but we cornered the ring as sliding below the parking break housing. After many attempts of using a wire hanger, we managed to push the ring further away. After some research into the removal of the drivers seat I realized the amount we would pay to have someone remove it and the matting was more than we are ok with right now. So... my car is now worth its weight in gold! I will get the ring out eventually... but in the meantime I got the ring replaced with a tungsten ring that is much tighter. I cannot pull it off with one hand, and because it is not gold, it will not scratch easily. But at least I can admit I am a klutz.

Reality Check

It has been two and half years since we graduated college, got married, and moved to Texas. After making many life altering decisions, we have landed in California with real jobs. While delaying the real world, we have grown up much in a short time. For the first time, we are at a point where we are making more than we are spending and can make long term financial decisions, not just speculate about what we wanted to do one day. Though having job security right now is a blessing, we find ourselves wiped out and exhausted from the ‘daily grind.’ College filled us with much hope and optimism for the future, with free flowing ideas and perky friends who wanted to literally change the world. A few years out, and reality bites. We are living the “American” lifestyle and certainly appreciative of all we have, but get tired of coming home and wondering, ‘why did I go to work today?’ Often I come home realizing that if I had not gone to work, then nothing would have changed. Everything that needed to be done would have been done. So we live for the weekend now, but need to sleep away half of Saturday just to recover from the week, and go to bed early Sunday to avoid a ‘case of the Mondays.’ I guess we are still searching for a career that fulfills us, or at least interests us. There are days we do something cool, but those are few. We know that we are setting ourselves up for a future where we can have more say in our professions. I am not saying we are unhappy, but merely disappointed a bit in life. We do, however, really enjoy living in San Diego and are having trouble doing everything we have put on our “fun list” as we will be moving in a little over a year!

Since we didn't send out all of our Christmas cards....

Christmas Greetings from California! We take this time to remember our blessings and our amazing friends and family, and as we reflect on our year, know that we love you and are thankful for you! Angela and I began another new year in Florida with Hokie football, and after a saddening loss, we rushed back to Blacksburg to move across the Commonwealth to VA Beach, where we would spend six months, as I completed my Naval training. Continuing our nomadic lifestyle, we moved in with the Burley’s, and added our sixth “address” to our list since getting married! During our short time in the 757, Angela worked as a GA at Regent University, where she is currently finishing up her Masters degree in Education. Before our trek to the Wild West, she took the opportunity to travel to the Dominican Republic with a non-profit, building a home and teaching English. She has been ready to go back since the moment she returned! After graduating from my Navy ‘school,’ I decided that it was time for me to play Navy and actually go to a ship, as I had been in the Navy for 8 months without floating on the water. I received orders to report to the USS Tarawa in San Diego, CA, a ship we would later find out was being decommissioned. At the end of June, we headed out West, literally driving from coast-to-coast. We were particularly excited about moving to San Diego, as Angela spent much of her childhood there, and we both agree that Anchorman is perhaps the greatest movie ever made. (If you haven’t seen it, stop reading immediately, and watch it!) We took advantage of our 3,000 mile drive and visited as many national parks as we could, including the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forrest, Montezuma’s Castle, and of course, all of the new Holiday Inn Expresses! We knew we had arrived in California when the gas was almost $5.00 a gallon and we had to smuggle plants through the inspection border. AJ was perhaps the most excited about arriving in San Diego, as he decided after four straight days of being in the car that he would show his anger intermittingly between crying and sighing. We were welcomed by the Wilson family, friends of Angela’s from middle school, and we stayed with them for a week while we found a place to live. Soon we were moving into an apartment across the street from Qualcomm Stadium (home of the Chargers), as we decided our love for football was a sufficient enough reason to pick a place to live. Before we had finished unpacking, I was deployed to Panama to take part in a 19 nation exercise. Though we were out to sea most of the month, I did have the opportunity to spend some time on land, touring the canopy of a rain forest and zip lining down a waterfall. The views were spectacular and it only reinforced my desire for us to move overseas. I finally really felt like I was in the Navy! While we are enjoying San Diego, the most important thing during any Fall is Hokie football, and we are definitely missing Blacksburg. We have found our little piece of Blacksburg in So Cal, at a bar in Pacific Beach where Hokie alumni come to watch games, and drink away the sadness that comes with not being in Blacksburg. In November we flew home to Virginia for a whirlwind week of family, friends, and of course a trip to Lane stadium. Who would have thought the Duke game would be a good one to get tickets to? While we were home, Angela was offered a great job at a Language Center at San Diego State University. She began December 1st, and is excited because she can ride the trolley to work. We are now decorating our three trees (including Angela’s PINK tree!) and getting ready to have our FIRST real Christmas together as a married couple. After two years of moving around the country, we are finally acting like adults with real jobs. (Though AJ is sad about being left home) We are thankful for our blessings and we pray this winter finds you well! We would also like to extend an open invitation to come and visit the beautiful city of San Diego! We would LOVE to have you! Love, James, Angela, & AJ

The birds of SDSU

These little green parrots hang out in the palm trees on campus. I took James on a campus tour, and he was able to get an awesome picture of one of these little feathered guys. They are just too cute! James and I want to get a bird, but I don't want to have to clean the cage by myself when he is gone. I love all of the plants on campus, and really enjoy eating my lunch outside to enjoy them. Palms, cacti, and exotic plants are scattered all over SDSU, beautifully set against the mission style architecture.

Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler...

As of December 1st, I have been working full time at San Diego State University. I actually work for the SDSU Research Foundation, and not the actual university, though they work closely together, and many people don’t even realize they are separate. I work for LARC, the Language Acquisition Resource Center, within a program called CLIP, the Critical Language Immersion Program. I have learned so much about languages in the last two months, including how to greet in Pashto, the language of Afghanistan. “assalam aleikum” “como walle salam” We teach many languages, including Arabic, Iraqi, Pashto, Filipino, Russian, French, and Persian. One thing I really enjoy about the job is learning about cultures. I am always trying new foods, and just yesterday enjoyed some Turkish candies. We run a language lab that is always full of students, and also host summer intensive language programs, trainings for teachers, conferences, and anything and everything in between, including publishing a magazine and textbooks. My first few weeks were pretty overwhelming as I was always learning about another program that we host. It’s very exciting! Our website is currently down, because someone hacked into our systems, but as soon is it is back up, I will post it so you can see all of the exciting things we are doing!

Feliz Navidad....Prospero Ano y Felicidad

Since we’ve been absolutely crazy over the last two months, I still wanted to catch everyone up on some of our holiday festivities. Especially because it involves me buying a new dress, my absolute favorite thing about the Navy! Our Christmas Ball was held at a beautiful waterfront Hyatt in San Diego, and it was actually fun because it was the entire ship, not just the officers who think we are too young. We avoided all of the tables that said Reserved for Officers, because we didn’t want to sit by ourselves, but ended up at one anyways. James took the sign down until we realized we got free drinks at those tables, so the sign went back up. :) It was great celebrating the year with coworkers who are so fun, and I was sad to see them all move away to their new ships. Hopefully James’ new division will be as enjoyable to work with.

Birthdays with Barbies and Balloons!

Since Angela’s late December birthday often gets lost in the rush for Christmas, we had a special dinner just for her! She also found a pink tree to put up, so that will forever more be her “birthday” tree as inspired by my younger sibling who nearly shares her birthday. Given that we also happen to have boxes of Barbie and Disney princess ornaments, the tree is quite precious. In any case, I made 15 bean soup (it has been “chilly” for Southern California) and invited a few people over. We haven’t been able to make many friends so far here, but know some great people! I was also super excited to find a one use helium tank, and proceeded to fill the house with balloons, which go everywhere in the vaulted ceilings. AJ was characteristically curious of the growing balloons, but was ultimately scared of the flying objects. Really, what would make a small object quadruple in size and float?? Must be hard to comprehend. But Congrats to Angela, our newest quarter century girl! and thanks for all the gifts!