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!

Baking a Bundt Orange Bowl

I finally baked my first cake. I married into a family of talented cake bakers, and have been spoiled by their prowess with the oven. Last summer, Angela came across a bundt cake pan in the shape of a football stadium, which we felt would be great for hosting during important Hokie games on ESPNHD. I had a terrible shopping experience and did not purchase a bundt cake mix... so we improvised. We have wonderful kitchen gadgets from our wedding I still have not used, so mixing the batter was fun, my biggest problem was in filling the pan too high with it. Since we were trying to create a specific shape I pressed in as much batter as I could, and threw it in the oven to bake. We had green icing for the actual field and Reese’s pieces for the Orange and Maroon fanbase, while using food dye to create a gray paste. As preparations to decorate were going on, I glanced into the oven to see the batter dripping over the side of the pan. This presented a rapidly gooey oven that was emitting small amounts of smoke. Thinking ever so quickly I placed a cookie sheet under the pan to catch the excess batter, but the top of the cake was going to get burnt. I (correctly) figured that the bottom of the cake could be cut off and still maintain its desired stadium shape. After baking twice as long as the directions said to bake all the extra batter, Angela managed to coax the cake out of the pan. Gray icing fixed any structural discrepancies creating an eye-popping cake. We will not eat it, so I do not recommend myself as a baker, but it was a good New Years cake.

DECOM dinner

After over 30 years of service life, the USS Tarawa (the second one!) has been deemed too old for use in the modern Navy. While it could be used for many years to come, it must not be cost effective. Part of being in the military means honoring traditions and customs, including official dinners. Former shipmates and original crewmembers were invited to San Diego for a final dinner, honoring the gray hulk that had brought us all together. Angela and I were fortunate enough to sit at a table of former crewmembers, who had remained friends after several decades. The most interesting people we met was an older couple, current local residents, who had served as an original crew member on the first Tarawa, an aircraft carrier of World War 2 construction. He had great stories about his entire life, including his wife (whom he kept showing ‘scandalous’ pictures of). She just laughed. The “mandatory fun” was actually quite interesting as we met great veterans.

Holla at the Hokies!

When we can’t go to our Bowl Game, we bring the bowl game to us, by making a Hokie stone stadium cake full of screaming Hokie fans! That’s right...we made an awesome Lane Stadium Cake! Here’s to our Hokies....ACC and Orange Bowl Champions!

Thanksgiving West Side

For actual Turkey Day, we slept in and accepted an invite from the Wilson’s for an afternoon meal. We had a bountiful feast and good company, including many canines. Whilst AJ was at home all alone, there were four other dogs to beg for turkey, though they were placed outside for the dinner! The Wilson’s have been raising two new puppies in addition to their elder Rusty, who has absolutely no patience for the energetic pair. Instead of walking off the meal, we laughed it off watching some good stand up comedy with a ventriloquist. We mainly spent the day in good conversation and in good company, enhancing all that we are thankful for.

ACC Champions… Again

For the third time in five years, the Hokies are ACC Champs yet again, though they should have won in 2005…. After losing 13 players to the NFL, this team probably shouldn’t be repeating champs in a tough league, but we’ll take it! Off to the Orange Bowl yet again, though we will not be going. I have heard that we are bad luck for the team at Bowl games, but the real reason is the price. Plane costs from San Diego to Miami are astronomically high, considering how CHEAP gas is, and buying tickets from the Tech athletic office is ridiculously overpriced for the nose-bleed seats you get. So we’ll play a team much like Kansas last year who have nothing to lose and a lot to prove. I hope we actually prepare to play this time!

Hokies for the Freezing

Since we graduated in 2006, Angela and I have tried to make it to at least one Hokie football game a year. This year we discovered that plane tickets home were significantly cheaper the week before Thanksgiving, so we made it to the Duke-VT home game in mid-November. During our time in college we attended many cold games, perhaps none colder than either the 2002 or 2003 Pitt games. But after living in San Diego for a few months, we have become acclimated to very little weather variation from sunny, mid-70s week in and week out. While believing we were prepared for the cold, we weren’t. We arrived in Blacksburg the day before the game, as the current students began a mass exodus home for a week off at Thanksgiving. Walking through campus to visit Angela’s old office produced tears and chapped lips… the temperature was not above 30 and the sun was still out. That evening was one of the coldest I can remember, with briefs stops outside between bars downtown freezing us to the core. We realized that with a night game upon us, we were going to be miserably cold. Sure, we had multiple layers, hats, extra socks, and new long johns… we thought we had mother nature beat. Despite the layers, Angela claimed to have lost feeling in her limbs by game time! This was officially the second coldest temperature recorded at kickoff in the Frank Beamer era. But the point was seeing friends and family! We had a great tailgate with the Gougers, enjoying peppermint schnapps and hot cocoa, along with great barbeque. Entertainment was provided by the local bird of prey, and although not a turkey, it caught a squirrel and proceeded to consume the rodent on a low branch for all the Hokie faithful to see. We decided that the Tech grounds crew keeps the hawk around to help deal with the rat issue (I have personally seen many scurrying rodents emerge from nearby Vawter Hall). We made it to the stadium in time to catch the Marching Virginians run by, reminding us of good times, but also how wonderful it was to actually tailgate for a game! Our seats were way up the East Stands, near the top! We saw the end of another beautiful Blacksburg sunset, and found seats next to my Uncle. From here we witnessed the energy of Enter Sandman and Fireworks! This warmed us up… but then we proceeded to watch the offense turn the ball over on 5 of their 7 first half possessions. So we went numb watching the defense play lights out, but we did witness the first touchdown by a wide receiver all season! This team is young, but at least give great effort. After an UGLY 14-3 win, we saw a few friends in the band and headed to Macado’s to thaw out. It has been awhile since we have been so cold or up so late at night, but seeing friends was great! Another legendary game in Lane Stadium, though the fireworks and temperature were more memorable than the actual gridiron action.

Merry Christmas from the California Gouger's

Missing the Seasons

While it has been chilly for San Diego temperatures (we’ve been hitting the 50s!), I have definitely been missing the snow. Christmas is just five days away, and its difficult getting into the season when you look out your window and the palm trees are still green and the pool is still open. It’s hard not being on the East Coast, where your hair freezes when you step outside, and the winter breeze chills to the bone. While I always complained about it, I now miss it terribly! I miss putting on amazingly cute winter coasts and scarves, and enjoying hot cocoa and fireplace fires. (Though we have had two fires this week!) Thankfully, we were able to enjoy a nice freezing day in Blacksburg, which made it feel as though winter actually exists and Christmas is actually on its way! I miss snow...like woah!

Family, Football, and Food! Oh my!

James and I haven’t been home for a thanksgiving in three years (four if you include this one)! We spent our senior year Thanksgiving in New Orleans, our first year married with my grandparents in Texas, and last year, we spent apart, with James in Rhode Island and me in New Orleans. While we didn’t make it home for the real thanksgiving, we were able to visit a week early, and the Goedeckes threw an early Thanksgiving celebration for us! We hurried back from a cold weekend in Blacksburg to an amazing evening of family, food, fun, and football. AJ spent most of his time begging, and was particularly interested in where Grandma was sitting! Colin and Benjamin played with footballs (our adorable little future football players) while the grown-up boys watched football, and eventually played some football outside. This was the first time we had seen Tony out of the trip, and Jamie and Benjamin and Mr. and Mrs. Howland joined our Thanksgiving festivities. An important thing I learned: the Gougers don’t really like turkey! (You can imagine how appalled I was knowing that my family doesn’t like the most incredible bird ever!) Despite not liking it, Abigail cooked an amazing turkey, which I was very thankful for! There were also come cute turkey cookies that Colin and Ant Ant made in preparation of the festivities. I spent most of the evening with my adorable cousin Sam, who thinks I’m amazing (hence why I spend time with him) and he was thoughtful enough to tell James that we weren’t going to last because I was into him. Too cute! It was a great evening, full of bribing my nephew with cookies, and stuffing ourselves with desserts. It’s hard not being home for holidays, but it was great getting to celebrate with the family at least once this year!

Eating the most noble of birds

While many find having an animal as a mascot is an appropriate way to instill pride and school spirits on students and alumni, few would agree that human consumption of said mascot is hardly an acceptable behavior. These doubters have never been to Blacksburg, VA, where we regularly consume massive, genetically enhanced Turkey legs every weekend of the fall at football games in addition to the classic Thanksgiving Day meal. Thanksgiving week is usually when the Virginia Tech – University of Virginia football game is played, and media pundits and Wahoos often wonder how a cultured sect of Thomas Jefferson disciplines can lose to near cannibalistic inbreds who eat their own on Thanksgiving. To these nay-sayers, I counter that there are few mascots as delicious as our dear Turkey. In the wild, the turkey is a noble and intelligent creature, only receiving a poor reputation from non-hunters and Benjamin Franklin haters. Ol’ Ben Franklin understood that the turkey would be a fantastic national symbol. Unfortunately, the other founding fathers fell lock step in with other nationalist countries, and used the often displayed eagle (The Roman Empire, Nazi Germany, Mexico… the list goes on, though on a technicality we are using the “North American Bald Eagle”). But we did have a great Thanksgiving, with many friends and family on both coasts. We live a truly blessed life, and are thankful for all the people in our lives!

MIA San Diego Hokies

I know what you all are thinking…where are Angela and James and what are they doing? We hope to never go this long again between updates, but wanted to let you know that much like all of you, these last three weeks for us have been crazy. We spent an awesome, but quick week in Virginia, James decommissioned the Tarawa and had everything that goes with that, and I have started a new job and am working on finals in my last semester of classes for my Masters. We do care about you and will update this week! :) We promise!

In the meaning time…we are sending you our love from San Diego!