It's Friday....the 13th!

It's Friday the 13th! And a rainy one at that. Yuck! It was absolutely pouring on my drive to work. They say that LA drivers don't know how to drive in the rain and it's true! It really is! haha.

It's a sad day...Mom texted me this AM that Grandma Donna passed away. :(  I'm sad that she's gone, but at the same time I'm somewhat glad because I know she was suffering and was ready to go. Thinking of you today, Grandma Donna. Also, I'm thinking of Aunt Mary and Uncle Chris. They had been taking care of her the past few months and I know that it has to be especially difficult for them. I can't imagine how hard it is to lose a parent. :( I hope that I don't have to experience that feeling for a very, very long time.

Jennica w/ Grandma Donna @ Christoph's 30th Bday party last year...

Grandma Donna, You will be missed! :(

It's been a strange week in general. In my last entry I posted pictures of our apartment and packing. I guess I'll go ahead and finish posting pictures about the move.

4/8: This was our apartment on Sunday...

Still lots of packing to do...It was my 29th birthday, but it didn't really feel very special. My fam has always made a big deal out of birthday, so that's what I'm used to so this birthday was pretty depressing. I mean, who wants to pack all day on their birthday? Ah well, You gotta do what you gotta do I suppose. I guess this was my first adult-like bday? And crazy Diego, he didn't really acknowledge my birthday at all. We had said that we would move our bday trip to SD to next weekend, so in his mind that cancelled out my birthday all together I guess. He didn't do anything for breakfast, he didn't give me a card, or anything. :( We were both under a lot of stress w/ all the packing, etc. but it would have been nice to have had SOMETHING.

But D's family was having bday cake for me and Rachel so we took a break and went over there. I didn't really want to go, I was in a horrible mood and didn't want to see anyone. Plus, I was totally stressed about packing and didn't want to stop packign to drive all the way over there.

Picked up some pretty yellow tulips for Rachel...

Our birthday cakes...

D's mom made sopes. They were pretty tasty! Not exactly what I envisioned for a birthday lunch, but they were good.

I was glad that they were celebrating Rachel's bday too...

I do NOT like to be the center of attention...especially with such a large group of people.

But here I am.

I was feeling really uncomfortable at this point because they had sang happy birthday three different times. They were having trouble lighting the candles, so they sang to us each once without a candle. Then they got the candles to light so sang to us again. They wanted to sing to us again individually, but I said NO! Enough is enough! haha :P

I don't think I remembered to make a wish...

Everyone crammed into the kitchen, waiting for cake.

How many mexicans does it take to light a candle? ;) haha that's the joke they were making...

This is what greeted us when we got back to the apartment. Thankfully, Alicia and larry stopped by for an hour or two and helped us with some things.

We had packed our mattress, so slept on the air mattress Sunday night.

Hillbilly set up.

Tired! Getting ready for bed. It was a long, sucky day. Since we didn't get everything finished, I had to cancel class for Monday to finish things up.

Us. Looking very exhausted.

4/9: Monday morning. Packing up the last of our things.

Getting ready to pack up our bed.

D was hanging out the window talking to one of the tenants.

We spent hours cleaning up the apartment and we left it in great condition. D was pretty happy to be out of there.

The empty apartment. Waiting for Martha so that we could go through the walk-thru.

Almost rid of Bayside...D was extremely happy. I was kind of sad. I'll miss San Pedro.

All of our things packed into the Uhaul.

We have a lot of junk!

Last time we'll be parked in our space.

Closing up the Uhaul. It was such a strange day. It just felt weird.

Last glimpse of the back parking lot.

I love this old tree in the front.

Turning in our keys.

We drove everything over to Berenice's house. Jacob and Berenice were both gone, but they were supposed to leave out some keys. Unfortunately, they forgot so we couldn't get inside.

D and Joe trying to pick the lock.

Looking for an open window, but they had them all locked up tight. So we ended up going over to D's fam's house to hang out until Berenice got home. We drove back over to San Pedro to pick up D's truck and then came back to start unpacking.

Sorting through the uhaul trying to find the things to unload at Berenice's house. Half of our things were staying at berenice's and half of them were going to our storage unit in Torrance.

Berenice and Jacob's house. They have an empty room in the back that they're letting us stay in for awhile.

The room is actually pretty large! We were able to fit quite a bit of our furniture in here.

Unloading all our things...

This is how we have the room set up.

It's not too bad. Kind of cozy.

But we need to finish organizing all of our things.

That's my bridesmaid dress hanging on the wall. 

So that's that. We got all of our things moved into Berenice's house on Monday. We've been slowly adjusting. It's very different. I'm not a fan of living in the city. San Pedro was my escape away from the city. But here I am in the middle of LA. Not really my cup of tea at all, but I guess it's an interesting learning experience. I'm definitely learning my way around LA a lot better. And I'm seeing a different way of life. Honestly though, I look forward to moving to a different part--away from the confinement of the city. Somewhere where I feel safe and have some peace and quiet. I'm very thankful that berenice and jacob are letting us crash with them for awhile. We'll see what happens in the next month. I have no clue where we'll end up.

Well, my last student just left. Time to do some grading. I have more pictures and things to write, but I think this entry is long enough. Happy Friday, everyone! :)