Adventures With Britt!

Britt is here and we are having an absolute blast! Mark and I are trying to show her as much as we can in the week that she is here so we've been super busy. On Monday we went to Santa Monica to see the famous Pier and Third Street Promenade. Tuesday we hung out by the pool and then went to see a live taping at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank. We saw the taping of the 2nd episode of the new season of The New Adventures of Old Christine, which stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus (aka Elaine from Seinfeld). The tickets are free, and you just have to line up about an hour beforehand to get into the show. As the live audience you get to see the entire episode taped, in the different sets. It was SO neat to see the actors live and up close like that, and to watch how a tv show is made. The thing that I found so fascinating was that they are actually testing the episode out on the live audience. If lines are delivered and the audience doesn't laugh, they literally rewrite the scene to make it funnier! So they'll break for like 5 minutes, the writers will gather together, they'll show the actors the new lines, and then they'll record the scene again! If there are bigger laughs, they stick with the new lines. It happened in a few of the scenes we saw - first go they weren't very funny, and then after the re-write they were hilarious. If you have not seen this show before (which none of us had!), it is actually really good and Julia Louis-Dreyfus won an Emmy for her role in it! Anyone who is looking to visit us out here, this is an experience we would totally recommend and love to do again. You even get free pizza and water as you watch!! Some of the other shows you can watch live are:

- Hank

- Two and a Half Men

- Ellen

- Dr. Phil

- Conan O'Brien

www.tvtickets.com shows more of a list too!

Here are some pics of our adventures in Santa Monica and at the WB. Of course we had to introduce Britt to In 'n' Out burger and Cold Stone Creamery so here she is having her first taste!

Stevenson Ranch cont'd

More pics - here's our bathroom, balcony, view from balcony, and pool.

My little sister Britt is here visiting for the week which is absolutely amazing - she has been away at Vancouver Film School so I haven't seen her much since she left in April. We are having a blast showing her the sights and she is helping to stave off my homesickness!

Stevenson Ranch!

Welcome to our new home! We are starting to get settled in and here are some of the first pics of our new apartment. Keep in mind we do not have ANY furniture yet so it will look much different once it is actually set up! The pics are:

-outside our building

- kitchen

- living room (aka Britt's room for the week)

- bedroom (note the air mattresses - we can't WAIT for our bed to come on Friday!)

More Vegas

Back in Business - Day Six!

Hey All - sorry for the lack of blogosphere updating the past couple of days but our internet connection is patchy and we have been running around like crazy and attempting to unpack. But we know we are leaving peeps with a severe lack of photos and info so here you go!

Our last day of driving was HOT. Driving through Nevada was crazy - hours without anything around, and the sun just beating down. We were worried about the car overheating in the desert sun so we didn't have the AC on...and by mid morning it was 45 degrees celsius. Let's just say we are SO thankful for air conditioning in our new apartment!

We drove down the Las Vegas strip on our way through - even at 7:30 am there were quite alot of people out and about. It was neat to see and we'd definitely like to go back to see it all lit up at night. Another cool thing about day six was seeing the Grand Canyon off the highway. Here are some pics from that day!

You Have Arrived...

Man it was crazy to hear our lovely GPS friend Maggie tell us that this afternoon around 2pm PST!

We are safe and sound in our awesome new apartment.  Thanks to our wonderful brother Matt we have all of our stuff inside and now we just need to unpack.

More to come, but we wanted to let everyone know we made it and to thank you for your prayers! Praise God we travelled 4150 kilometres with no issues whatsoever!!

And now the real adventure begins... 

Day Five

Hello from HOT St. George, Utah! Currently it is 43 degrees Celsius outside which made for a very warm last couple of hours in our drive today! We left early this morning (6:30am) to try to beat some of the heat. The morning was nice and cool but got very warm very quickly this afternoon - you can definitely tell that the desert is not far away!

Unfortunately I (Tara) got a migraine this morning at 8am so I was not the happiest of passengers today. It was really too bad given that the Utah scenery is unlike anything I have ever seen before, so I wish I would have been able to enjoy it more. There is not much around in terms of civilization, but the views are spectacular. We went a full 150 miles through the mountains without a single building in sight!

The highlight of our day was probably stopping at Dairy Queen for lunch and discovering that not only has butterscotch dip NOT been discontinued here, there is also an option for CHERRY dip cones too!! Mark had that kind and it was awesome!

There was also a pretty intense controlled fire that we passed today, purposely set to decrease the risk of wildfires.

We were so happy to finally arrive at our hotel this afternoon and to go for a swim in the indoor/outdoor pool to cool off. Now we're going to have dinner at Cracker Barrel (I've been waiting for a Cracker Barrel dinner all trip long!) and we'll be up bright and early tomorrow morning again. The high tomorrow in Nevada is supposed to be around 40 degrees so we're hoping to be in California by mid morning or early afternoon.

Mark and I were talking today about how fast this trip has gone by, and though we're happy to be almost to our new home, it is bittersweet. We definitely have some great memories and have been so blessed to see all we have seen!

We realized today we have been lacking in the playlist department so here's an update!

Tuesday and Wednesday:

Phil Wickham - Singalong

Thrice - Beggars

Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends

Dave Matthews Band - Listener Supported

Rascal Flatts - Feels Like Today

Keith Urban - Golden Road

Paramore - The Final Riot

John Mayer - Where the Light Is

And today...

Derek Webb

Jon Foreman

U2 - Best of 1980-1990

Chapel Band 2010!

*There has been a lack of music the past few days as we have been mesmerized by the scenery around us and that has been entertainment enough!

Day 4 More Pics

We had to make a new post just to fit more pics - here you can see the transition in scenery we saw today - it was incredible!!

Day Four.

Hello all!

We write to you from Grand Junction, Colorado. Home of.....not much! We were fortunate to stay in a hotel last night that had continental breakfast, so we were up and out of the hotel with food in our stomachs by 8:30am. We drove from then until 12pm, where we stopped in Idaho Springs at a small diner called Marions of the Rockies. The food was great, and stop was necessary for the Matrix. For me, this was the most stressful and rewarding drive of our trip so far, as we were attempting to pull 1500lbs behind our 4 cyclinder vehicle up and down the Rockies! We were hardly able to go 50mph without pushing the car to 4000 RPM's. But, we made it here, safe and sound without any car trouble! Praise the Lord for definitely looking after us! Tara played an absolutely crucial role in our trip today, the Photography Co-ordinator, ensuring we captured beautiful images of the Rockies, The Grand Mesa, different Canyons, Tunnels, as well as the Colorado River. We've attached some of her extraordinary pictures for your enjoyment!

Tonight will be a relaxing night as we: swim, eat at a local diner, visit the fitness centre (for me to look around, for her to work out), and head to bed! Tomorrow we plan on driving to St. George, Utah for our LAST night before we arrive at our new home!

Pray for our journey, as we have some hot, long days ahead of us!

Blessings,

Mark.

Day Three

Wow - we can't believe that we are 3 days into our trip already! Time is flying for us which is both a good and bad thing. We are making excellent time, but haven't taken the opportunity to see any sights or enjoy local attractions, so we've decided to spend some time doing so tomorrow.

Today we made it all the way across Nebraska - see pics for our views all day long! Let's just say we were desperate to get out of Nebraska.

We have left the I-80 West and are now in Colorado in a small town called Sterling. We had no idea that the first couple hundred miles of Colorado are like the Old West - just lots of farmland, horses and tiny towns. In Sterling it feels like we have travelled back in time to the 1950s. We ate dinner at a diner we read about in our AAA travel book - the food was delicious - a welcome home-cooked feel after greasy drive-thrus for the past couple of days. We are going to spend the night here and then head to Grand Junction, CO tomorrow. The scenery looks incredible and it will give us the chance for a shorter drive day and the opportunity to take advantage of where we are. Check out http://www.visitgrandjunction.com/ to see where we will be tomorrow.

We encountered a time change today which gave us another hour, so we are now in Mountain Time, and 2 hrs behind Ontario. We were shocked at the number of Ontario license plates we saw today in CO, and we even passed a truck from Pickering! Amazing the things that amuse you when you spend a full day in Nebraska :).

We are looking forward to the mountains and canyons that are now ahead of us!! Good night :)

Day Two

Another adventurous day on the road! Today got off to a somewhat shaky start...apparently the phone in our hotel room was not working so the wakeup call we had asked for at 8am did not come...which we realized when we woke up at 9:45! Then when we turned on the car this morning, our engine light was on. Yesterday was a long, hot day and it was probably pretty tough on our little Matrix, so we hoped that it was just a matter of overheating perhaps? We bought some coolant and topped up our reservoir, said a prayer and started heading out of Illinois.

Three hours later we crossed into Iowa where we stopped for lunch at the Golden Corral Buffet...mmmm. From 2:45 until 9:00 tonight we drove straight through stopping only for gas and bathroom breaks. At 5pm when we turned the car back on after filling up on gas, the engine light was OFF and it has stayed off for the rest of the evening. Thank you Lord!!

We are now in Omaha, Nebraska and hope to have a shorter day tomorrow. Today we drove 9 hrs and over 750 kilometres. Here are some pics of Iowa - lots of rolling green farmland and more corn than you can imagine. And that's pretty much it, all day long. Rumour has it there is even less to see in Nebraska , so our apologies in advance for less than captivating photos!

We will either be in Nebraska again tomorrow, or Colorado. Until then!!

Today's Playlist:

Harvest Oakville -Worthy

Keith and Krystin Getty - In Christ Alone

Coldplay - Parachutes

John Mayer Trio

Metric - Fantasies

Further Seems Forever - The Moon is Down

Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American

Fallout Boy - Folie A Deux