My new home in Bakersfield...

It's a beautiful house...

These are my roommates: Anu is on the left with her dog Lexi (girl), and Erin is the right.  

The cutest dog ever!

My room....

The kitchen

The backyard

My beautiful and faithful car with NO air conditioning!  Thankfully the weather is starting to cool off here, in Bakersfield, at least a little.

My apartment

First of all, this post is honor of my dear friend, Amanda Hemperly who is a missionary in Thailand and lovingly persistent to keep on me to finally post on my blog:-)!!  

So this is my cute little room in my apartment!  I'm all about the antique look:-).  I painted the room pastel yellow, I love my room:-)!!  

My roommate, Chiho and I painted our bathroom, that we share, lime green on two walls and white on two walls.  The color of my room and the bathroom before we moved in was an ugly salmon color.  It was hideous!!!  The bathroom is 110% better than what it was before. 

Thankfully we didn't have to paint the kitchen or the living room because the house has really high ceilings which is nice because it gives the 3-bedroom condo a deceiving look of a huge house.  

I think the backyard is my favorite about the whole condo.  It's really cute and quaint. 

Well, my stay at this condo is short because I'm moving to Bakersfield at the end of August to go to school!  I'm moving into a brand new house with 2 other girls.  I will have my room again but the room is alot bigger than my room above.  I will post pictures of the new house once I move and hopefully be better about doing it in a timely manner:-).  

C.N.A. Registration

I GOT IN!!!!!!  ...and that is bigger news than you think.  I was number six in line and I was the last one to get in; and as you can see, the line was out the door.  There were probably 150 to 200 people in line and SIX people got in!!  The C.N.A. (Certified Nurse Assistant) class is an R.O.P. (Regional Occupational Program) class that lets high school students into the program FIRST and then IF there's room, they let those who are in line first, in.  I had no idea how small or big the class was and how few people they were letting in.   I went the night before to check and see if people were starting to line up at 10:30p.m., and no one was there and then I went at midnight and one person was there; so I wasn't too worried, but decided to go earlier then planned.  I planned to be there by 6:00 a.m., but instead I was there at 5:15 a.m. and boy am I glad:-)!!!  Thank you to all of you who prayed for me that I would get.  I definitely feel like God is watching over me and opening doors in this field.

Happy Father's Day! (for Sunday)

Happy Father's Day dad!!  I love you and I had a great day with you on Sunday:-).

T.M.J. Update!

So this is the most recent picture I have of me.  I went to a wedding last night, but I'm not going to post about the wedding, I'm giving you guys a T.M.J. update.  First of all, T.M.J. stands for Temporal Mandibular Joints which are basically your jaw joints right in front of your ears.  

In January I started the 2nd part of the treatment which is reconstruction of my jaw through braces and retainers.  I currently have a wire on my top teeth that is slowly expanding my mouth.  And I'm wearing a retainer on the lower teeth until I get a wire there as well.  Eventually I will have braces on all my teeth but right now I only have two on my upper teeth to hold the wire in place.  The dentist is moving slow because it is very painful and hard to eat with teeth constantly moving, because of the wire expanding my mouth, which makes my teeth very soar and tender.  But it has gotten easier and I've slowly been feeling better.  

With the expansion of my mouth though, I've still been having headaches off and on.  So I started to experiment with the foods I eat.  I knew caffeine was adding to my headaches, so I haven't been drinking coffee for several months now, but after reading a book about healthy foods and harmful foods, I realized that chocolate can have just as much caffeine as a cup of coffee can.  I knew chocolate had caffeine, I just didn't realize how much.  So I went off chocolate, and immediately my body reacted- for the good!  The last of my headaches went away within a day!  I honestly couldn't believe how much my body reacted to going off chocolate.  I told my doctor's and they had said that I probably have an allergy to chocolate by the way my body was so happy to be without it:-).  So it's been about 4 weeks now that I've been off chocolate AND all caffeine products and I've been feeling great!  There's still some pain from the jaw joints that I've consistently have had throughout the last year, which will go away as the dentist corrects my jaw; but as for my headaches, I finally figured out the last thing that was contributing to my headaches and it's been great to be without them now!  

So there's my update.  Hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend!

Happy Mother's Day!

Today we had breakfast on the beach at the Salt Creek Beach Park by the Ritz Carlton!  It was mom, dad, Simon, me and Hanna (my cousin in the 2nd picture).  We had a nice relaxing day.

We also stopped at the Montage Spa & Resort Hotel to check out the view:-)- beautiful!

 

    

These are pictures from my cousin's wedding (Natasha- the Bride) in Texas.  The second to last picture is a picture of all my cousin's (besides the 2 who are spouses) from my mom's side, and of course the last picture is me with my brothers. 

What have I been up to...

...I went sailing in San Diego last month. It is so peaceful and relaxing. Obviously I wasn't steering this sail boat alone, my dad, mom and 2nd cousin, Hanna, were with me.


No we didn't sail on the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' ship, but it would have been cool:-).

What's new...

So I've finally started my job at Wachovia Bank:-). The job is overwhelming since everything is so new and I have lots to learn. Please pray that I will learn quickly but more importantly that I will manage stress well. I have actually not been feeling too well lately, it might be due to stress or it might be something else. God is definitely taking me on a journey that is teaching me to take only one day at a time and trust that He really does know best. Thank you for praying for me when you think of it.

So here's a question for those of you who read my blog: what have you done lately that was fun? I haven't done anything like my cousin Brandon lately, who went to Iceland, but maybe sometime soon I'll be going to Hawaii to visit a friend:-). So post a comment about your fun activity.

San Diego Training

So I'm am now working for Wachovia Bank. In 4 weeks I'll be a bank teller! Yea, four weeks of training!



The bright side to that 4 weeks of training is that it's in San Diego. Not only is Wachovia paying me for working, but they are also paying for my hotel, gas AND all my food while I'm here in San Diego. It's really quite a life, but a lonely life as I'm pretty much eating on my own and being away from friends and family. So if you think of me these next 4 weeks, please pray that the time will go by fast and that this alone time will be beneficial to my walk with God.

So what's new with me...

I got new glasses!!! They are red frames and I love them:-)!! I also have a new car now too! It's a Toyota Corolla Wagon, 92' and it's in great shape:-). What I don't have yet, is a job! It's been hard to get someone to hire me when I'm not available to work on Mondays as I'm going to L.A. for my T.M.J. appointments. So please be praying that God will provide soon. I have 2 interviews this coming week, one with a bank and the other one is through a temp agency. As for my T.M.J., it's been getting better. I'm so glad that I'm finally able to see someone who can fix the problem. Thank you to all of you who continue to pray for me through this jaw problem, I appreciate your prayers tremendously:-).

Summer

I'm back home again in southern California! I've missed the palm trees and the ocean. I've been enjoying the luxury of having the beach so close to my house.

A beautiful Magnolia flower!

This is my friend Nicole who's my beach buddy often.

As for me, I have actually been feeling really good. It's been about 3 weeks since I started the 4-month treatment with the T.M.J. specialist and this 3rd week has been the best so far!!! I'm so glad that I'm able to be home for awhile to get this pain to be permanently gone. As of now, I'm looking for a job and a car for the year before I head out to Papua New Guinea. Thanks to all of you who have prayed for me and continue to pray for me.