Should I Stay or Should I Go?

A post by Ciara:

I very clearly remember my prayers from May of 2009. Every single one included:

“Should I stay or should I go?” 

Throughout my whole life, I have been the type who jumps into a situation with both feet; no questions asked; no fears in my way; with the excitement that, no matter what happens, experiencing Life is a guarantee.

But when it comes to moving across the country, the stakes are a little higher; the risk is a tad greater; and the ability to fear is a bit more present. 

Of course, if you move somewhere and hate it, you can always move away. That part is fine. But, as you get older, as you bring a husband, eventually a family, into the leap with you… things get a little more complicated.

What if you move somewhere, and you both hate it, but it's there that your husband builds one of the best friendships he has ever had? What if your best friend moves with you, and you both hate it, but you can’t move away at the same time… maybe not even to the same place!?

Let me clarify, I don’t hate California. 

California has been wonderful to us all! California is beautiful! California has given us the experience of swimming with the sharks, surfing the Pacific, dining on the Malibu shore, sitting on movie sets, perusing the Santa Monica Pier, crossing the Golden Gate, bonfiring on the beach, standing amongst the giant sequoias, and daydreaming, windows down, as we cruise along the Pacific Coast Highway. 

California started my marriage. California started Jenny’s motherhood. California is the dream!

I sit here now, reflecting back on all of these experiences, and I realize…Our dream has been fulfilled!

As 22 year old girls, we packed up everything and moved across the country with bright stars in our eyes and big dreams in our head of what a life in California would be like.  As 27 year old women, we can leave knowing.

Jenny and I have different dreams now. From bonfires to babies. From schools of sharks to schools for our kids. From giant trees to giant houses. From sitting on movie sets to sitting on movie sets… well some dreams will never change.

But the thing is, California is expensive. And with our new dreams, it seems we must find a new location; a new adventure.

Now, September of 2014, my prayer is the same, but this time for me and Jay:

“Should we stay or should we go?” Should we go now? Should we get to a place where we can save money? Should we go to a place where we can buy a house; where we can start a family? Should we go now that we finally have built a community in our church? Should we go now that we have found opportunities to serve our community in ways that enrich our souls? Should we go now… and leave Jenny behind? Should we go now, and leave the West Coast for good?

In May of 2009, despite the number of times I prayed, “Should I stay or should I go?”… I never got a “Stay” or “Go”. Instead, it was more of a:

“All in good time, my daughter, you will be exactly where I need you to be.”

The Last 5 Years

Last night, as I watched the sunset over Mission Bay, I held a baby. A “4 month in 5 days” old baby to be exact—an age Chaunzay can rattle off without the slightest pause for thought. (Who is Chaunzay? If you look back over our last blogs, you can find him mentioned on Feb 23, 2010 in this section….“Our friends feel as though they have been our friends forever, and it's only when we tell a story that no one else remembers except Ciara and I, do we realize we have only known them a few months.”)

This baby, I called Bugle for 9 months as the world awaited to know his name. This baby, I waited patiently(ish) to meet as his mommy bravely entered a C-section where they had to remove his head from her ribcage. This baby, the first born of my very best friend.

Kyran and I were out on Jenny’s porch in the evening, both quietly staring out over the water in the distance as we waited for Jen to get out of the shower. As I stood there, Kyran’s chest against mine, I had a flood of thoughts of the future….

…What will it feel like to hold a baby of my own? When will I hold a baby of my own? Is the family situation right for me yet? Can I balance career and kid? Will my next move be the right move? What does my future hold?...

When Jenny joined us out on the porch, I tried to put into words the tornado of thoughts freshly swirling in my head. Halfway into my 1^st sentence:

 “I just want to know what life has in store for me when….”

Jenny laughs. I stopped.

“What?”
“It’s just funny.” She responded. “We have had this exact same conversation so many different times in our lives.”

Yes we have.

That moment shifted from dreams of the future to a rush of memories of the past. We realized that exactly 5 years ago, we were on our epic road trip across the country to our new, uncertain, yet fully welcome home in California.

So now of course, Jen and I had to revisit our blogs from our fantastic 2009.

We spent a couple of hours laughing through each of the adventures we had; gasping at some of the forgotten details; giggling at the purposefully extracted stories; cracking up at some of the foolishly naïve thoughts our 22-year-old selves had. (i.e. “Ciara and I were then headed to a Russian party downtown at this place called The Church.” … A Russian party? Seriously? Were we joking or did we not know that Svedka and Stoli mean vodka, and just called it a Russian party, ‘cause those words sound Russian, right?)

As we reminisced, I was so delighted that Jenny had taken the time to write out all of our adventures. Shortly after our road trip, my computer crashed, and we lost most of our photos and videos. But being able to read out loud the accounts of the ridiculous times we had, warms my heart a little.

The thing is, while 2009 was a great year for Jenny and I (only half of which we actually blogged about), every memory that we have together is filled with just as many rich and hilarious details. Unfortunately, we don’t have them all down on paper, so we rely on our best compilation of details pieced together from what we each remember.

That works, but now, I want to use this “Adventure Called Life” blog to really record this adventure we are still on… this adventure called life. And oh what an adventure it is.

While out walking around Point Loma yesterday, we talked about how much has changed in the past 5 years:
~Jen says, if you had told 22-year-old, traveling across the country Jenny that in 5 years she would still be in San Diego, building a family with a man she would meet in just a few months, she would have never believed you.
~If you had told 22-year-old, traveling across the country Ciara that in 5 years from now she’d be living in LA, pursuing film, married to Jay, she’d probably be relieved, but she would have missed out on the adventure of getting there.

Life is an adventure. Jenny and I are each learning that more every day. Currently, we are learning this separately more often than together.

As we live 1.75-6 hours away from each other (depending on traffic); as Jenny lives out her dream of a big family while she begins to raise her 1^st baby... As I balance on the support of my husband while I chase my dream of filmmaking; as we both dream of that day we get to move back to our home coast, where we understand the people and the stormy humid weather so much better... As we live life... we still find ourselves in these moments where we get together after far too long of a separation, and can’t help but dream together, laugh together, live together.

Wherever life leads us next… whether close together or far apart… we will always have one another to remind us that:

• It is necessary to lose yourself in a laughing fit.
• You should go out of your way to meet every stranger you pass.
• You should keep a steady combination of our two phone numbers any chance you meet a creep, so you can repeat the fake number back to said creep with ease.
• You should do things that would make Sarah Kelly get frustrated over, and die laughing at, at the same time.
• You should live boldly; love passionately; be a shining example of Christ in all things; and never, ever stop having fun!

So now, after many attempts to remember our blogs password, some excellent sleuthing over 5 old email addresses, and SUCCESS!... here is to many more blog posts, both together and separately, that we can look back on over life, and smile at together!

It's already April?

So it's 1:16 am in the morning on Monday now I suppose. Sarah told me earlier today that I needed to blog more frequently, and so I suppose an update is needed. Ciara has moved to LA :( but it is to pursue her goals and I think that's awesome. Fortuately, LA is not that far. I have a new roommate. Her name is Brianna. She is pretty stinkin awesome though. We haven't spent a whole lot of time together, but we have gone out a few times. We are pretty similar and have a lot in common. We get along great and she wanted me to foster again and so I have been. "Our" dogs have been really great so far, and Bri has taken the liberty of renaming every one of them, giving them much better names than the originals. Left shoe was appropriately renamed Skitz (because of her skitzo personality) Patas was renamed Harper because it was cute. We've had Stella for a week now (formerly Starlight) and today we added (insert name here) formerly named Erin. Although these two don't really get along that well. The living room no longer looks like a bachelor's pad. The trampoline is gone and I painted. Things are going pretty well. I am still working at the zoo, but also working as a photographer for the San Diego Padres too. That's basically it in a nutshell. I'm sure there will be more later. Love you all.

February Update

Well... Here we are. Four and a half months into living in San Diego. It is awesome. We feel adjusted. We have lots of friends and the apartment looks like a bachelor pad. A furnished one, but at bachelor pad at best. I think it's the trampoline that gives that effect. Things are going pretty well. We basically know the city now, and there are times we don't know where things are, but we know enough that if people tell us verbally we can get around. Cali (our GPS) rarely sees the light of day anymore, but I think she is okay with that. It's getting slightly warmer and we've braved the beach a few times, although it's still quite cold. We've even managed to play tour guide a couple times for people that have visited. The Britts, Kyle and his parents, came by a few weeks ago and we all had a really nice few nights. We have both been biking around more and therefore seeing more as well. San Diego no longer feels like we're visiting in a stranger city, but more like we are at home. There is times when I am driving and suddenly I feel as if I am in Orlando or Clearwater, but it's not a nostalgic feeling, but perhaps just confused. The grocery store guys know Ciara and us, mostly by the massive amounts of Special K we buy and the fac that we are obsessed with the self- checkout lane. But it's nice.

Our friends feel as though they have been our friends forever, and it's only when we tell a story that no one else remembers except Ciara and I, do we realize we have only known them a few months. We have our regular spots now and often switch it up, but there are a few places we frequent enough that people start to remember us all. In OB, we end up at Newport Pizza and Ale a lot. Several of those employees know us. We have been several places in PB as well, but there is so many people that we are not really recognized. Downtown is not really our scene so much, just because the atmosphere is a little more "done up" but we do love going to this dueling piano bar there called Shout House. It's pretty cool, and the piano guys are hilarious.

Technically our lease ends in a month, but I don't know if we're going to stay in the apartment or move somewhere else. I would love to stay there. I like the location a lot, but more than that I love the price. We have a good size apartment for pretty cheap in comparison to other people. Things are progressing slowly, but wonderfully. We both still feel as if we are definitely supposed to be in California. We found a great bible study with wonderful girls and a few guys and they are all really great. I'm looking forward to getting to know them a lot better as well too.

Hopefully we will see you all soon. :)

Love, Jenny and Ciara

Fluffy McCuddlestein and a lot more going on...

Holy crap. It has really been a long time since we wrote on here. Life here is great. We feel pretty adjusted and love it here! It's raining today, the second time since we've been here.

There is some updated news... well, we have a dining room table now (it's not put together yet, but we have it) and when I went to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving, my aunt gave us a bunch of stuff, so our kitchen is looking a little more full too! I also got a job at the zoo, I'm still planning on staying with American Eagle, but dropping to like one or two days a week. Ciara got a speaking engagement job, where she goes around to schools and stuff, but is staying at the zoo too. I became a foster mom to a puppy named Fluffy McCuddlestein. (No, neither one of us named him, and yes, there is someone equally as weird as the two of us out there who did name him. His name is Jim.) Fluffy is cool, was super shy at first, but now follows me everywhere. It's full day number two and he's almost perfect at sitting on command. The potty training however, is lacking. He's a lab terrier mix, but he's super cute, and tiny!

We've made a few more friends and have been hanging out a lot with them, which is good, because the first two friends we had here are moving within the next few weeks.

We saw a gang fight Saturday night in OB, (Ocean Beach) well kinda, our friend Tom wouldn't let Ciara and I go outside to watch, (he was afraid the dude may have a gun. haha) This little gangster kid tried to fight the OB crowd, which was a really stupid idea because everyone in OB in chill and loves each other and is friends with each other. So this 5'5" little kid tries to fight this huge dude and the huge dude's OB friends backed him up and made the other kid leave, after they punched him out. wow....

The kids sent me a package the other day too. It was so sweet, had their drawings and Halloween candy in it for me. Keegan traced his letters and they drew cool pictures.

For Christmas I will probably be working, and Ciara will be in Colorado. She gets home the 29th or 30th and I leave then to go back to Florida.

Will try to update again soon. Videos will be coming now that we have jobs and will have more time to edit.

French Fries

We're still living it up. Ciara got a job at the San Diego Zoo taking pictures. She's pretty stoked about it too. I'm still looking for a second job and she's still looking for a car. We have a full stocked fridge now (thank you mom!) and we're basically used to the street noise now. We more or less have figured our way around the basic areas of the city and use Cali to navigate the rest. We have made several friends, and now a couple of female friends. THANK GOODNESS. But she lives in Los Angeles. So maybe we won't see her that often, but she's awesome. Last weekend we went snorkeling with sharks in La Jolla with some new friends we met, and then headed to PB (Pacific Beach) to hang with people for a bit too. This past week we visited a few coffee shops, went to a free comedy club night, hit up a bible study with our church and made a couple of friends there and then Friday night we headed to L.A. for the weekend. That was a blast as well. Ciara is headed back to Florida in a few days. I don't know what either one of us will do. We've spent every day basically together for the past two months, however, I think we will both enjoy the alone time too.

So... that's a basic update. I know you are all waiting on more videos. And trust me, they are coming. The editing takes forever and we've been giving priority to job searching and stuff. But, I have heard another video is almost done and ready to be put on here. Still not even Denver stuff yet, but I also promise there will be pictures soon too. Sometime. 

So far, muy bueno

We're broke. We're hungry. We're living a dream. This old apartment is home now. Even with the complete lack of furniture, it is awesome. Cathy and Greg (the folks we stayed with in Santa Ana) were super kind to us and donated a sleeper sofa to the cause of JennyCiara take on California. So basically our living room has that, zero lights at night, but the kitchen light shines through enough to deal. We have clothes hanging in our closets and stuff in the bathroom, very little in the kitchen, but so far enough to get by. We're both still looking for work, I transferred with American Eagle and am working at Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego. I still need a second job though to get by I think.

Anyway, our apartment is fabulous. We have a balcony that watches the sun set, a fireplace, we never need AC, a much larger kitchen than the one we had in Orlando. We share a bathroom, but so far it's been easy. We're learning the roads here really quickly and the vibe of the people is so chill and relaxed. Everyone is super friendly too. We walked to the beach last weekend for the OB (Ocean Beach) Oktoberfest, where we ended up in a pizza place/bar with a lot of beers on tap for several hours. We mostly people watched and befriended a bus boy named Tom. He seriously is one of our best friends out here now. More to come on that later. We sat in the pizza place forever and split a slice (because they only took cash and we only had $3) and then Tom came over to us and talked to us. We hung out for a bit with him on his breaks and stuff and when he got off we all walked (with the company of a girl named Katie and her two friends) to the park two bars down. Literally on the beach. Then we had a cartwheelpalooza! Tom helped us to learn how to walk on our hands. After awhile Katie and her friends left, leaving only me and Ciara and Tom together. Seriously though, we both felt like we've known him forever and he feels the same about us. We discussed Merle (the tranny with a handlebar crotch-- you'll see if you come visit us) and then we walked back to the bar. Tom took us home since we had walked there several hours earlier and promised we'd all hang out again soon.

The rest of the week living here has gone by quickly. We've been job searching and car searching (Ciara) and furniture searching (free on craigslist) We hung out with Tom Tuesday night again at his friend Ryan's house. It was a lot of fun and we fell in so easily with Tom it felt like we've known him as long as some of our other guy friends like Matt, or Aaron or Zac or Ben or Tim. Ciara and I crashed in the spare room that night because it was a while drive back to our house.

Tonight we went to a coffee shop in Normal Heights ( a neighborhood in San Diego) about 7 miles from our house. It was super chill and relaxed and an older guy named Mark told us all the cool things we have to do while we are here. We met a bunch of people there too who hang out there all the time supposedly. They seemed excited to meet us too and hopefully we will run into them again soon too. So living in San Diego is awesome. There is so much to do and see, and even though all we're basically eating is cereal, pb&j, and rolled up sliced turkey, we're living the good life.

***However, if you feel the need to donate to the Jenny and Ciara need to fill their fridge/pantry fund, let us know and we will gladly give you a place to donate. We will also take lightbulbs, lamps, free furniture, food, money, dishes, whatever... we seriously have nothing.***

So, we have plans with some friends we've met here tomorrow and Saturday and I think next weekend we are planning on heading back up to LA to hang out with my friend Joe from high school and his roommates for a bbq.

While we were staying in Santa Ana, we visited Joe, Joe, Ian and their other roommate in West Hollywood. We also went to Disneyland (FOR FREE BITCHES!!!) and the Santa Monica Pier (not all it's hyped up to be), saw the HOLLYWOOD sign,