Beware of broken glass.

Adequately following our post about all of the charms that Fresno has to offer, we bring you crappy and irritating news.

Our "Happy Valentines Day" began when Hannah discovered that her poor car had been broken in to. Following a fun filled night out with friends (which is now overshadowed by the tragedy of Silvia the silver sable's domestic abuse case), Hannah was getting ready to return home when she found the massacre of shattered glass. Odd as well because her car was parked in a really nice neighborhood! Now our thief/thieves aren't very smart for one, there were a lot nicer and newer cars parked on the street in the neighborhood, why Hannah's boring mom car was targeted is a mystery...also the only thing they took was the little green iPod Hannah got for Christmas 2 holidays ago. It wasn't even the latest and greatest model either (it was a generation 3, which we think came out in '07!). Our idiotic thief/thieves left the stereo and left the GPS as well. Dumb asses. You think if you are going to go through all the trouble of breaking in, you'll at least go for the big guns. So, we guess if they wanted a iPod that bad, so be it (it's probably only worth 50 bucks now anyways) Unfortunately, since Hannah was at her friend's place when the travesty was uncovered, we didn't get any good pictures before we cleaned the mess up enough to be able to drive home. Nick snapped a few photos when I got home, but it doesn't do it justice because we had already pulled out the remaining shards of glass hanging from the window frame. Everything could have been worse, so here's to keeping that glass half full!

It just kinda looks the the windows rolled down now!

In other life's going on news.....
Geo is one class away from graduating his intermediate training class! Keep your fingers crossed that he actually graduates (he's not exactly been an A student this time around!)

We have successfully installed baby latches on our cabinets since the damn cat has gotten very thrifty and started off our broken glass week by shoving the honey jars out of the cabinets and onto the floors. Yea for sticky shattered glass! Maybe Echo was trying to foreshadow our other broken glass incident...

For those of you who haven't heard, for shits and giggles, Hannah had signed up to take a belly dancing class! She's about half way though the course now and is having a lot of fun (but can't imagine why any women would want to stay in a room covered in mirrors for too long while attempting to wiggle your belly around)

Nick hates Calculus, but only has a few weeks left so keep your fingers crossed for him! He managed to switch his Wednesday night class to Tuesdays as well so he only has to go down to Bakersfield 3 days a week and only needs to spend the night once. Saves money for sure. We still don't get to see one another a lot (especially since Hannah picked up a lot of call this month not knowing how our previous car dilemma was going to play out) but it is what it is!

We are excited to announce that we found something here that reminds us of home! ta-dah! VERNORS! Woooooot!


Well, we hope your Valentine's Day panned out better for you than it did us! Take care and talk to you all soon!

Fresno - Something to be proud of!

Men's Health just rated Fresno "America's Drunkest City." Not too far behind is the number #10 drunkest city, Bakersfield, CA (where Nick goes to school at!)

That almost makes us as proud to live here as our current title of "Dumbest City in America" from theDailyBeast.com.

Fresno has 27 different gangs totaling over 8000 members (over half of those belonging to the Bulldog gang - which confusingly shares the same name and symbol as the local college mascot, so you never know if you're looking at a really enthusiastic alumni, or a gang member (probably the latter, you know for sure if they start barking.)) This data means that 1 out of every 100 people you meet might want to shoot you.

The local news has an "Arrest of the Day" segment. Really.

We've learned exactly where to go to hire a hitman - the exact street! (aren't you glad we didn't get you one of those for Christmas!)

According to FBI data, on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the worst), the violent crime rate in Fresno ranks 7, in our city of Clovis, CA it's a 5 In Grandville, MI it's a 3, in Hudsonville, MI, it's 1. Average for the US is 3.

Unemployment in Fresno is 16.8% Not too far ahead of everyone's favorite Michigan unemployment capital of Flint (at 16.6%). Grand Rapids has 11.3%

C'mon let's heed our new motto and "Be world Class, Fresno!"

HAHAHAHA.
*Are we thrilled to be living here? No. It's definitely not the California everyone likes to picture in their heads (although we do have a lot of skinny, bleach blonde babes to go around).
*Do we see ourselves here much longer? No.
*Do we regret moving out here? Not at all. It's been a great experience so far and it has definitely been eye opening as opposed to the charmed bubble life that West Michigan tends to lean towards. Plus, even if Fresno stinks, we're close to too many awesome things to be too mad about it (Hawaii anyone?) We're having fun and we know we'll look back on this chapter our our lives one day and we'll just laugh!

Happy February everyone! We miss you!

It never rains in California....

...except when we try to go somewhere. Santa Monica boasts about 340 days of sunshine a year! January 17 was NOT one of those days. The day of the Golden Globes we decided to take Geo and head down to Hollywood to see some sights and maybe find someone famous!

We made a quick pit spot in Bakersfield, CA so that Hannah could scope out where Nick goes the majority of his week. The room full of dead animal heads creeped her out- but hey, it's science!

We can't imagine the amount of work it would take to stuff a giraffe.
(and yes, it's real..or was)

Nick being forced to pose outside of one of his buildings.

Once in LA, we started out at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. We realized we only knew about 20% of the people on the stars. Geo was the real star, apparently, as we kept getting stopped by people so they could fawn all over him (which he just ate right up). The most eclectic members of the Geo Fan Club now include a transsexual and a Catwomen impersonator (who left a bright pink lipstick stain smack dab on the middle of Geo's forehead - Don't tell Echo, he might get jealous!) Geo let us know his overall disinterest in the fame and fortune attitude of Hollywood by doing all his business (#1 and #2) smack dab in the middle of the Walk of Fame. Here are some photos of that part of the trip!

Geo and Hannah (Guess who's more excited)

We had a nice view of the Hollywood sign as we ate our lunch (before it rained!)

Believe it or not, other people asked to take Geo's photo by the Lassie star too!

Grauman's Chinese Theater (home of Geo's Catwoman girlfriend)

By the time we were done walking, it had definitely started to rain and was picking up steam so we decided to hop in the car and drive through Beverly Hills and down Rodeo Drive. We were the only ones driving a Sable. Everyone else was in a BMW, Buick, Porche...... We were only slightly out of place. Man was it shi-shi! Some people have way too much money! C'mon, a Jimmy Choo store? Who goes there? We also drove right by the Beverly Hilton (where the Golden Globes were that night!) They had set up the red carpet and we saw a lot of limos driving around - but alas, spotted no one of interest.

Site of the Golden Globes (really not that impressive looking - We've stayed in better looking Super8's)

We continued all the way down Santa Monica Blvd until we got to the famous pier! We decided to brave the rain and walk it just to say we did! We saw dolphins out in the distance too! The crappier days seem to be the best for marine life viewing.

Our cloudy view of Santa Monica (the beach and the city) - as empty as you will ever see it!

The entrance to the historical Santa Monica Pier!

At the end of the pier - please excuse the AWFUL hair! It rained a lot....

The amusement park on the pier.

We just need to find the start of Route 66 now!

All in all - the day was fun, but wet. We wish we could have walked around more, but we made the best with what we had! Hopefully sometime in the spring we can go somewhere with decent weather on our side!

Vroom Vroom!

After much drama - Nick finally got a new car! Let us tell you about this ordeal.

Friday night we went to Carmax (adequately described by Nick as "Walmart for cars" - a huge used car dealership) and we found a car he actually really liked and in our price range. It was a deep blue Kia Rondo - a small SUV type (we were both pleasantly surprised and stunned that we actually liked a Kia - especially Nick!). We went back on Saturday morning to take a look at the car in the daylight (just to make sure we weren't deceived by how nice the car actually was) and much to our avail - they raised the price of the car by $1000! Quite unhappy about this unfortunate turn of events, we talked to the staff but they could only agree to give us the price we saw Friday for that one day only. This was irritating as we were planning on financing through a bank to get a better APR, and, as you probably know, the banks aren't open on the weekend. So even though we fully planned on purchasing this car Monday morning after we went to the bank, they refused to give us the original lower price after Saturday.

Still following us? Good! We decided to go ahead and try to finance through Carmax at the risk of a higher APR to get the car at the lower price that day. We needed a car, and quick! as we no longer felt safe driving Chuck the damaged Cutlass and we didn't know how long it would be in our possession if it was getting totaled out. Due to Nick's age and part-time employment, they would only finance us if we put $4000 down (which we don't really have to spare!). When we asked about having Nick's parents co-sign for us, Carmax made it clear that they weren't thrilled about doing that since they would have to mail the papers back and forth from CA to MI. That process would take too long and they were unwilling to hold that car for us even though it was pretty much a guarantee we were going to buy it and they had 3 others of the SAME CAR on the lot (so it wasn't like no one else could get one if they were interested). Ugh. Nothing ended up happening on Saturday and we went back Sunday one final time for Nick to plead his case and try to get the $1000 lower price on Monday. Carmax refused so we went ahead and walked out saying good riddance! You aren't willing to work with us - then you don't deserve our business!

Sunday night we went around to a few dealerships to check out their used cars and became even more frustrated discovering that the Carmax we just decided to boycott really did have the best prices and quality used cars available. Then a small miracle happened! Nick stumbled upon a used White Kia Rondo online at the Subaru dealership in town that was a higher model then the one at Carmax, $1000 cheaper than the original price ($2000 cheaper than the new price after they raised it) AND in better shape than the other one! We drove by quick to see if it was still there and it was!

Monday (this) morning, Hannah had to go off to work, but Nick also got up early to scramble around, get to the dealership first thing and do his best to get that car. Drum roll please.......... HE GOT IT! Yippee!! And for a lower down payment amount and lower APR rate (lower than Carmax AND lower than what his bank was offering)! For once something worked out perfect. He also brought Chuck the Cutlass in to get the official insurance quote on it and he ended up getting about $400 more than we expected to receive! Knock on wood, but has our luck turned around? We sure hope so!

We will leave you with a few photos of the newest member of our clan - he still needs a name(Nick was thinking sid), any suggestions? (Nick insists it's a boy - so no girl names!)

Ta-dah, here's the whole thing! Nick wants to add roof racks since it already has roof rails.

The front seats - the passenger one folds all the way down if you need to put something extra long in your car

The back seats

Geo's seat aka The trunk - those panels lift up and there's extra storage space underneath. Plus the back seats fold all the way flat

AND a sun roof! Sweet!

There's a reason it's called FresNO and not FresYES...

Will our luck ever turn around? We started 2010 with a bang - literally!

Monday the 4th we were the unfortunate victims of a rear-end accident. The guy who hit us (we were in Nick's car) was able to hit us hard enough that it put holes in the frame of Nick's car! Good news is the guy who hit us had insurance...Bad news is the damage to Nick's car is MUCH more than the car is actually worth so it looks like his car is just getting totaled out :(

This happened exactly 1 day before Nick got his official California registration for his car and exactly 2 days before he had to start driving 1.5/2 hours each way to go to school out in Bakersfield. Needless to say - we are NOT happy campers and poor Nick is being forced to buy a new car at a very inopportune time. We knew we wanted to buy a new car eventually but we had hoped we'd get 1 or 2 more years out of Nick's car. Which then of course leads us to our next dilemma....

Being in school, being 20, having out student loans, and only working part-time doesn't exactly qualify you for any car loans (despite knowing that we'd be able to cover payments!) And since we're all alone out here and Nick needs to drive so much we don't really want to go the "buy someone else's problem car" route. So far everyplace we checked wants us to put down an outrageously high down payment in order to qualify us. Honestly - how many college students have an extra $4000 lying around to be able to spare for a down payment? Hmmmm. Come Monday - Nick gets to find out how much the insurance company is willing to pay him and also find out if he can qualify for a different loan!

Sorry for such the gloomy and short post, but as you can see, we've ended up quite frustrated over all the poor luck we have in Fresno so far. We're definitely thinking once Nick graduate's it'll be adios to Fresno!!! Maybe we'll get to Colorado after all....!

Keep your fingers crossed for us that things will work out for us and our luck will turn around - hopefully our next post will be happier!

Phew! December's almost done already?

Can you believe it's almost 2010?! We think this year flew by - We've been in California almost 6 months now (it feels like we just moved!) We hope all of our friends and family back home had a wonderful Christmas. Even though we couldn't be there with you, ours was still pretty good!

But let's start a little earlier than Christmas, we need to go back to the start of the month for this update.... Overall, December has been a pretty uneventful month for us here. Mostly full of work for the both of us and unfortunately we always seem to work opposite shifts so it didn't feel like we got to see one another a whole lot :(

Hannah's work has been busy busy, even more so since they were anticipating being slow so they cut a lot of sonographers that we could have used! She also got her first "get woken up from sleeping by your pager and hurry come to work!" call in which went very well - so Hannah must be learning stuff here after all! Nick's winding down his 2 jobs this month since school will be starting and has to now pick only 1 to keep for the new year. For now, it looks like Applebee's will be the job of choice due to the potential for more $ and more hours.

Oh yeah - Nick starts school January 6 (FINALLY!!!!) But of course we still ran into more school issues for him out here. He wasn't able to get placed into a dorm room so it looks like he is going to have to make the hour and a half commute to and from Bakersfield everyday :( It's been very frustrating for us that the school things haven't been going smoothly at all, but we have faith that things will work themselves out and it will all be water under the bridge.

We were able to walk down "Christmas Tree Lane" earlier this month! It was 2 mile walking stretch of houses decorated to the max with Christmas decorations. We took a few pictures for you to see too! Some of these Californians are a little unconventional in their theme choices!

Santa and Shamu?

A Toy Story Christmas

You can't tell real well, but this house was making snow! Quite the novelty :)

Oh Optimus Prime...

On Christmas day poor Nick got woken up at 7 a.m. to open gifts - He complained, but was secretly excited to get up early, too! Even the pets got some gifts which they really enjoyed! We spent the rest of our day with ice skating, going to see Sherlock Holmes, and eating a yummy dinner of friend brats (we even forgot to eat the pie, we were so full!)

Geo's new "Life is Good" Frisbee!

Geo smelled the bacon!

Even Echo seemed thrilled with his Christmas gifts (which are now lost under the couch somewhere...)

Nick's ready to co camping now!

And I can go camping too and now worry about bears :)

That's about it for our December - pretty calm and quite for us! Hopefully January will bring us some good stories to share and a better blog update for you to read! Thank you all for your generous gifts and warm wishes you sent our way this holiday season. We miss and love you all. We hope to be back in the mitten next Christmas for a visit! Have a safe and happy new year!

Nick and Hannah

Merry Christmas!!!!