Licensed in California

Spring 2013 Kaleb and I were kind of in a slump, he was working at Property Solutions and I was working at Vivint. I had just received a promotion at my job and Kaleb got one at his as well. We both knew that if we stayed at our jobs that we would be able to move up fairly quickly and make pretty good money. But then it came down to if we really wanted to continue on this path. Kaleb took a few classes from UVU last fall for audio production but the courses weren't as great as he was hoping. I knew that I wanted to go back to college but I was always changing my mind. Did I want to go into fashion, hair, accounting or esthetics!? We even applied to an internship for Del Sol but it didn't work out. And then we applied to go to Russia to teach English but we didn't feel too great about it so we decided not to. 

One day we decided that we were going to do something about it! There is an extremely long story to how we decided and even our AHA moment, but that will come with another post.
When I toured Cameo I instantly knew it was the school I was going to go to. They explained everything to me and made it very exciting. A friend of mine had told me about a school in Los Angeles that his friend was going to so Kaleb checked it out and chose it as a school. Our plan was perfect! I would go to school first, Kaleb would work while I went, then Kaleb would go to school and I would work. 

I knew that I would have to transfer my hours over from Utah to California. I thought it would be extremely simple because Utah requires 1200 hours while California only require 600. 

I would graduate in February and Kaleb's school started in April. I figured I would worry about transferring before we moved.

 I remember the day I called California and asked them how to transfer. They told me that it wasn't easy transferring it over and I would have to retake the tests. Both the practical and the written and it could take months to do so. I cried for hours. Our plan was ruined and it was all my fault! Luckily Kaleb was very comforting and helped me get through the day. I looked up the tests and printed off everything I could that would help me. I found out that Cameo's basic practical exam was almost exactly the same as California's. The best part was that Cameo was having the training for it the next week. I was so relieved but still a little wary.

After moving to California I sent in my paperwork and a month later I had the date that I was going to take the tests. I had to take both the same day. I was extremely stressed out! 

Kaleb was so good to help me study. I printed out a word for word document on the practical exam and he made sure I did everything I was supposed to.

The last part we had to do makeup on the mannequin head. It was terrible!

It was super hard to do but I practiced a lot! 

The day came, Thursday July 10th. I had to take the written test first, early in the morning. I was the first one in line. There were so many people! The testing center was completely different from the one in Utah. In Utah they have several testing centers throughout the state. In California they had one testing center in the north and one in the south. Luckily I lived only a few miles away from the one in the south so I didn't have to get a hotel like several of the other girls.

After taking the written I felt extremely confident that I passed. There were only a few questions that I really didn't know and I took an educated guess.

Later that day I went back to take my practical. Again there were a lot of girls and this time I was toward the back of the line. Everyone had their kits in a duffle bag and I had my in a giant Tupperware. I stood out like a sore thumb. We went to a room were they gave instructions. They asked if everyone had a stand for their mannequin. I began freaking out. I didn't have the right products and I was going to fail! Luckily the instructor told me my mannequin would work just fine. I went in to the room and it was so much different then how I had practiced. We started the test and I just did exactly how I had trained. I know I forgot to do a few things because I was really nervous but I kept going on. 

By the end of the test I had no idea how I had done. My confidence was gone and I was sure that I was going to have to retake it. I talked with a few other girls about the test while we waited for the results. They came through an hour later and started reading everyone's name that passed. Finally I heard my name called and it felt like giant weights we being lifted off of my shoulders!

I decided that since I was so stressed up from the tests that I would take the weekend off to enjoy and then apply to jobs that following Monday. 

The weekend was great and I was glad to be able to rest and spend it with Kaleb. When Monday came I kept putting off job hunting and tried to get other things done. When Kaleb got home from school I felt really guilty that I didn't apply to any so I just went on Craigslist and filled out 5 of the easiest applications. Within a half hour 3 people responded to me, 2 of them wanted to interview. 

Long story short I had a job the week at Total Women Gym and Spa. I was so glad that I was able to get a job so fast! It is great too because it is all women and it is connected to a gym so it is very easy to get clients. The people are great to work with and I am making many friends.

Here is the entrance from the garage. 

It is a fun place and I hope I am able to stay here a long time!

Thanks everyone that has helped me out to get this far. Kaleb and I are very grateful!

Fourth of July!

Kaleb and I had talked about the Fourth of July for a while and were deciding what we would do. We really wanted to go to the beach and watch the fireworks over the ocean. After lots of research we found out that parking was nuts and traffic was terrible if you wanted to go to the ocean, so we opted out of that. We decided to just play it by ear and we continued to look up places.

Kaleb had school that day and they were going on a field trip to another studio. He took pictures of it so I could see the stuff that he does.

The far left with the grey jacket is his teacher Mike. He really likes it when he teaches. He enjoyed the day and was glad to see other studios.

After he got home from school we continued to look up places to watch fireworks. We planned to walk down Hollywood Boulevard and get some Cold Stone ice cream. 

There was a lot of excitement on the Boulevard. One guy was dressed like Elvis (not Elvis exactly but in his style of clothes) and he was singing.... really really terrible... He literally was laying on the ground with the microphone at times and making some kind of noise. It was pretty hilarious!

We also went to the Chinese Theater to see the hand prints again. This time we walked a different way around the prints and found an organ stair case. While you walked up the stairs it played the note! It was awesome!! 

We walked around quite a bit and just enjoyed the weather. While walking back Kaleb spotted Walt Disney's star. Of course I had to take a picture with it!

On our way home we were quite tired so we decided that we wouldn't try and fight traffic to see the fireworks. At that moment I remembered in our stair way it says there is roof access. We've never been up there and didn't even know if we could. Once we got home we tried it out and the door was open. It was the perfect place to watch fireworks! We could see all around us! Once it got dark we grabbed a couple chairs and blankets and were able to watch a few different firework shows.

 It was so nice to be able to just grab our chairs and walk 2 minutes to our apartment vs the 3+ hours in the car. Once we have kids it will be a different story and we will deal with the traffic so they can enjoy the show up close. 

   

Observatory or Bust!

The first weekend in California we decided to go to the Griffith Park Observatory. When we got there the parking was nuts! The lot was full so people were parking down the hill. It was a never ending line of cars so we decided that we would just go another day.

A couple weeks later we tried again, but still there were hundreds of cars parked down the hill, so again, we decided that we were going to try another time.

It was a Wednesday afternoon, Kaleb came home early from school and we figured there wouldn't be as many people since it was in the middle of the week. 

It was actually perfect, the lot was still full but the parking was only beginning to go down the hill so we only had to walk a little ways. About 3 minutes into walking my flip flop broke. They were my Favorite flip flops!

This was the closest we had ever been, and we were thinking 3 times the charm right?!

Wrong!

I was thinking that I would be able to just slide my way up but Kaleb said it would be too hard. He was right, I had a hard time walking back to the car and I ended up just going barefoot. He was nice enough to give me a piggy back ride some of the way there too. Someone yelled out to him, "Good practice" not entirely sure what he meant... 

We were determined that we were going to make it to the Observatory. So that following Sunday we left early afternoon and we were able to park close to the same spot as Wednesday. I wore tennis shoes and had an extra pair in the car, just in case. I wasn't going to ruin this trip too.

It was actually quite the hike. Kaleb and I were almost worn out, but forgot about how tired we were once we got inside.

For being a free museum it was amazing. Actually it was probably the coolest museum I have been in for a long time (even the ones I have paid for). The top floor was a lot of star, moon and sun stuff, telescopes, the four seasons, high tide/low tide, and they had a periodic table with examples of the elements. 

Outside they had an incredible view of the city.

We could see Los Angeles, Hollywood, Santa Monica and you knew the ocean was out there even though you couldn't actually see the water.

Downstairs they had information about asteroids, meteorites, the planets and the universe in general.

You could weigh yourself at the moon and each planet. Jupiter we weighed the most and the least on Pluto.

Einstein was there so we had to take a picture with him.

We have no idea what he was pointing at.

 On our way down the hill there is a metal fence that lines the side walk and on the other side is tiny path and a steep drop. We passed a couple people that were on the other side of the fence trying to climb over. We thought they were crazy but just kept walking on. A little ways after that there was an Asian family doing the same thing. This time, though, there was a very old couple that were extremely wary of trying to climb over to the side walk side. Kaleb and I make jokes that they are still trying to get over the fence. We have never figured out why people are on the other side, if they climbed up the steep slope and how they even did that. There is an opening to either side of the fence clear down the hill but we don't know why people would choose to walk on the narrow path vs the sidewalk. 

We made it to the car with no broken shoes or problems. The cars were starting to line up so we are glad that we went early. It was a fun day!

June 25 and 29

Hollywood Forever

On a Sunday afternoon we decided we would walk down the street to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It is just a couple blocks away so it was nice to get out and get some fresh air. 

It wasn't very busy and not really what we expected. We thought that only a bunch of famous people would be buried there with cool statues. Boy were we wrong. It seriously is just a cemetery. Nothing too exciting to it but we tried to make it as fun as we could. 

There were a lot of peacocks roaming around. They were pretty noisy and Kaleb tried to get as close to them as he could without scaring them.

There was also a cool little island with a koi pond around it.There were a lot of fish and we even saw a turtle zooming around. 

We weren't really sure who the memorial on the island was for but it was a cool building so we took a picture by it anyways.

We also went into the catacombs building. The stain glass windows were amazing!! We decided that we were going to have an awesome stain glass window in our house one day!

We were able to find Toto's grave too! They were doing some construction around him so the picture is kind of awkward.

So there was a couple cool statue headstones but we didn't know the people, we did just take a picture by our favorite one though.

While walking around we saw an airplane spelling out words in the sky! It was awesome to watch! It was just trying to advertise an album that was just released. We looked up the album when we got home... it wasn't our style though.

Apparently they do movies in the park here. You can spend $14 to watch a big screen movie outside. We are adding it to our list of things to do.

June 22

Turtles, Turtles and MORE Turtles!!!

Kaleb was googling what we should do on Memorial Day that's not going to be crowded or cost a lot of money. The beach was eliminated quickly and also it was too hot to go on a hike. After lots of searching he was able to find a pond that supposedly had turtles. 

It was on a university campus not too far from home. It took us a while to find parking that didn't require a permit. Once we found a spot we of course had to pay for it, but it was only a dollar so it wasn't too bad. 

Except for a lovey dovey couple that was cuddling under a tree, we were the only ones there. It was nice to be able to enjoy the little park with no disruption. 

We walked along the stream for a little ways and couldn't see any turtles. I was beginning to think that there weren't going to be any and it was all a hoax. Once we got to the pond we saw a couple of them chilling on rocks, but they almost looked like statues because they were holding extremely still. 

We found some turtle food that was in a dispenser that only cost a quarter. We went back to the car and loaded up. For only 25 cents you got quite a bit of food. 

At first there were only a few turtles and we enjoyed feeding them. 

After a couple minutes a huge swarm of turtles came across the pond to where we were.

After a while the ducks started coming... The baby ducks were Way cute, but the adults ducks... they weren't very nice. 

We walked around the pond checking out the other turtles. Even though they all looked the same it was fun to see how many there were. There was an orange orchid also but the oranges were out of reach and not quite ripe. Squirrels were everywhere in the orchid chasing each other and finding nuts. 

We started to get really sweaty and hot and decided it was time to head home. It was such a fun day and I am glad that we didn't have to fight any crowds or traffic!

May 26