the business of living

What a difference a week makes. What I mean by this is there was no big parade, no festival, but just like that reality hit us both that we are officially living here. We talked with Ty before leaving, always a great source of therapy that guy, and he hit us with the hard facts that when the honeymoon stage feeling drops, that's when the REAL journey begins. I don't know if it's the one month marker approaching (the official date is September 17th) or what, but the other the day we both just turned to each other, started laughing, and new that moment has arrived.

"Look at us. What are we doing?", Brandon said, "I know, we're crazy!", Jewell said back. We were thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time, which is a whole other issue. It's so true though. Out of all the crazy, unique things that we have decided to do in our relationship, this is by far the craziest.

We have relocated to our new and permanent apartment. It is closer to downtown making Brandon's walk to work a 20 minute venture. It is a bit smaller but twice as cozy. I know that many of you want to see photos, but since this is what will become our home for the next two years, I ask you to please appreciate how the perfectionist in me needs to make it perfect before I do that. So, give me a week or two, and I will get some shots up here.

On to more exciting things. . .

Brandon's boss has left, officially turning the store over for him to run. He is working regular shifts now, which means I should be seeing him at a more decent hour then 3:00am. Life at his Chili's is pretty great. Every employee is like a robot, in the greatest sense of the word. Managers in the US only wish they had it so good, these kids do everything by the book. The only thing that is hard is the fact that the kitchen speaks all Japanese. Poor guy can't catch a break, Spanish first, now Japanese. Not to mention one of the girls that speaks Japanese has decided she wants to learn Spanish, so he has a Japanese girl that speaks really bad Spanish!! I mean Hollywood couldn't come up with this if they tried. Overall though, he is having a great time and being exposed to so much greatness that he comes home every night with a big smile on his face. For those of you who read this and have husbands and partners with jobs they hate, you know it's the greatest gift.

Speaking of speaking Japanese, classes start next week. Can't wait to see what kind of a hot mess I make out of myself in this adventure. Those of you who have known me for lets say the last 11 years, know that the only reason I passed Spanish was because I was sure to wear my cowboys gear every game day and researched sale dates for Foley's to rack up all of the puntos de participacion (highly possible that is spelt wrong) I could get. Therefore earning the love of my Spanish 3 teacher, making my hideous efforts with her language seem bearable. (*this statement by no means reflects of the teaching ability of my wonderful Spanish 1,2, & 3 teachers but only on the deep fear i attached to learning a language*). Maybe having been thrust into this at lighting speed will have cured me, who knows?

These guys are spicy chips, let's call them Japan's answer to the flaming hot Cheeto. They come in a close second to taste, but totally win in the packaging round.

All be it a random update, that is what our life is like right now!