We're moving to Bakersfield!

Well I thought I would update you all on my move to Bakersfield. For those who don't know, my husband is taking a new job because the company he is working for now filed Bankruptcy 2 years ago and is not going to continue building the power plants my husband engineers for. So we had to look elsewhere. He has gotten a job with a company called Ausra. They are a new company (only 2 years old). They are building a prototype powerplant North of Bakersfield that is a GREEN plant and will be powered by mirrors. This is going to be the 'new' wave of power plants going up. This particular job is only going to be 8 months to a year long and then there will be a BIG job coming up just to the West closer to San Luis Obisbo. That job will be 2-3 years long.

What I am excited about most though is that Bakersfield is SOOO close to where I live now. From my drive way to where we'll be living there is exactly 3 hours with 2 potty stops. That was what was concerning me the most is that it would be so far away and that I wouldn't be able to come back and visit my friends here as much. But 3 hours is not far and I can come back often, so that makes me happy. Out of the 15+ places Joe and I have lived over the last 15 years of traveling for his work, this is the first place I have made 'real' friends. And I want to be able to see these guys ALL the time!!

I had never been to Bakersfield before and it's a really neat city...well from what I could see in a day. It seems like a big city, but still has that small town feel. We'll be living on the NW side. I've found a great Elementary school for Rebecca and she is excited. We found a 3 bedroom house to rent with a great back yard. I look forward to visitors so we can BBQ! There are several nice scrapbook stores there, so I'm excited to go do some crops there and meet a few people. I've decided not to join a Moms Group there becasue I want to volunteer and participate at Rebecca's school as much as possible. I also am going to look into going back to work at least part time...Just for extra spending money since things will be a bit tighter there than they were here. Hopefully in a year or so we can get this house back on the market and get a decent price for it or at least get what we owe for. But in the meantime...we have some fabulous people going to rent our house and take great care of it. I'm so happy to have a great family that will live here and enjoy it as much as we did.

We're hoping to start moving our stuff out of here and into that house the weekend of 23/24th and do a final load on the 30/31st. Joe is starting work there on the 2nd of June. However, I will stay in town for at least another week since I have a Relay wrap up party to plan with Cheryl. Man...haven't even started work on that yet. YIKES!!!

Anyway, that's the scoop. Talk to you all soon!
Julie