Wish You Were Here...: August 2013

Things have been cruising along here in sunny (or not so sunny lately.. Summer seems to have forgotten LA a bit this year!) California and we've been enjoying a mix of family visits, exploring the town and continuing to pull our little apartment and life out here together. It can definitely be a bit daunting to reach the point where you are settled and unpacked but then trying to work on making this place feel more like home. We've been trying to pull together a "bucket list" for the fall of things we want to do, people we want to visit and new places we want to explore but the west has got so much going for it, it's hard to know where to start!

The past few weeks have been great wandering around our neighborhood, creatively coined "SaMo" (Santa Monica for short) by the locals and doing everything from hitting up the best sunset happy hours to eating at the local Caribbean chicken stand (Cha Cha Chicken... I would say that's the best name ever..) to taking one of the big incline hikes to get the 360-degree view of this beautiful town, coast and forest. We've also had a blast catching up with family that we rarely got to see while living out East and in the rest of our free time have clearly been working on our California tans at the beach :)

It has been amazing to adjust to our surroundings in other totally unexpected ways as well, namely figuring out that people are just very simply happy and nice around here. That may sound funny, but coming from 4 years in the Big Apple where it's more dog-eat-dog than love-for-all, we're still finding ourselves surprised when a stranger is nice to us or says hello while we're out on our evening walks. It's probably been the most pleasant part of the adjustment out here and we're simply loving the beach culture and laid back lifestyle... Makes it pretty hard NOT to be happy and nice all the time!

It's a beautiful day at the beach so we are headed out to enjoy our Sunday but sharing a few pics from the last few weeks of life..

Day trip over to Hermosa Beach for brunch..

Our place starting to come a bit more together...

A visit up North to see the Brown clan...

Making time for a relaxing afternoon with our books at the beach...

We found out that Tuesdays are Food Truck night in the neighborhood.. One word: Amazing.

Dirt cakes legs... Would say that was a very successful hike!

Sunset picnic dinner at the beach.. Don't think I'll ever be sick of this view :)

And a bonus photo.. This was the cutest couple I saw at the movies who held hands the whole time... old love gets me every time :)

Finally coming back on the radar after a busy but exciting month of settling in to our new life in California! We are still pinching ourselves and can't believe we get to live here... between the beach, summer sunshine and rolling hills we are in love with the new neighborhood and can't wait to keep exploring over the coming weeks and months.

Barrett has started his new job downtown and I am starting mine on Monday - we were lucky to have both sides of the family as huge support systems in the first few weeks here and our place is definitely starting to feel more cozy and more like home each day.

This weekend we are headed up to Santa Barbara & Ventura for some family BBQ and county fair time and are feeling so blessed that we get to spend time with family and friends after being away for so long! Many more photos and memories to come soon, but for now, all of the pictures from our moving and settling in process - enjoy!

Appreciating our old view a few last times...