The family’s first two weeks in San Diego (June 5- June 20) had its ups and downs.
We were greeted by this beautiful street with the purple trees in full bloom. Our hotel was right on this road.
We stayed in the hotel for a couple days. They had a nice free breakfast.
Jeremy was successful in getting us a great place to live. He took us to check out the home after our yummy hotel breakfast. This makes for the second home that Jeremy has found in our lives before I ever saw the place in person.
It is a town home that shares one wall with a neighbor. Two story, 1200 sq ft, 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. Features an updated kitchen, fireplace, back porch, balcony porch and attached 2 car garage, all of which are difficult to find here. Located in a great neighborhood within 3 miles of Jeremy’s workplace so that he can still ride his bike to work everyday like he did in MN.
We are renting and signed a one-year lease. Probably the best part about this home is that we don’t own it! We are really excited to take a break from being home owners.
When we all walked through the house together, the boys were excited. They liked how their voices echoed, so they started singing in their opera voices. It was really funny. They ended up singing Handel’s Alleluia chorus for a good 5 minutes. We got it all on video, great opener to our memories in this home!
Our neighborhood street is in a small canyon, so even though we are in the city, we feel like we are hidden away in a nature reserve. There are about a dozen town home units that share the street with us and make up our HOA. We get a little park area with grass, a basketball hoop, a cul de sac, and swimming pool with hot tub. We are also surrounded by city trails that go through the canyon systems around our home. Jeremy takes one of the trails to get to work,
Our car was delivered to us by this truck. We met in a parking lot because when we scheduled the move we still didn’t know where we would be living. The truck driver collided into a parked car, so that was unfortunate, but they finally got our car off the trailor!
We transfered our luggage into our new home. But we still had a few days to wait for the moving truck to bring all our belongings. Jeremy bought us a really nice blow-up mattress to sleep on. The boys slept on the ground with some blankets we brought on our plane ride.
There wasn’t a whole lot to do in the house during those days that we had to wait for the moving truck.
We hit a few roadblocks trying to adjust to our new home. We discovered that the canyon we live in has terrible cellphone reception. So it took us 2-3 weeks to get that all figured out and we still have difficulty from time to time with recieving and making calls. Also, the pool key we were given did not work, so we couldn’t take the boys swimming unless we borrowed keys from neighbors. We finally got a working key at the end of August. Those 3 or 4 days waiting for the truck were really rough.
Tanner and Dallin used their notebooks and some trash to entertain themselves. Here’s a laptop and keyboard that Dallin made. It had much better reception than my phone.
Here is our very first letter that we got in the mail!! Matt and Johanna’s wedding was right around the corner.
Jeremy found a comfortable spot to rest in our closet. While he went to work, I spent a lot of time figureing out where all the furniture would go in our home. I drew up sketches of different ideas for each room.
I took the boys to the park so I could make some phone calls and take care of things online. I tried enrolling the boys in VBS, but there were none near us, so I was feeling discouraged. But then I was able to sign the boys up for zoo camp before all the spots filled up! Over the phone, I also got us annual passes to the zoo, since we live just 5 minutes away. It was one of the few things I could actually get accomplished during that first week, so I was feeling excited and grateful, but also kinda lame that I couldn’t get more done.
The moving truck arrived! We were so excited.
And we were a little worried.
We soon discovered that lots of our furniture was damaged during the drive to CA. Our coffee table and console table was damaged beyond repair. Everything else had lots of nicks and dings and big scratches. So that was another bump in the road that set us back. I did a really good job not blaming anyone and taking it in stride. Jeremy was more dissappointed than I was, but he also held it together. The very last item to come off the truck was our piano. We were both very relieved to see that it was in perfect condition. PHEW. Things would be okay.
It also helped that one of the movers was such a hilariously awkward guy. We could tell he was annoying his coworkers without trying to, so we were thoroughly entertained watching the social dynamics, and it helped keep us distracted from getting too mad about our broken stuff.
Coffee table
Console table
After everything was unloaded, we headed straight to IKEA. We of course enjoyed the food. We hadn’t really been there since our last move, so it was all new for the boys. Dallin was extra goofy during our meal. We bought a coffee table, a console table and a kitchen table. We also bought a headboard for our bed. Jeremy really wanted it, which I thought was a little out of character, but agreed it was a nice item to have.
The next day, I found Dallin asleep on the garage floor. A few minutes prior, he was rolling around and singing to himself while I was unpacking something, and the next thing I knew he was silent. He looked so peacful on the ground. I felt like collapsing, too. Moving is really hard!
San Diego was quite a bit different than I remembered it from visiting here for day-trips when we lived in Huntington Beach. I didn’t realize that San Diego is in bluff country, and there are lots of hills and weird streets that don’t work like a grid system, especially in our neighborhood. Some of the streets are just like San Francisco’s hills.
Also, I didn’t expect that being in a neighborhood close to downtown would mean that we are not close to any major grocery stores or shopping malls. We ended up in an area that is full of local business and eateries, which is really exciting. But we discovered that a quick stop to Ralph’s, Walmart or McDonald’s just isn’t going to be part of our life here like other places we’ve lived. I kind of imagined our neighborhood would be like those in Orange County. The set-up and culture of where we live is really unique and fun, just very different from what I was expecting. During this time, I felt lost and disconnected from everything I knew. I knew eventually I will end up loving this place a lot, but that was not my experience right away. I was really homesick for Austin, missing my friends like crazy, wanting to be in the summer green and humidity of the MidWest, trying to remind myself why I was okay with moving here. Here is a drawing I made of how I was feeling- like a dried up plant in a lush forrest.
Luckily my mom and dad came to help and support me!
Mom arrived a few days before Dad. We went to the Waterfront park for the first time and ate out with Jeremy and the boys at a hip place. We unpacked the kitchen and some other areas of the house, too.
Then my dad arrived a couple days later and he got a ton of projects done with the boys, including making the boys beds while I unpacked smaller boxes and mom made food.
It was not looking promising that we would be able to fit all our books into the library. Even though we got rid of 200+ books before moving, I was a little doubtful we could make this work. But I was determined to find a way, even with some of our bookshelves breaking.
About 10 days later, our desk got built and we figured out how to hook up the computer to the internet. Dallin was the first to use the computer. No surprise to any of us!
I managed to get all the books organized into our shelves, with some space to spare! And by the middle of July, I had the room fully decorated. Per tradition, we put all our world souvenirs in here since a library is the key to unlocking the world.
Jeremy got the new headboard put up for our bed.
By the end of July, it looked like this! We really like having a couch in our room because it allows me to watch TV from my favorite spot (the bed) while Jeremy can watch TV from his favorite spot (the couch).
The boys helped build the coffee table.
We got the new kitchen table made and had our first meals with it!!
On their last day with us, we took the grandparents to Torrey Pines Nature Reserve and loved it.
Tanner found some spinning tops at the gift shop and really wanted to have one. He was so excited to use his own money to buy it. The top cost $7.50, and I was skeptical that he had enough money. He assured me he had more than $20. The cashier rung up the item and asked for the payment. Tanner eagerly opened up his wallet and pulled out a bunch of replica money from the Civil War and handed it to the lady. When I realized that Tanner thought this was real money, I just froze. The cashier bore the bad news to Tanner and he was immediately furious. He turned to me and hissed, “You gave me FAKE money!?!” And I didn’t hear the end of it for the next three days. The poor kid would not accept the fact that we had a big misunderstanding. When I gave him the coins awhile back, I said it was money from the olden days, which I thought was clear to him that it is not real money. He just thought that meant the coins were very old, but still real. Luckily, he had 4 real dollars and he asked grandpa to loan him some cash in exchange for chores. Now, the top that he bought is one of his favorite items in his treasure basket. But he still thinks I cheated him into thinking that the historic replicas were real.
The little hike that we took was beautiful.
Thank you so much Grandma Nana and Grandpa Papa for coming to help us unpack and get aquainted to our new life!
A few days after the grandparents left, we were able to try out our zoo passes for the first time! It was a nice break from all the unpacking and assembling and trying to figure out where to put stuff. We had fun riding the gandolas and seeing one section of the zoo. After two hours, we were tired. It was nice to come home knowing we can go back as often as we want!! (Fun fact, the boys and I have been there 8+ times already and still haven’t seen every section of the zoo. The place is enormous!)
I finished another section of the home!! This is one section of our main living area that you see when you walk in the front door. Notice, there is no TV!!
Instead, the piano is the main source of entertainment on the main level. I’m super excited about this.
Jeremy took a picture of this chart to study about canned tuna.
There is a little grass area outside our front door perfect for playing catch. The best part is that we don’t have to do any yard work here. The HOA pays for all landscaping and yard work, hoot hoot!
A day or two later, I finished oragnzing/decorating the dining area. Yay! This is our only eating space. It is very different for us to have just one eating space, but after being in PR with a small table and still being able to have lots of company there, I knew we could handle this long-term with no problems. In fact, we used the table from our PR guesthouse as a guide for getting this table. The size is really similar, but it has an added feature where it expands to seat 6 people. We like that it has no seem when the table does not have the leaf in it. Can you see how I tried to make the mirror look like a window? It is reflecting the window from across the other side of the room. I’m really happy with this space!
With fourth of July approaching, I made sure to do a holiday craft with the boys. We were going to be traveling a lot soon, so I wanted to get in at least one craft time! I taught the boys how to make an eagle that balances on your finger. They had a lot of fun with it.
Dallin wanted a picture of this towel on his head after bathtime.
Another afternoon at the zoo!!
We spent our whole time in the reptile exhibits. I was extremely impressed!
Red, white, and blue boys with a galapagos tortoise behind them.
My kids are really observant at the zoo. I love hearing them say what they are seeing and noticing, and wondering out loud why the animals are doing what they are doing and what it would be like to see one in the wild, or be that animal in the wild!!
Dallin was hanging on the railing of this exhibit, and right as I took the picture, he lost his grip and landed on his head. I admit, it was hard to cover my laughter.
Those two dark rocks are tortoises. We shook the tree to make the purple blossoms fall on them. The tortoises gobbled them up!
Meanwhile, Jeremy was having a work break at a baseball game. Needless to say, he was getting used to his new work environment really easily. He watched the game for an hour or two during lunch in a fancy box seat with coworkers and then walked down the ramp into his office and straight into a meeting.
Starting this new chapter at a new home, new city, new climate, and new friends to come soon was exciting and overwhelming all at once. The 4 familiar things I’ve had to hold on to are Jeremy, Tanner, Dallin and God. It wasn’t until mid-October that I finally felt like I live here instead of feeling like I’m on a vacation. Our family is still adjusting to urban life. Bit by bit, we are getting more acquainted and sort of finding our place and purpose in this huge city.
