Celebrating ONE YEAR

It was one year ago today that we closed on our house here in Encinitas!  Memories are flooding back as we watch our neighbors putting up their holiday ornaments.  We closed 11/30/12, which was a Friday and the 5 of us headed up to the house first thing on Saturday morning to have our official "first entry" as homeowners of the place.  We didn't actually move in until after Christmas, but we came up quite a few times during the first few weeks of December 2012...slowly moving in a few items, meeting various contractors, trying to get a feel for the new pad, as it all seemed so surreal.

A year later, we have really settled in up here in Encinitas.  For you non-San Diegans, I say "up here" in reference to our move to North County.  We are still in the San Diego COUNTY lines, but no longer within the city of San Diego.  Exit to exit, we now live about 20 minutes north of where we used to live down in Pacific Beach.  And 25-30 minutes north of downtown San Diego, the airport, the San Diego Bay, etc. That's on a good-traffic day.  Before moving here, North County may as well have been hours away as far as I was concerned.  Now that I have lived here, I LOVE it.  Encinitas is great!  I will always have a spot in my heart for Pacific Beach for sure, but when I go back there, I don't miss it at all.  It's nice to visit...but that relationship is over.  We have moved on.  That was a different place and time.  Many fond memories....but it was time for a change.

So here's to one year as North County San Diego home-owners!

East Coast Visit

The house I grew up in (from third grade on...)

Beautiful fall colors at the entrance to my parent's neighborhood...of course the photo doesn't do it justice!

The girls' trip to the east coast has come to an end!  Chloë, Ella and myself are back in San Diego now. Back with the boys.  We've actually been back a week already...not sure how that happened??!  I still have one suitcase left to unpack.  We had a really nice trip.  It was so nice to go home...especially this time of year.  The weather was just beautiful and autumn-like every single day.  Crisp, fresh-air, leaves falling all around us.  My parents neighborhood is SO full of trees that (at certain times of year) you can barely see openings of sky when you look up.  That makes for A LOT of work when it comes to raking leaves.  The top photo of my parent's house was taken the day AFTER we had raked the entire front lawn.  It was completely covered again within a matter of a few hours.   The good thing was that Chloë was so excited about raking leaves.  She wanted to rake leaves every day.  So we did.  She loved helping to make a big pile to run and jump in.  She also loved using the leaf blower to help Grandpa blow the driveway and parts of the yard.  Growing up, I cursed the fact that we had to many trees and so many leaves.  We were constantly raking and raking in the fall (at least that's how I remember it!).  I even remember stating that I when I grew up I would NOT live in a house that had a yard full of trees.  I guess that plan came true (you can see a previous post photo of the amount of raking we have to do hear in Encinitas).  

Using the leaf blower

Gramma & Chloë

The girls in the leaf pile

Other highlights of our visit:

Visiting Grandpa on the set of his play.  He was the producer for the play his theater group put on.  This is the main reason for our trip back east.   

Tea Party with my old Beanie Babies (so glad I kept them)

ice cream!

We were also excited that Myke's sister drove down from the DC-area to come visit us for an afternoon with her kids.  So great for the cousins to get some time together!  Everyone had fun jumping in the leaves and playing with all of Gramma's toys (and she has a lot!).

Trent & Ella (the youngest cousins)

Wish Owen & Eli could have been there!

jumping in the leaves!

Trent & Declan

Ella & Mira

We also got a visit from my bestie-since-third-grade, Crickett, and her family.

Katelin (10), Chloë (4.5), Megan (6)

Here are two other photos of the girls together.

On the left is Fall '09 trip to VA and on the right is from their San Diego visit this past Summer.

Crickett - Love this girl :) 

Friends since we turned 8!  So for 10 years!  (haha)

(or maybe 26 years?!)

 (and you, too, JT!- Somehow I didn't get a photo with you in it :*(  )

The next day I got to see 2 of my college friends, too.

Vanessa & Chandra.  Good times!  

It was so great to see everyone and do all that we did!  The trip went fast.  It always does and I always wish I had more time there.  It's never long enough.  There are always people I want to see that I don't get to see and things I want to do that I don't get to do.  I need to make a month-long visit next time.  Haha, my parents might keel over if I did that!

River City Diner 

Grandpa & Chloë 

All of us

Making gingerbread cookies with Gramma

Ella 

Saying Goodbye to Grandpa 

(it started snowing!!!! as we loaded the car to head to the airport!)

On the plane home!

Meanwhile, back on the ranch:

Playing in the box forts (at least Mom-Mom was?!  Are there any kids in there?)  :)

On the iPad with Pop

Snuggles with Pop 

I love this photo!

Thanks to Thom & Maureen (aka Pop & Mom-Mom) for taking such great care of my boys while we were away!  I know they had so much fun with you guys.  It's great knowing they were left in such wonderful loving and competent hands while I was gone!  

A few leftover Halloween photos:

Ella-Bella looking so cute in her ruffle buns

The boys preschool Halloween party -

stuffing their faces!

Who is this guy?!

The boys first trick-or-treating!

The boys with their class for the costume parade.

Neither would put on their costume!  

At least they had festive shirts :)

A side-by-side (photoshopped) of Chloë's first Halloween (left) and Ella (right) wearing the same costume.   The Ella side looks pretty weird...might have to try another photoshop attempt.

Celebrating Maureen's birthday at Casa de Bandini