Wish you were here

I find myself saying "my god, we LIVE here" and bursting with wonder and gratitude on a pretty regular basis. Sometimes it's "work here" instead. If you've never been to the UC Santa Cruz campus, I highly recommend you put it on your must-visit list. It is unique and lovely. I regularly see deer, banana slugs, and other critters.

The view of the bay as we come home down the hill is like a little gift every day. I would love to get a camera that takes wide-angle photos, and do a shot from the top of that hill every day for a year, and then time lapse them. This will give you the barest idea.

Most mornings I walk over to the bookstore for coffee with friends from work. This is a video of the woodsy ferny path we take to get there and back. It's not for those prone to motion sickness, but again, it will give you an idea.

Our Saturdays are mostly for buying food, running errands, and doing chores. Our Sundays tend to be "family adventure" days (Finn has picked up on this term and started using it. It's adorable). Often this means meeting up with friends around the Bay Area or having them over to our house, but sometimes we find ourselves with several open hours. Because of where we live, we could decide at the drop of a hat to go to mountains and/or woods, a beach, a boardwalk, a museum, an aquarium, a winery, a farm... I don't even know what all. Yesterday we went strawberry picking in a field overlooking an ocean cliff, then headed to a beach to meet some friends.

After the beach we grabbed dinner at an English-themed pub nearby, where Finn finally got to see a real live double decker bus just like the toy one he got from Aunt Jeanna. Jonathan and I ate our dinner at a leisurely pace and sipped our beers. The boys ate some dinner, then mostly played in and around the decor - like this phone booth.

After dinner, we put the boys in their pajamas, threw them in the car, and headed home. They sang, chattered, and eventually fell asleep in the car. We watched the cloudy sunset and the waves hitting the rocky coast while we drove. It was gorgeous.
People, we LIVE here.