We Have Moved

We have become accustomed to rapidly changing our environment over the past 14 months, it seems crazy to be telling people that we now have a permanent address in Southern California.  The nomadic lifestyle is a challenge and we are finding it really easy to settle into coming and going from the same plot of land.  We acquired our dream spot this week and have begun our plans to build our home up on this land. It is amazingly beautiful here.  Every morning we are up as the sun rises, get the thrill of working the land during the day and then sitting in our loungers at the top of the hill to watch the sun disappear behind the mountains to the West, into the ocean.

We are located in the San Pasqual Valley and the three acres that we have was just enough to put Erica in her happy place as she plans to become more domesticated than ever with growing her own food and herbs, composting.  Planting as much vegetation and plants as possible is her dream.  She has always wanted to have the space here in California to do this, which is both hard to find and hard to afford, and we kept this focus all throughout our travels as she looked constantly at properties.  I also want to have a place to share in community with friends and family that looks out over the hillside.  I envision an open air space, roofed, but not enclosed on the sides that has a fireplace and outdoor furniture and tables. It was awesome to feel the accomplishment of knocking down another goal that we have set for our family.  

Erica and I hit our twentieth wedding anniversary the day before closing on the land.  We celebrated by staying local.  After dropping the kids off at our friends house for a sleep over for a few nights, we ventured to our neighborhood wineries that are on the drive to the property.  We met some of the owners and a hand full of neighbors who were all welcoming.  We have only been here a week and it feels as though we have been here a year as measured by the amount of neighbors we already know.  We also took a trip across town to visit the previous owners of the land, Stan and Ginger.  They bought this property in 1997 to build their dream home and then unfortunately lost the house in the deadly Witch Fire in 2007.  They never rebuilt here and explained that they had mixed feelings about not rebuilding due to the unique beauty that is out here.  They provided us with plans of their house which helped us envision what is possible up here.

We began production on the kids goal of creating a space for them outside of the RV and yesterday the Tuff Shed's were built, aka Boyd's Dude Den and Blythe's She Shed.  We spent three days prepping the pads for the sheds.  It was literally back pain inducing work as both Erica and I haven't shoveled dirt in a decade at the least.  This property is already whipping us into shape.  The project is not complete until the kids finish painting the interior and moving all of their stuff in.

School starts in ten days and the kids will be attending Innovations Academy in Scripps Poway.  It will be a commute of 25-30 minutes but the charter school has the reputation of having a social/emotional focus on child development.  We look forward to seeing what they do here and will miss our neighborhood of hold and Rolling Hills Elementary where the kids would prefer to be starting at this week.  Change is hard!