Our first Christmas in California was full of our normal family traditions which included baking cookies, watching the Christmas pageant, reading the Night Before Christmas, a visit form Santa, opening Christmas presents, eating Lasagna, playing games, and watching Christmas movies. Although we have still not found a home here in the Bay Area, we are blessed beyond measure to have a comfortable apartment to live in while we look. We are grateful.
We had thought we would surely have found a home here in the Bay Area by Thanksgiving, but the housing market is crazy right now in pandemic times with people moving out of San Francisco and into the 'burbs where we are living right now. Although we are not in a house, I wanted our Thanksgiving dinner to be just like always. We enjoyed our meal together and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We have so much to be thankful for.
Today we went to Muir Woods for a hike in one of the most beautiful and magical forests I have ever been in! The trees are enormous and full of spirit. It was a peaceful experience to just be among the trees with our family. We also enjoyed visiting Muir beach just minutes from the woods. How can it be that a beach and forest are so near one another? Such amazing beauty to be able to enjoy!
Despite the pandemic, we had a really great Halloween. Sophie and her new friend Sadie dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2 and EC was the Cat in the Hat. Later in the evening, I became one of the Things and Howie dressed as the Lorax. We enjoyed eating outside at our favorite Lafayette restaurant, Social Bird and had fun entertaining other restaurant goers with our costumes.
It is a bittersweet decision to leave Crozet, Virginia for Lafayette, California. We have made some very good friends in Virginia whom we'll take with us in our hearts and always keep in touch with . Our home on Brook View sold in less than three days. It has been a wonderful house and neighborhood to call home these past five years. After four days on the road, we arrived in Lafayette feeling like pioneers who traveled coast to coast in our "covered wagon" carrying our needed belongings and "livestock" which included two dogs, a bird, a guinea pig and a rabbit. We look forward to finding our new home and making new friends here in California but we will always keep our friends from Virginia and Tennessee close in our hearts.
Howie has been given an opportunity to accept a new job opportunity at the University of California, Berkeley. Before he blindly accepted, he wanted us to come out to Northern California to see if we felt it would be a good place for our family. Although we are living in a pandemic, safety precautions instituted by the airlines and states allowed us to feel safe as we traveled to San Francisco. We had a wonderful time showing the girls not only the city of San Francisco but also Sonoma and Berkeley. We left feeling like this will be a good fit for our family and look forward to our next adventure in California.
