Things I miss about the bay area:
-Our pool. Sure it was a pain sometimes and made me paranoid often, but it was super nice, too. I loved being able to swim laps for exercise right in my own backyard. I loved sitting out there watching the kids swim all afternoon. I loved the couple of times we went night swimming--once on the 4th of July underneath the fireworks. Especially now that spring/summer is coming on fast, I think I'll be missing it even more.
-Our friends. I miss all the good people there. It was hard not being all that close to family, especially after we had been only 8 minutes away from cousins, but it kind of forced us to make friends quicker. Also, it was such a transient area that people tended to make friends fast and welcome new people in. It has been a little bit tougher to make friends here, I think just because people tend to be more settled and already have networks of friends and family. But, they have definitely been friendly and kind and I think the friendships will come. Still, I look back and miss the kind gestures when we were brand new to our last area: the immediate friend requests on facebook, those who made sure I had the park day schedules right away, the dinner invitations, our super nice stake president and his wife who were in our ward and kindly invited our family over for FHE complete with letting our kids play with his homemade water rocket thing. Lots of good people.
-The diversity. It was cool being in the minority for awhile there. I think it was good for our kids and for all of us. I loved meeting people who'd come from all over.
-The food. So many great restaurants within reach. Some of our very favorites were dishdash, The Banana Leaf, and Sweet Tomatoes (popular with our kids). It makes me hungry just thinking about it.
Delicious food from dishdash:
-The beach. Oh how I wish I could just up and drive to the beach some days. I miss that so much.
Things I love about here:
-Being close to family again. Joe and I have never been the types that have a strong desire to live right by family. We love getting together with family, of course, but it's also nice to have a little bit of space to appreciate the times you're together even more. Still, the few times we have lived close to family (I define that as 20 min. or less), it has been so nice. It's nice to be able to get together for dinner regularly, make it to events in the kids' lives, and just let the cousins play together so often. It is so fun.
-The sky. It seems so much bigger here. I'm not sure why exactly. We have seen so many beautiful sunrises and sunsets since we've been here.
-Our house. It is just perfect for us and I love it. It's taking me forever, like always, to get it decorated but it's starting to come along. Someday I'll finally get some window coverings up.
-The canyon. I really love running along the canyon. I don't know if there could be a better place to run in the mornings. Just a couple of weeks ago, I finally completed my goal of running rim to rim and it felt great! There is something about completing a goal like that that really pumps you up. I've done it again since then and hope to keep being able to do it. I also want to be able to run all the way up the hill. I haven't quite mastered that yet.
-Everything is cheaper and there's no traffic. The benefits of a smaller town--cheap preschool, cheap kids activities, cheap food, cheap insurance, utilities, and housing. It makes things seem less stressful. I never have to sit in traffic, either. I don't miss that.
Well, I could probably keep going on and on but I'll stop here. There are positives and negatives about every place. My goal is to try and focus on having gratitude for all the positives.
1 comment:
We miss you guys being close too!! xoxo
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