moved

As of yesterday we'd been in our new state for a whole month. This surreal move still just feels like a vacation for the moment.

If I'm being honest, sometimes it feels empty here. I love the weather with an emphasis I can't imply with text. To me, this is perfect. I wonder how long it'll take me to stop saying, "Man, the weather's really nice today." What a change for crappy weather to be the rare occasion. I love the city. It's beautiful. The ocean is beautiful. The bridges are beautiful. It's a very clean feeling city (unless you're in the Tenderloin). Sure, there's bums and mentally insane homeless people snuggled on corners with crates and carts and boxes rambling off who knows what to who knows who. I guess every big city has that though. They're perfectly harmless. Just don't make eye contact. 

I feel starved for human interaction right now though. We've been bouncing around between places, finally committing to some apartments, then the act of actually settling into it so time consuming. Spending my days getting toothless grins and precious coos from the cutest thing in my world is pretty good. But, his attention span is way short and he's not that great at conversations yet. 

I'm excited to start meeting new people. Everyone here that I have interacted with so far is really nice. It's easy to converse with perfect strangers when they're so friendly. I'm ready to find a new church home and form some closer relationships. I'm ready to find some other moms and have play dates. In due time. 

I want to take some time reliving some memories from our first month here. If I don't document it while it's fresh, I'm sure to forget.

The plane rides went okay. N-bugs tolerance for that seems to be about the hour mark. Then he gets antsy. Thankfully on the second connection he just slept for the whole thing.

We had an intentional day-long layover in Phoenix for Nolan to meet his Aunt and Uncle. It was a fun day. I wish we'd had more time with them. The baking 100+ degree heat, on the other hand, I did not want more time with.

When we landed at the Oakland airport the 70 degrees, with a light breeze was welcomed. It was mostly dark. So driving to our first airbnb location was a little scary. Driving through the madness that is the Bay Bridge and then all the way across SanFran to our temporary place was a stressful experience. 

It was such a long day. I didn't even care that we seemed to be in the ghetto or that the place seemed less than ideal. I crashed on the not so comfortable bed and slept. The next day was mostly recovery. Nolan slept terribly and so mom and dad did too. I discovered our little place to be rather nice and in a very quiet neighborhood. 

The whole next week we did touristy stuff while making comments about about tourists. I mean, they were getting in the way of us locals. It was a fun week. Nolan was out of sorts and didn't seem to enjoy anything, but we still dragged our sweet little fuss-bucket around from place to place enjoying the amazing sights and places of our new city.

We went to Pier 39. What a pleasant little place. It was a pretty warm day for SF proper. It was mid 70s, but when you get right on the brink of the ocean that breeze is chilly. You're going to want to either wear long sleeves or take a light jacket with you everywhere here. I love it.

The bobbing sail boats in the blue water made me want one. We've looked into sail lessons and it's definitely something we're going to do at some point. 

As we kept walking around the dock Alcatraz Island and the ever famous Golden Gate Bridge came into view. I immediately understood the phrase I'd read so often: Golden Gate Fog. It was almost eery. At times it'd be so thick you couldn't see the bridge at all. Within a few minutes you could see it again.

There are several little theaters right through there that I can't wait to visit. They also had a live show going in the middle of it too. There are tons of food shops and stands right in there as well. We shot through the Bay Aquarium that's right in the middle of it and wasn't very impressed. But, it was an experience and I got to pet a shark out of the deal at least. 

I've read that the colony of sea lions that have made Pier 39 their home, are often gone in the summer months for hunting and mating. But, there were a handful out there when we went. They definitely fit the description of fat, lazy dogs. They were fat. So fat. They just laid up on the bouncing docks, soaking up the sun completely uncaring of all the gawking guests.

We spent a day figuring out public transit and to my surprise it wasn't terrible. Very convenient even. The bus would be about perfect if it didn't stop so frequently, and it can get a little crowded. 

We drove through the heart of what I'd refer to as a traffic/driving nightmare up on Market St. The next time we went we took the bus. That's a nice area though. The streets are clean, the building are nice, and you seems to be blocked for the colder ocean breeze. Plus, all the stores! 

The 4th of July was pretty laid back. We stayed at home until the afternoon. Then we ventured out to Market St. for shopping and food. We headed over to Treasure Island to claim our post for watching fireworks. As of now, I'm still convinced that is the best view of the city. It was perfect. The shoreline is made up of giant rocks, which made perfect seats. So, I had the ocean flowing right up to my seat, a beautiful view of the city, I was comfortable in pants and a short sleeve shirt (when the sun went down I had my light sweater), and I was with my two favorite people. My camera was positioned on it's tripod with setting prepared to capture the firework show. 

What a different setting from the sticky heat and swatting mosquitoes.

Leaving Treasure Island was the real trick. It took forever. As a gal born and raised in Missouri, I now understand what bad traffic really is and it feels silly to have ever thought it was bad back home. 

We arrived at our airbnb, completely exhausted, at like 1 o'clock in the morning. Only to find out that my husband couldn't find the keys. I love that man more than most things, but I wanted to kill him in that moment - this is a repeating problem he has and you'd think he'd learned how to keep up with keys by this point in his life. 

So, he was fixing to call our airbnb host, which I dreaded since it was 1:00am and we were calling to say, "Hey, we lost your keys, can you come let us in."

My husband got back in the car looking pretty pale. Our host had gone out of town and wasn't planning to return until Saturday morning. With our dog, and all of our stuff now locked into an apartment we had no way into. Yep, feeling sick covers it. They were a few hours away too. 

And... ah... it's the 4th so after calling 5 hotels and all being booked I was plotting my husbands demise.

Then, I remembered, our first day in the airbnb, Cory had broke the balcony window (real good tenants, huh?). Total accident. He really did just open it and it like popped out of the seal and wouldn't ever shut the rest of the way. 

Another hour has gone by now - 2:00am. We had finally found a hotel that had a room - $260 for the night and it was already TWO O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. Gah. 

Finally, I talk Cory into trying to get on the balcony. Even though we were on the second floor, with a scary looking balcony, that had signs up saying "Do not get on balcony, it's not safe." 

What the heck.

So I'm helping hoist him up high enough to reach the bottom of our balcony. (You really have to wonder what the neighbors were thinking at this point. We've been loitering around for an hour, fixing to attempt an admittedly inappropriate entrance. Oh, no, officer, you see, we're staying here... we just forgot our keys and the owner's out of town) Cory sort slips back down and says, "I don't have the upper body strength for this." 

I'm a little scared for his well being at that point and said we should abort, but he was insistent. So, I'm helping push him back up a second time and he manages to climb on. The creaks made my heart flutter too much. He took two quick steps, opened the window and bounded in quickly. 

Success. 

What a story - probably shouldn't be told.

The next day we really just drove around. We drove over the Golden Gate and couldn't even see it, because it was so foggy. That's insane to me. 

We visited Alameda several times looking at places to live. We looked some in SF, but that just didn't really seem comparable. 

By the time we'd moved into the second airbnb, I was so ready to just find a place. It was a studio apartment and it smelled like... animal or something. I seriously had a bad headache everyday we were there, and I wonder if Nolan did too because he was extremely fussy that week. 

We finally decided on some apartments. The timing worked out nicely with our u-box pod that had been shipped here to us. The day we moved into the apartments we also got to get the contents of our pod. That meant my baby would at least have all of his stuff back (crib, changing table, etc.). 

We'd ordered a mattress to be delivered and it arrived around 5pm the day we'd moved in too. 

The next week was spent unpacking the stuff from the pod and furniture hunting at Ikea. We finally decided what we wanted and ordered it last Friday. We had next day delivery and so it all arrived on Saturday. This week has been spent putting furniture together :/

We had two missing boxes, which is infuriating that they haven't "figured that out" yet. Especially because we paid for next day delivery. 

Nonetheless, we're very very close to finally being settled in. I'd say by the end of this week, everything in the house will at least be put together and in it's place. 

I'm so ready for some form of normal to return to our lives.