Our Epic Road Trip: Santa Cruz

We have been wanting to visit our friends Story & Chris in Portland since they moved up there last year. Since our anniversary was coming up, we decided to take a road trip for a week and broke up the fifteen hour drive in two days by stopping in Santa Cruz overnight. I heard about a steam engine train ride that goes through the the redwood forest in Felton, CA so we were all over that. We waited until dusk to hit the Santa Cruz boardwalk since it was so hot and crowded. Liv had so much fun, and luckily no one was bitten by any Lost Boys!

It was only a five hour drive to Santa Cruz so we arrived fairly early. 

Next time we'll have to taste some artichokes

We couldn't tell what these workers were picking

The sweetest cats lived in the general store

Seriously, this kid is so freakin rad!

It was interesting to see how the old steam engine train operated after all these years

The redwood trees were majestic, Liv has never seen trees that tall

A storm destroyed the old train tracks.

At the top of the mountain, the train stopped so we could explore 

As soon as we got back to our hotel, we changed clothes and headed to the boardwalk. It was Retro Night so all the rides were $1.00! This made Liv very happy so we rode everything we could. Here's the problem, I was really excited to ride the Sky Glider. Anything that is mellow and I can take in a view is perfect for me. However, we left Liv's jacket in the car so Antz went to grab it and I wanted to ride the Sky Glider before the sunset so Liv and I went on together. Everything was cool until we noticed the height kept going higher and higher until we were both very scared. I tried hard to play it cool but my poor baby was in tears. I kept trying to make her laugh but my heart was pounding. Every time the bucket we were in passed a tower it would bump us so hard I internally freaked out. So I tried my best to distract Liv and take a few photos until it was over while Olivia covered her eyes. I was sure I would drop my camera but fortunately, I managed a shot of Antz happily waiting for us below. Never again will I subject us to something like that. In the end, it was worth the view but I found out I wasn't supposed to take photos while on the ride!

See, it doesn't look so high from here

We love the pirate ride

Too bad Olivia wasn't tall enough for the swing ride!

The face of fear, sort of

Poor baby, she is not enjoying it at all. I did manage to get her to smile.

Nothing some cotton candy won't fix

Who knew Totoro loves fried chicken?

These were massive doughnuts

Santa Cruz Boardwalk from sunkissis on Vimeo.

Liv drove her own bumper car. She did incredibly well!

I was hoping this Wurlitzer organ would play the same music from The Lost Boys. For the record, I watched The Lost Boys approximately 86,000 times in the eighties. 

Olivia insists we take these cheesy photos, do not blame me!

The Orange County Fair

It seems we have started a summer tradition of going to the OC Fair. We bought our tickets early in June however my poor Antz came down with a horrible cough after we went to San Diego for ComicCon. So, we had to postpone our day at the fair until he was feeling better. It actually worked in our favor since we had a brutally hot July, we chose a Friday in early August to go.

She's tall enough to ride alone now!!

OC Fair from sunkissis on Vimeo.

Hercules the World's smallest horse

What pretty donkeys 

How do you say Moo in French?

Next year, we are definitely going after dark, it was a million degrees!

I'm Back!

Hi There! Honestly, it has been a rough summer for me. I couldn't bring myself to blog because it's hard to share when life gets shitty. I have wanted to post so many lovely events since Olivia's birthday party (how great are those photos?) but my disappointment has been a dark cloud following me.

print by Neil Robert Leonard

Let me start by saying I am a persistent person. Almost ten years ago it took Antz and I thirteen months and writing twelve offers before we finally bought our house. I would write letters to the homeowners, bug my realtor to call at all hours of the night and still we would be outbid by tens of thousands of dollars every time. Each time we didn't get the house, I was devastated but still continued to look, every weekend, more motivated than ever. It got to a point where Antz wanted to stop looking to wait for the Los Angeles crazy market to cool down. I couldn't stop. Well, actually I wouldn't stop. I knew there was a house for us (that we could actually afford) and we ended up with a much better house than all the others with a huge backyard in a now amazing neighborhood. I have always held out to get what I wanted rather than settle on what's easy.

So, I do what I can to achieve my goals but some things are just out of my control. I can only dream so hard but in order to manifest these dreams I have, it's going to take all the persistence in the world. I have been reluctant to share my dream on my blog because it's public and I wanted to share it once I have a confirmation. It's like not jinxing yourself, the more you talk about it, the less it happens. However, I was just so excited about it, I started sharing with close friends, and then not so close folks, and it got out of control when I caught myself telling the grocery store clerk. So here it is...

I have a dream to move to Paris for a year. Duh, if you know me it's all I ever talk about.

This is the apartment I found in Paris last March

I put together a solid plan to move by Spring of 2016. I spent months researching necessary paperwork, compiled a huge folder of required documents and talked to people who have lived abroad. Fortunately, last March, I was able to take a solo trip to Paris to surprise my best friend Aimee for my birthday but I was also apartment hunting and finding a school for Liv. I fell in love with a the perfect apartment and met with the rental agent to set everything up in person. I really felt at home in the neighborhood and took the metro alone all over the city. So I returned home really pumped because the plan to move there was falling into place. I wrote several blog posts detailing our moving abroad process. I have found so much information online and a few blogs have been invaluable for me to follow along on their journey living abroad. I made checklists and jumped for joy with every check I added. Then I hit a stand still. Reality slapped me on the backside. My version of reality was simple, we rent out our house in LA, propose to Antz job he works remotely from Paris and we enroll Liv in an International school. Getting a visa would have been manageable because Antz would still be employed by an American company. We had adequate health insurance and we were qualified for a carte de sejour (a twelve month tourist visa). I believe Liv would have an easy transition with French school since it's the same curriculum and she would still receive a few hours of English lessons at her new school. We put our things in storage and spend fifteen months traveling Europe, while immersing ourselves in French. It was a little more complex than it sounds but those are the highlights.

I found a gorgeous apartment, found the perfect school, went to the City Records office to get all our documents and began the visa process. Then it came down the most important factor, getting permission from Antz boss to work abroad. I stayed optimistic although knowing it was a 50/50 chance. To me the odds were working in our favor but it was a huge request to make. It would be different if Antz worked for himself but he works for a major corporation so they have guidelines for things like this. Still, I hoped, wished and prayed for a positive response.

Sadly, the answer was no. I write this with a lump in my throat. There was no room for my persistence. Antz job is our life. He has worked hard to get where he is in his career and he has his dream job. I felt devastated but was so grateful that he asked so I could make my dream come true. He did his best. I did all that I could. Yet there was only so much we could do further to make it happen. My plan could only work if I checked all the boxes and working abroad wasn't one that could be checked. So I fell into a depressed state. I couldn't bring myself to blog because I planned to share my good news. It's so hard to put this out there because I'm usually so cheerful and happy. I began to feel guilty for wanting this so bad that it was making me miserable. I am used to finding a way to make it work. Yet this is something out of my hands.

So this leaves me feeling sad and disappointed but ready to move on. I still have faith that we will move abroad one day but next year would have been absolutely perfect. I wanted to move while Olivia was still young enough to not feel too attached to her life here in LA. I would hate to uproot her, leave her friends and be the new kid at a foreign school. I am so grateful she will be fluent in French so it won't affect her so greatly. I am constantly thinking about how I can make it work. I have emotionally moved to Paris. I don't know how to detach my feelings but it all comes down to money. I remember so well feeling exactly the same way I do now during that year of looking for a house. I would say to Antz, if only we had more money but we ended up with a house that was less than the ones we put offers on. I can now look back to when I felt so hopeless and thank my lucky stars. It was meant to be for us and I know deep down that when we do move abroad, it will be so much sweeter. I will be able to live out my dream and it's a rare thing to make your dreams come true. I  have missed blogging so I am excited to get back into it and post what we have been up to this summer.

My last day in Paris "J'espère te revoir bientôt!"