Settling in

I'm feeling lucky today. The students are arriving on campus for move-in weekend and the girls are playing quietly behind the closed door of their bedroom.  I think I'll take the risk that they're painting the walls with nail polish and spend a few minutes documenting our first weeks in Santa Cruz...

School started almost as soon as we got here.  Getting the boys registered was a harrowing experience, to say the least.  Did you know that in CA they can turn you away from your neighborhood school because of overcrowding, even if you just spent every penny to your name- and quite a few pennies to your mother's name- to buy a house for the specific purpose of sending your kids to that school?  Fortunately I have a strong volunteer record and the boys have stellar grades/ discipline records, so that, combined with a few neighborhood connections, scored us seats.  Phew.

Hearts sank on our first official dip in the pacific ocean (I use the word "our" loosely), when those of us brave enough to go in (again, using "us" loosely) realized just how cold the water is, even with a wet suit on.  But as night fell, the stars came out and we huddled with new friends around a warm fire.  That, plus the presence of smores, helped us see that maybe this new way of beaching it wasn't so bad.

Eric took off to Utah for a few days for a "conference".  I'm sure there was lots of deeply intellectual discussion of economics during the activities we observed in the photostream:).  Fortunately for me, Laura and her new boyfriend Tom came up from L.A. to keep the kids and me company.  We took a train ride through the redwoods and spent lots of time talking and playing with all the presents she brought along.

We live in faculty housing on the UCSC campus.  There's a cute little playground for the kids, and we can see the ocean, the mountains and lots of trees and wildlife.  Every morning I run up to the university track, where I can see the sun rising over the mountains, the town and the beach.

 One of our first orders of business was to check out the boardwalk, Santa Cruz's old-fashioned beachside amusement park.  The boys went for "Texas donuts", while I had to try the friend artichoke hearts (did you know we're thirty minutes from artichoke country, where you can buy 12 for a dollar!?).

I was happy to hang out with Marley and Eleanor on the kiddie rides and the ferris wheel, while Eric and the boys tackled the serious stuff.  We stayed until I accidentally dumped a cup of chocolate sauce (for dipping the friend oreos in) on Ellie's head.  Ever since then, Marley has been asking, "when can we go back to that really fun party?"

Aside from that, we've been busy with soccer, swim lessons, scouts, preschool, mountain biking, running, and dreaming of all the things we can do to our house now that we're homeowners again.  And did I mention that we have a real, honest-to-goodness guest room now?  So keep your eye on flights to CA!