Saying Goodbye..

Saying goodbye to our first apartment turned out to be more emotional then I anticipated. Although we have been feeling positive and confident about our decision to leave we spent two years and eight months in that place and made so many memories.  We were lucky enough to have some great neighbors in our community and friends nearby.  We had our usual watering holes and many date nights that were walking distance.  We had some great memories walking to the pier watching the sunset or going to the Thursday morning farmers market.  I knew only little bit about the town of Oceanside but now Charlie and I are very happy to have spent some time in this area because it is a great little community with a lot to offer.  It is the end of an era for us and it is a bitter sweet parting. It is difficult to say goodbye to friends, neighbors and the whole place in general but it is the way things are and I feel lucky to have the experience and memories that I have.

I really had fun having our own apartment.  Charlie was so willing to let me put whatever up where ever I wanted too, never complaining that something was too girly or overcrowded.  We didn't spend a lot of money accumulating stuff but we did have a lot and I loved our apartment.  I do have to admit though getting rid of everything was a hassle and it felt really good to purge everything that we did (despite how much we got rid of it still felt like there was a lot we kept, about 9 nine boxes & a car load of things). I wanted to take some pictures to remember what our first place together looked like and also throughout the cleanup.

One of Johnson's favorite spots in the house..

And yet another..

I know a lot of stuff.

One of my favorite things in our house was the bookshelf.  Photo albums, school work, pictures, knick knacks, souvenirs, etc. 

It was not uncommon for me to walk into the bathroom and see this (freaked me out almost every time).

Oh boy did I love my plants.  The one on the right is a money tree that I've had for about 5 years.  I probably had a total of 20 plants indoor and outdoor and I am not bringing one with me!  Of all the things the plants were the hardest things to part with.  

Our bedroom view, so many sunsets. 

And then the cleanup began..

We did a garage sale the first weekend we came back from NY and it was very successful.  We sold all of our major furniture and ended up moving the bed to the living room to have something to sit on!  Our neighbors bought our couch so it was really convenient because moving them was so simple, but when we sold them we were like oh ya, now what do we sit on!?

This was our last day of cleanup!  We did a walk through with the landlord and she said everything looked good, just more cleaning.  But it was sort of surreal to see it as empty as it was, especially since we had every bit of wall space covered!

Not only did we love the place we were at but we really enjoyed the town as well.

This is our public library and right in front of the street there would be a farmers market every Thursday morning and in the evening a street fair. We went many times and enjoyed every trip. 

Many beach days..

And this was my view every time I was about to turn onto our street. Rows of palm trees with a view of the ocean.  We will be missing this view!

We were fortunate to make a few really good friends.  I met Kristen in my first semester at CSUSM and  we hit it off immediately! We sort of lost touch for a semester or two but then this last year and a half we reconnected and our men hit it off too!  This made for great double date partners a few times a week (at least) and it developed into a really great friendship. 

Charlie, Brian and Johnson got very close too. 

We will always have a special place in our heart's for Oceanside.  <3 p="">

A Big Decision..followed by a vacation

Recently Charlie and I have been contemplating what our next step should be (not talking about marriage so simmer down). I am (mentally at least) done with school other then two online classes I am registered for and work got so slow for Charlie that he was laid off.  This was almost a blessing in disguise for him because he was unhappy at this job but it was fairly consistent with reasonable pay so there wasn't a lot of motivation to leave.  After this happened we had to sit down and think ok...now what?  We had always contemplated moving back to NY for a few years to save money, maybe give Charlie and opportunity to go back to school or focus more on learning the trade at his Father's company.  We talked endlessly about if it was the right choice to go out there, we were and are both convinced that there is more opportunities out there for us, more connections and chances to network (later proved to be so true).  But then again we would give up our great little apartment where we can see the ocean and walk to the beach and the temperate oasis of San Diego for three months of brutally cold weather..You can see our dilemma! All and all we decided no risk, no reward, so before a vacation out to NY we decided that Charlie and I are going to sell almost all of our junk here in San Diego and move into Kathy and Rich's transformed basement apartment.  We went out there for ten days and brought four suitcases to leave.

At first people were like, why are you going out there to vacation if you are going to move? And my response was, the trip was planned before the move AND it just helped us to solidify everything.  It was another little blessing in disguise because we got to talk to his parents about it and make sure they were comfortable with it as well.  On top of that, i had five different people either offer me applications, interviews and openings for jobs, all somewhat related to my area of interest.  Is that coincidence? I think not.. :)

It was nice to do this vacation because we had been very stressed about everything and constantly dwelling on what was the right choice..which we now know we made.  It was so fun to play with all the children, eat a ton of pizza and bagels, and hang out at the beach.

Ellie Bellie and Baby Ezra.  Although he may not look entirely secure i assure you he is :)  She asked me if she could hold him. Ellie has such a great personality! She is so unphased by things that may upset other kids, she's fun, tough, and super lovable. 

Jake was worn out from being such a great Uncle..

What a classic scene at the Psillos house right? There was A LOT of swing time as usual.

The kids were really into this movie called "Wreck it Ralph" and you could always catch them doing the dance at the end of the video.  I was trying to get a good shot of Colt and Zeke jammin out.  They are going to make two ladies very happy later because they know how to have fun and aren't too shy to dance!

And the adorable Cora Mae.  This was my first time getting to see and play with her since she was born.  She has giant beautiful eyes and an aura of preciousness.  She was a little sick when we were there but that didn't stop her from roaming around and having some fun like the rest of the kids. 

She is such a sweetheart!

I think because I am not a parent, I always forget to capture moments.  My photos are always sporadic and whenever I may have a phone handy so I never get a lot of good ones but I still wanted to share the few that I got.

This trip really put us at ease with our decision to leave California for the time being.  Although I am leaving my hometown and parting from my family for a bit, I need to remind myself that I have another family on the East Coast that I am very grateful to be apart of :)  We have many friends we adore in NY and most of all the man of my dreams will be with me.  I guess growing up entails a lot of these "big decisions" but with one door closing their is another opening.  This is just our next chapter and we welcome it with open arms.  

A Special set of Visitors

Summer is flying by! I meant to do this post a while ago but only now did I upload the pics, it will be a brief post but wanted to share it none the less..

Our friends Drew and Rosalie did a week trip of California, they went to SF, Napa, LA, and eventually made their way down to us around the end of June.  We only got them for two days but I was so excited about it.  Drew is one of Charlie's old roommates and Rosalie is one of my favorite people (Drews not to bad either ;).  I was already over joyed to have them over and set up a small get together with other friends that included a bunch of pinterest appetizers and drinks.  While going to the grocery store to prepare I got a text from Drew that said something like "Saturday I want to take Rosalie to Ocean Beach for the sunset so I can propose" I immediately screamed outloud "Charlie" while walking into the grocery store and pretty sure I freaked him and other shoppers out..hah. I COULDNT HELP IT! These are two people we love dearly and I haven't witnessed a close friends proposal or the whole shabang so I was pretty stoked..The trick was that I had to keep my mouth shut :-X..This would prove challenging for me..I was always the kid at Christmas hassling people to see if they wanted to know what presents they got and I know on more then one occasion I told them whether they wanted to know or not..

So the day for our party finally came and Drew and Rosalie showed up with two bottles of champagne and their awesome selves.  The night was a success and we were up until 3 having a blast.  This was one of my adult pinterest drinks I was really excited about.  It had apples, oranges, blueberries, nectarines,a bottle of flavored carbonated water and some rasberry acai juice.  Drew and Roe had gone to the Hollywood sign and then ran into traffic, me being the nice person I am sent her this picture when they were in traffic and I said get your tushies over here!!!

The next morning we took a walk to the Pier to take in Oceanside and there happened to be the fourth of July parade which was pretty fun.  Then we headed down to Ocean Beach to meet a few other friends and roam around until sunset (I think i was more nervous with anticipation then Drew or at least he was able to keep his cool better then me lol).

We went to a few of our favorite watering hole's and did some shopping.  The sun sets around 730ish and it was about 6 when I started taking these pictures below and I was so excited I had to just focus on keeping my mouth shut but what better way to do that then with food, beer and pool.

Then it was finally time for us to go to Sunset Cliffs.  We were all a little buzzed with excitement and there was a lot of laughing and joking around going on.

Did i mention how gorgeous this place is? 

We knew that Drew was going to take here down without us to pop the big question.  I was going to film from afar and he gave Charlie his camera.  Charlie sort of followed them down saying oh let me just get a nice picture of you guys, it was funny because he seemed like paparazzi and I asked her later if she was suspicious and she just thought he was being weird. haha. 

Once they went down to sit by themselves I think i almost immediately started to cry. 

I've never uploaded the video's on here but thought I would include it!  It was such a sweet and tender moment.  I was surprised how emotional I was over it but I think it is because I just know these two are such wonderful people and what great lifelong partners they make for each other, I just couldn't take it!

It was a success and after this there were a lot of hugs, laughter, congratulations and smiles.  We ended the night with some awesome California style burritos and said goodbye to the newly engaged Drew and Rosalie.  

We love you guys and couldn't be happier for your!  Thank you again for letting us be apart of such a special moment. 

Musical Genius..

..runs in my family!  My Dad sent me this video of my brother Pavel playing the violin with one of my Dad's music groups.  The song is called the "Czardas (pronounced char-dash)" and it is a song I knew by heart by the time I was at least 3! I grew up with this music and to now see my brother playing it really warms my heart.  My Dad is so proud of him and it is really neat to see them all play together.  I am not sure how invested Pavel is into the violin but it is a skill that will benefit him the rest of his life whether his teenage brain realize's it or not yet.  I was so impressed that I wanted to share with everyone!

My Summer Bucket List

I saw a suggestion for this and I just thought it was a great idea..I recommend everyone to make one, that way you can plan summer accordingly.  Thought that I would share mine and put everyone in the summertime mood, plus it will give me something to blog about later ;)

SUMMER BUCKET LIST

• Go to a few concerts (including one of my Father's)
• Take a BYOB paint class with Niki (we have been seeing a ton of these around where you bring some of the materials, wine and appetizers)
• Get an 'A' in Spanish
• Read 3 books for pure recreation
• Awesome-ify my resume
• Finish my short story & Write at least 3-4x a week
• Lose 5lb (starting small)
• Camp or take a mini vacation
• Make a list of long term goals
• Wear my Del Mar floppy hat :)
• Try a new ethnic food
• Do a double kayak tour with Charlie (we have been seeing a lot of these deals also for around here, some go through sea caves, we've been wanting to do this a while)

Make sure you all enjoy the summer before it's gone!