Big year. Megan and I both turned thirty and completed the first full year living in California. We moved, experienced big changes at work, went surfing, explored the Bay Area, dreamed of South America, and visited Colorado.
Q1: [ Jan – Mar ]
I remember this feeling like the beginning of our time in CA. Megan began a job after not working since before Thanksgiving and I felt like I had just begun working after having about 2+ weeks of vacation out of my 2 months of working for Apple. We both spent the month focused on getting our bearings at work and around Campbell and Santa Cruz on the weekends.
I turned 30. No big deal in my life really. I had spent my last week as a 29 yr old in Detroit for work and birthday weekend was mostly spent mountain biking with Sven, whom Megan had flown down for the weekend. I did spend a few minutes thinking about 30 I suppose but we were pretty busy exploring CA and working!
The spring was pretty rainy and my efforts to go carless were given up after 3 weeks of straight rain, long luxury shuttle bus commutes, and wet bike rides. We got the Element and quickly realized it was a great surf mobile, and looking back, I’m really glad I didn’t buy a VW Eurovan. Too unreliable and no time for maintenance or repairs. We went skiing in Tahoe, spent a lot of time in Santa Cruz surfing, and generally were having a good time exploring our still new surroundings.
Related to surfing, I hadn’t immediately developed a healthy fear of the ocean but around this time, I paddled out in some big winter time conditions and experienced some proper thrashings and hold downs which quickly changed this. Despite the worst of these, I grew ever more obsessed with surfing and we both were having a great time living near the ocean.
Q2:
Megan turned 30. Huge deal. She now is an old woman. For her birthday we went to wine country and did a cool ‘mud run’ race. Around this time we were really enjoying living in Campbell. The weather was great and we were spending a lot of time outside. Megan particularly seemed to like the farmers market and did quite a few bike rides in and around Los Gatos.
Around this time was also my first trip back to CO since moving in November. Spring turned to summer and on the first warm weekend days, we realized it actually had been a bit cold when surfing in the rain back in January. It turned out the weather could get even nicer and we wouldn’t have the water all to ourselves anymore. We also had visitors. Dan and Ashley came out to visit us after backpacking the Lost Coast, and Megan and I both started to miss friends in Colorado more.
I had gotten more involved at my job by now and was meeting more people at work which was good. In both my professional jobs I’ve been surprised at just how long it takes to really feel fully involved at work. Megan’s job was going well too, although she began talking about looking for an urgent care in order to get more procedural experience. I was starting to really feel stress caused by duplex life and my longer than expected commute. To cap off the quarter I had two bikes stolen with 3 weeks of one another, first my e-bike, then the Jamis, which happily I did get back a few days later from the police.Q3:
Summer is hotter than we expected! Summer included lots of time in Santa Cruz at the beach where it was cooler, and we started to branch out as well. Occasionally we would spend the weekend traveling North of San Francisco or going to visit the Cox Family down in Pacific Grove. Still my focus was on surfing and the longer days allowed me to get my fix with some pre-work, weekday sessions, freeing up weekend days occasionally for other activities. Catie came out to ride the MS150 with Megan and we all spent a fun weekend up North in wine country, eating sushi and visiting Catie’s first Napa area vineyard after the race. We also met up with Megan’s parents for a weekend in Monterey and visited the aquarium.
We had been given some money at our wedding by folks wanting us to buy a piece of art to remember our honeymoon, but on the trip we failed to find anything we really liked. Luckily, Megan signed us up for a Art and Wine festival in Sausalito during September and we finally found something we liked. Two somethings in fact, both a bit out of the ordinary. The first is an embroidered flower made of silk thread and the second is a ‘3D’ image consisting of 70+ photos and a lenticular lens overlaid on them. This was our first real ‘art’ purchase and made us feel very sophisticated. We had ridden our bikes over the Golden Gate Bridge from SF for the festival and I had a windy time riding back while carrying a bag filled with big flat pieces of cardboard to protect the pieces.
Megan started working at an urgent care part time, still maintaining 3 days a week at the family practice, and I was having longer days at work. I was getting fed up with CA traffic and my commute. We both felt super busy and hated our duplex neighbors and busy street. During this time we made the decision to move when our lease ended in mid October.
Q4:
Hello Sunnyvale. We should have moved earlier. Living with 4 independent walls again really changed things. I was much happier in Sunnyvale where we had some peace and quiet, plus I was able to ride my bike to work every day!
In October we had two major milestones: paying off student loans and celebrating our first anniversary. After having listened to Dave Ramsey for so long we decided to do a debt free scream in the park after submitting the final payment on the loan. And after two and a half years of deprivation, Megan let loose with a new pair of Danskos she had had her eye on for months. For our anniversary, we celebrated in Santa Cruz at a restaurant Megan had found in Capitola – right near where we first spent almost all our free time after moving to CA. Looking back, this past year and our first year of marriage both went incredibly fast.
I got a promotion at work and Megan ended the urgent care job, taking a few days off each week before going back to full time at Foothill following Christmas. Overall we were busy. Multiple trips to Colorado, visiting The Rock (Alcatraz), a big vacation to San Diego, the Apple Christmas Party at the Ritz, and atual Christmas back in Colorado with friends and family.
San Diego was a big highlight. With the week off of work, Megan and I road-tripped down 101 to San Diego – planning to stop at 2 famous surf breaks along the way. While the swell was almost too big for the both of us all week and we didn’t catch many waves, I did manage to catch the longest wave of my life at Rincon, and we both had a good time surfing at Trestles. Once in S.D. we spent the week right on Mission Beach with Catie and Mom. We surfed, visited Balboa Park, spent time on the beach, and ate Thanksgiving dinner on the balcony of our rental house.
Megan also found a half marathon during April that we are training for. Beginning in early November we started a training routine and both have been injury free so far. The race is in Santa Cruz, right along the ocean so we both look forward to it. As I write this the new year has come and a long and busy work period is on the horizon. Megan and I are starting to put a few more things on the calendar for Spring and Summer of 2017, and our weekends are already filling up. It feels like a vain attempt to try to pack in everything we’d like to do here in California before moving, but we’ll keep trying regardless.
