July 2017

Moving In

We were up early and moved out of the Pacifica house before going to work that day. We left Pacifica around 7:10 a.m., therefore by the time we arrived in Santa Cruz after working a full day, we were exhausted. This may already be becoming a theme - in that case, we are sorry in advance for every time we mention how tired we are on moving days.

This month, we stayed in the upstairs in-law style unit at Sean’s sister’s house (aka the in-law unit at Katelyn’s in-laws; pun intended, #jokefail). They were on vacation for the first two weeks we lived there, and then we all lived in harmony the second two weeks. Upon arrival there were no surprises, we knew exactly what to expect this month. It was warm, we were tired, and taking everything we travel with up a flight of stairs to the in-law unit was rough. We unloaded quickly so we could relax with a European style dinner of wine, cheese, bread, and... PENNY’S ICE CREAM! After dinner, we quickly repacked for our weekend trip to Southern California to visit Katelyn’s family the next morning.

The Place

Since we have spent countless weekends at this house, we knew exactly what the place looked like and we were fairly familiar with the neighborhood and surrounding areas - which made it easier for us to get around and try new restaurants that we had either heard about or had seen but hadn't visited yet.

The upstairs in-law unit is accessible by outdoor stairs or the inside elevator (true story) - we only used the outside stairs. We did our best to avoid being downstairs, since that is their main living area and we wanted to respect their home privacy. The upstairs encompasses a living area, bathroom, kitchenette, and bedroom - the perfect size for two people.

We had a huge and comfy couch! This couch is by far the best couch we’ve had since starting this adventure! Not being biased here, it's just nice to be able to come home to a couch that’s large enough for both of us to sit comfortably and lay on (without worrying about flea bites). Within minutes of moving in we were comfortable on the couch with our Apple TV hooked up - no more waiting 20 minutes for the tv to turn on. It was a welcomed change of pace to have that comfortable sofa and living area to hang out in after work and weekend mornings.

Our room had a queen bed, dresser, and closet. Sean’s sister was kind enough to clean out the dresser and a good chunk of the closet to give us good clothing storage. Storage has been our biggest struggle recently, so having plenty of storage was a nice change for us.

The kitchen was the smallest kitchen we’ve lived with yet - however we did know about this. Most of the time when it was just us we went downstairs to make dinner in the main house kitchen that is fully stocked and has room for more than one person. However, a few nights Katelyn made dinner upstairs, nothing too complicated; there was just enough room to make a mean pot of tortellini or Trader Joe’s orange chicken. These became the staples for Katelyn when Sean was traveling for a week. It brought back the old college cooking techniques of cooking rice and steaming broccoli in the microwave. Sometimes you just have to roll with it.

We won’t go into too much details on this place, there were no crazy weird stories. In fact, this "normal" feeling became a little odd, as we have not been used to feeling at home these past few months. It was very relaxing to have zero concerns about the home, safety, bugs, pets, etc. and to have somewhat of a sense of community around us.

Restaurants

Pizza My Heart - Our first weekend at the Santa Cruz house was spent visiting with Katelyn’s family in Southern California. We drove home on the 4th of July and stopped at Pizza My Heart on the way back home for dinner - just finding a place that was open on the holiday was a major success. This is a local South Bay small private pizza chain - there are a few locations around San Jose (including one by Katelyn’s work), and a few in the Santa Cruz area. We took home a large pizza, about half the size of Katelyn, which is a totally logical decision for us, don't judge. Their pizzas are de-licious!

Lillian’s Italian Kitchen - A Santa Cruz speciality, we had heard many people rant about how much they love this restaurant and we were excitied when our friends Andrew and Angelica suggested it for dinner. Lillian's used to be a very small “hole-in-the-wall” type of restaurant that mostly Santa Cruz locals knew about, but once their popularity grew they expanded into a larger space. We got in fairly early so there wasn’t much of a wait. For Sunday dinner everybody besides Katelyn ordered the Sunday Gravy - their rendition of spaghetti with a bolognese sauce. Katelyn was adventurous and ordered the Penne with Broccoli. After a unanimous vote - Sunday Gravy won as the better meal option. We would absolutely return to Lillian’s for a second helping of Sunday Gravy, and next time we might top it off with a Cannoli for dessert.

Omee.J Fusion Sushi Bar & Grill - Can’t forget about our visit to our favorite sushi place! This small sushi restaurant may only have 4 stars on Yelp, but their garlic edamame is to die for!  We were introduced to this hidden gem by our friend Elizabeth, and we try to meet her there whenever we can find a time that all of us are available (which is not that easy!). We usually split the spicy edamame and a few different sushi rolls - including My Husband, Firefighter (Fireman?), and Snow White. This time we chatted and planed our upcoming stay at Elizabeth’s apartment [cue August.....].

Pleasure Point Chophouse - Our brother-in-law, Chris, had told us about this place awhile ago, but we had never gone there. It is walking distance from their house, so we gave it a try. At first it has an older, gentleman’s club vibe, but the longer we sat at dinner the more we noticed the eclectic decorations and appreciated it’s uniqueness as a venue. The crowd was ... interesting... a fight almost broke out outside between two older gentleman over a misunderstood comment about how much the man was going to tip the waitress (awkward). We ordered the french dip sandwich and baby back ribs. Both were good. This is a good spot for a guys night out. Also, the pictures on the website make this place look really bright, and fancy, don’t be fooled!

Sotola Bar and Grille - First, Katelyn is right - this restaurant is NOT part of Margaritaville (take that Sean!). It is a lovely restaurant right on the water and is perfect for a date night. We started with some cocktails, as every good date night should. Dinner was the Pan Pesto Pasta for Katelyn and the Italian Farmer sandwich for Sean. GO HERE. We can’t say that enough. JUST GO HERE. Do yourself a favor and take your date (whoever they may be) here for a great evening. You can even walk around the corner to Margaritaville after to top it all off.

Shadowbrook - Let’s start this off by saying THERE IS A GONDOLA TO THIS RESTAURANT. To get to the restaurant from the parking lot, you can take a gondola down the cliff, or you can stroll through the gardens. This place is awesome - the only other important piece of information is that their happy hour food menu is buy one get one free. Sold! Two drinks and two pizzas for the price of one - THAT'S A WIN. Once you're done dining here, you can take their old-school taxi cab home, for free. If we permanently lived in Santa Cruz we would be here every week, at least. Mostly so Katelyn can ride the gondola down to the restaurant, because why not.

East End - Girls night out! Katelyn and Shannon rode their bikes to this restaurant (surprisingly Katelyn did not hit anyone or anything on this bike ride). This is a great little gastropub in the Pleasure Point area of Santa Cruz. You’ve been warned, their pizza’s are huge - but worth every bite. [Sean's update: this is all Katelyn has mentioned about this girls night... fishy? I think so too...]

Activities

The month started off with a short trip to Southern California to visit with Katelyn’s family. We stayed at her Grandpa’s house and spent some time with her aunt, uncle, and cousins - which is alway a blast. Those two rascals just bypass Katelyn and run to Sean wanting to be thrown into the air (or the pool) - but that’s what fun older cousins are for!

We also were able to squeeze in some time with friends, including Matt and Katie in Redondo Beach - where Katelyn was quite literally attacked by mosquitos. Can someone explain how you get a baseball sized mosquito bite on the bottom of your foot? We are clueless on that one too. Thank goodness for Benedryl and Gold Bond (cute). However, the Mai Tais at Tony's on the Pier were well worth it!

On our way out of town that 4th of July weekend, we visited with Lindsey and Kendall for brunch at Flappy Jacks in Orange and stopped by Thousand Oaks to quickly visit with Janna, Billy, and their son William. We are always trying to squeeze in as many visits as possible on these trips!

The next few weeks were fairly calm (say what?! Don't worry, it won't last!). We saw Brent Walsh play a local show with our friend Zach.

Sean was able to participate in the memorial paddle out for the legendary Jack O'Neill.

We also battled the heat and went wine tasting at Ridge Vineyards. After living in Pacifica and Santa Cruz, heading inland with temperates near 100 degrees was a welcomed, but hard adjustment!

Leading into the last full week in Santa Cruz, Sean left on a week-long surf trip with his friend Adam. It started with a road trip together down to Ventura where we met up with Adam, Claire, Ana, and Zach for the night. From there, Sean and Adam ventured off starting in Malibu. Katelyn met up with Holly before flying home to return to normal person working hours for the week. Throughout the week Katelyn worked and stayed busy writing the June blog post and playing with our nephew.

The main highlight of the surf trip was being able to explore Big Sur while the access to the town was limited due to the broken bridges and landslides. It was quite unbelieveable to be able to experience the gorgeous coastline with hardly any tourists. The worst part of the trip was when Sean booked a hotel for the wrong night so Adam and Sean had to scramble to find a place at 9pm... Sorry Adam. [Good news: even though we thought we might die in our sketchy motel room, we did, in the end, survive.]

Over the week-long trip of staying in hotels, Airbnbs, sketchy motels, campgrounds, and at our friends' house, we were able to find some surf in Malibu, Ventura, Pismo Beach, and Big Sur. While we were surfing and traveling along the coast, Adam's girlfriend and her sister joined us for a few days. It was a fun week of surfing, exploring, wine tasting, loosing at trivia night, and being able to spend some quality time with friends who we don't get to see as much as we'd like. [Katelyn also got a little jealous that Sean saw Keith Urban in concert without her on this trip!]

However, while Sean was surfing, our family came home, so Katelyn was able to spend time with them. Let's be honest, who doesn’t love coming home to “DEE DEEE LOOK I NAKIE NAKESSS!”?? Two year olds are great! FYI, Katelyn is known as Dee Dee if you didn’t catch on to that (Dee Dee = Auntie said by a one year old). It was the best our nephew could say, and now we all forced it to stay. :)

The day before Sean got back from his trip Katelyn and her mom saw the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill Soul 2 Soul tour. AMAZING! Too bad everyone missed Katelyn’s infamous dance moves this time around!

Moving Out

To be honest, this move out was rough. It was early, we were recovering from Sean returning home from the surf trip, and our overall enthusiasm had dropped significantly from the month prior. Everything from packing up to loading the cars just seemed tougher. Like our collection had grown drastically - which isn’t true at all. The cargo box wouldn’t close, it was starting to rain, and we were trying (but failing) to be quiet so we wouldn’t wake our family downstairs. Sorry guys, we did the best we could. We didn't take much to storage this month, but Katelyn did manage to fill up two bags that went to her parent's house for safe keeping. It was mostly books that she had finished reading, a small photo printer from work, and a few Christmas presents that she already bought (TYPICAL KATELYN!).

Would we live here? This was a great learning experience. As much as Sean wanted to live in Santa Cruz and by the water, his commute to Santa Clara was rough (nearly 90 minutes each way, this time with traffic). Katelyn also learning that driving Hwy 17 is much easier with experienced drivers during the commute hours than during the weekend chaos. That said, we learned that living in Santa Cruz would mean a lot of time on the road commuting to our jobs and therefore we will likely not.