Home from vacation

Yup, we are definitely home from a week long vacation in S. CA visiting lots of family. The laundry is done, groceries bought and dog washed! You see, when we go on vacation the dog does too. She stays with her other family (former foster family) and her best dog and cat friends. It is like a kid going to camp. She comes home dirty and exhausted after have the most fun ever! This time she brought home a new squeaky toy as they love her as much as we do.

Our vacation accomplished just what we wanted it to. One son and DIL also flew in to we had both our boys and their sweeties for the weekend. We also visited with my FIL, BIL & SIL, 2 nieces, a nephew, 3 aunts, 2 uncles, 2 cousins - and one grand-dog. Not all at once though. Lots of driving, lots of meals out and lots of love. That still leaves 5 cousins, one nephew and a number of friends that we didn't get to see this time.

We did take a bit of time off and had an outdoor lunch at the Norton Simon museum in Pasadena. Afterwards we enjoyed their sculpture garden complete with blue and orange dragonflies. We then took in the exhibits before heading out for more family time.

We also spent some time touring possible place to live when we relocate. Although old town Ventura was great we decided it was too far away from everyone. Surprisingly we have selected the Eagle Rock neighborhood of LA as our target. We lived there 35 years ago when we first got together while in graduate school. It is much trendier now but still has that blue collar edge along with an artsy hippy vibe that we like. We could afford to buy a home there and it is the location of Occidental College and a short surface street drive from Pasadena where our son and DIL live.

If N CA becomes the target instead we have suggestions on neighborhoods to research in Oakland and Berkeley so we are making progress with 23 months to retirement.