In all the hub-bub of moving I never wrote up about our 4th anniversary (the picture is of the M&M's my mom sent us that have our names and 4 years on them). This anniversary also marks 5 years of this blog!! Happy Anniversary, Blog! I know I haven't been keeping it up as much due to being busy while teaching. Also I think it's less necessary now that so many of us are on Facebook. I always share my photos there. But this year I should have more time to devote to the blog since I will not be working full time. I am trying to catch up with it a little.

With the uncertainty of where we would be moving, I didn't think it would be possible to commit to a school/get involved in a district. We took awhile to find this place and the application process to get into this place was literally a nightmare. This is a low income property and it is owned by the state so there were a lot of extra hoops to jump through. We weren't sure we would be in before September or if we would get it at all.

Since our move was entirely dependent on where we found a wheelchair accessible place, it would have made searching for a teaching job very hard. I will be tutoring at 2 schools in Palo Alto in AVID classes. It will be very familiar because I taught AVID at SLH for 2 years. The other reason it would not have made much sense to get a full time teaching job this year is because we will be moving again in a year. I know, the big news keeps on coming! This is because Drew has almost gone as far as is possible in comedy here in the Bay Area. It's not something you can make a career of here much. He performs every night, he gets booked gigs and is well liked in the area. But he wants to do more and use his talents more broadly. He has decided on Los Angeles for opportunities in writing (ie: for other comics or for TV). He would still perform stand up, too. It's hard to imagine moving again or living in L.A. but at least it isn't too far away from our families.


Okay, so back to our anniversary. We celebrated with dinner at Massimo's, a pretty upscale place in Walnut Creek. We had a gift certificate for the restaurant from 6 years ago, when we first moved in together! We never used it because Drew was bed bound so much for the following two years. It is amazing to think how much things have improved since then in terms of his health. We have the evidence of all the hardship he went through right here in the blog archives.


After our fancy dinner, which included the creme brulee above, we took a 3 day trip to Mendocino County to Fort Bragg. Neither of us had ever been up there and we'd heard so much about it being beautiful. So we stayed at the Sea Bird Lodge. We reserved it on Orbitz and of course they did not reserve a handicapped room although we asked for one. So when we got there we had to change the room. But it was a nice place, clean, inexpensive with friendly people. I caught that sunset from the parking lot. They had a breakfast place attached that was good. I had pigs in a blanket for the first time since I was a little kid.



Then we went down to Glass Beach, near one of the other hotels. It would have been nice to stay there because they had a great ocean view. This beach was really lovely when the sun was out. Drew couldn't go down to the sand but there's a bridge across the beach from the hotel to the parking lot which still gave us a beautiful view. Drew was excited to see so many dogs on the beach. The sun didn't stay out for long though. It was cold and overcast most of the time we were in Mendocino.


Next we went to Pomo Bluff Beach. It was great because it was very flat so Drew could roll up quite close to the edge to see everything. It was very intriguing with all the craggy rocks and crashing waves. Definitely great atmosphere for writing or reading a brooding novel. There was a little dingy (I think that's what they're called) boat going by with a light. It was all the light you could see in the fog.


I decided I was determined to see a lighthouse while we were there. So I walked down to the Point Cabrillo Lighthouse in Caspar. It was quite a trek! Drew stayed in the car because the walking path was very narrow, rocky and steep on the way back. But it was a beautiful location. Made up for not seeing all the lighthouses I wanted to last summer in PEI. Or at least it will tide me over until I go back to PEI.


All in all we had a great trip. I even got some pictures of the redwoods on the way driving back. It was not really possible to get out and take pictures there. I have more photos here: Summer 2010 Photos