California, Here We Are

Since our last post, we have relocated to beautiful Northern California! Here are a few highlights from the journey and our new home...

Alison said goodbye to friends, job, and office at the UMKC School of Medicine...

...and spent our last few days in Kansas City packing up our house. Here she is next to a hole in the ground!

On one of our final days, we used a stack of boxes for our dinner table. (Emerson was pretending to be "Little Red Riding Hood" all day with his hood on.)

We had only one sunflower this year, but it was a tall one. It had barely started to bloom as we were getting ready to leave.

Sadly, Emerson had to say goodbye to wonderful friends and teachers at Berkley, his school since September 2012. 

When it was finally time to leave, we couldn't have done it without the help of Mimi and Grandpa Carl. Alison flew to California with Mimi and the boys...

While Brandon and Carl drove across the country with all our belongings.

(Including this cardboard figure of Jim Carrey, which was deemed important enough to bring.)

Brandon and Carl enjoyed a last barbecue meal in Kansas City at Q39...

...and met up with an old friend in Utah for another great meal.

Brisquette rode along in the car and checked out the agricultural wonders of the midwest.

It was a long drive.

Meanwhile, Alison and the boys spent a few days in Southern California. With great difficulty, we caught this one picture of Emerson and Hugo with cousin Cayman. No one is looking at the camera, but it's a miracle they even stopped moving for a moment to be in the same frame!

 Emerson got to tour the glorious Fry's Electronics with Uncle Spencer.

 Then it was time to drive up to Martinez to meet Brandon, Carl, and the moving truck. Cindy took the wheel, and the boys did pretty well, all things considered. Below is a picture from one of our stops, after full wardrobe changes for both boys.

Finally, we all made it, and we managed to take one randomly color-coordinated group shot at the Martinez Marina.

We're still in the process of unpacking, and every so often it's important to take a break to play trains.

On our first morning in the new apartment, we had breakfast on the balcony with a lovely view of Ralphie the Redwood. (We had been telling Emerson about Ralphie in Kansas City as part of our explanation of our move. Fortunately, Ralphie ended up being perfectly placed directly in front of Emerson's new bedroom window.)

We've got lots of exploring to do, starting with the hills behind our apartment complex.

We also found a great park nearby.

There were hours of fun to be had at the DMV while getting our licenses and registering our cars.

Fortunately, the weather has been lovely and we've had lots of chances to relax in the pool. Hugo has been swimming a couple of times but we haven't captured it on camera yet...

Last night, we were awoken by an earthquake. It wasn't terribly strong in our area, but it was definitely a reminder that we're in a new state now.