AAAAND WE'RE BACK

If you've been wondering, and even if you haven't, it's been crickets around here on the blog because the little family and I took ourselves on a vacation clear across the country to the west coast for the past week.

It was a much needed getaway; we were on the busiest of auto pilots for a while now through that dreadfully long and cold winter and this was just the thing to break us free from that, at least for a little while. I feel inspired and refreshed, although it definitely wasn't one of those vacations where you sleep in and roll around, especially not with a toddler who was trying to get used to the time difference and a packed schedule (thanks to yours truly) but I loved every moment of it. A special MVP shout out to my mother-in-law who came with us on this trip and made it a little easier on all of us.

You know it's a good and long vacation when you feel like giving your home a great big hug when you get home, but also when everything is slightly unfamiliar and it takes you a bit to orient yourself, right?  I'm not sure if the second thing is actually a thing, that's just how I felt this time around. 'Oh we live here... Where do we keep knives in the kitchen?... That wall looks awkward, I need to do something about that.'

I came back a little smitten with California, but can you blame me ? California pulled out all the stops while we were there with fantastic weather and the best hosts. But I gotta say, when we landed in Richmond, Ken and I gave each other huge eyeballs full of LAWD it feels good to be home. That's right, our eyeballs said 'lawd'. And maybe she knew we were coming home today, but Virginia has been showing off with brilliant spring green trees, the bluest of skies and yellowest of pollen covering our car in the airport parking lot. I love our home here and it does feel great to be back. You're not so bad yourself, Virginia!

I will be sharing a ton of photos over the next week, but that photo above is one from our most memorable of moments on the trip: a quick stop while driving up Route 1 along the gorgeous coast from Santa Cruz back to San Francisco.