Another walk around our neighborhood

I don’t know if California really is prettier than Atlanta, or if I am just more apt to take walks since the weather is great pretty much every day. Or maybe it’s that I now work from home and have the luxury of taking walks around the neighborhood when I need a little break!

IMG_3309Oranges in the sun – seems so appropriately Californian

IMG_3311Flowers peeking through the fence

IMG_3323A sunset from our driveway

IMG_3349Funky old pickup that lives in our neighborhood

IMG_3352Pretty lilacs wisteria

IMG_3354Beautiful blooming tree (Anyone know what kind of tree this is?)

IMG_3358Evening sky on our walk home from an emergency tortilla-chip-acquisition-expedition

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Around Stanford campus

A couple of weeks ago we went for a wander around Stanford’s campus and admired some of their pretty architecture.

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Walking through some of their archways.

IMG_3174 The main quad.

IMG_3175 The facade of the campus church.

IMG_3176The rest of the main quad (this is what you see standing in front of the church).

IMG_3177-001We also saw this little hummingbird perched on a tree!

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Wunderlich Park

Today was our first expedition into the vast array of parks that this area of California has to offer. Wunderlich Park is a county park about 15 minutes west of our house – a mostly wooded, hilly park between the Pacific Coast and the populated area along the Bay.

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We spent a few hours there this afternoon, hiking along some of the trails and marveling at the trees.

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We got a few views of the city of Palo Alto spread out below, with San Francisco Bay and more hills behind it.

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At the end of the hike, we checked out the Folger Stable museum. They’ve restored the carriage house and stable which was built by James Folger (of Folger coffee fame) in the early 1900’s. It’s a really beautiful building, and is still in use with a couple dozen horses stabled here.


photo from Wikipedia

There are several other parks in the same range of hills/mountains, and similarly close to our house, so we will certainly be doing more exploring soon!

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Around our neighborhood

A few evenings ago, I spotted this beautiful sunset out our front window:
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Yesterday, the weather was sunny and warm, and we enjoyed it by taking a stroll around our neighborhood. These ducks were enjoying the “creek”.
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This is the “creek” – enclosed in a cement ditch for its entire length (at least in mile or so of it that we’ve seen). If you look in the distance, you can see the mountains, which are to the west of our house, between us and the Pacific. There are lots of parks and hiking trails in those mountains that we’re looking forward to exploring.IMG_2991

Looking down our street.
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And tonight, a few last rays of sunlight lighting up the clouds:
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Apartment progress

Well, I’m realizing it’s a lot harder to blog regularly when I’m working full-time! I’m blessed to be able to continue working for the company I did in Atlanta, which means that going back to work last Monday threw me full swing into catching up from two weeks off! Our evenings have been spent unpacking, organizing, and visiting every grocery store nearby to try to find the best prices (Walmart seems to be winning…)

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First real meal in the new place: pizza!

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Our plants are enjoying the full sun that we get most of the day in our front window.

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Making progress in the living/dining room – we hung pictures this weekend and just have a few lingering boxes in here.

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Filling our shelves with our favorite books and happy knick-knacks.

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The office/craft/guest room, previously full of boxes, still has a lot of boxes, but at least most of the belong in here now. The 5 stacked under the window are all full of fabric…

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We’re learning how to work with very limited counter space. Current strategies include using the dryer as a work space. Other new kitchen strategies involve seeing how many times we can rinse and reuse a cereal bowl. I think our standards for kitchen cleanliness are directly related to whether or not our living situation has a dishwasher (don’t worry, if you come visit I promise we’ll wash the dishes really well!). I’m optimistic that sometime in the near future, we’ll have finished unpacking all the boxes (well, maybe not the boxes of fabric) and I can take some pictures of our house looking clean and tidy!

 

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