All of the things we do in our new backyard

I love living in San Diego. You're probably going to hear that about 292,069,379 more times on this blog. You probably love San Diego too so it's fine.

Living in the Imperial Valley, our backyard looked like this:

DIRT FOR DAYS. And days. And days. 3 acres of dirt. Don't get me wrong, kids love dirt and my boys are no different, but the unfortunate reality was that our house wasn't fenced in and there was a major road that ran right in front of it. To make matters even suckier, the only door to the backyard was through the laundry room and the visibility wasn't great. Not cool.

Am I a helicopter parent?

Before I had Gabriel, I was convinced I would be one of the "cool" moms, the one who let things slide, who didn't hover, who granted complete privacy at all times. It was a sign of my young age - naivety - I think, to believe that I would be different from what I was accustomed to. I didn't understand all of the complexities, complications, anxieties that come along with being a parent.

I remember saying, "I will never EVER force my child to do something they don't want to do, be it a sport or whatever," not knowing that I might have a hesitant, anxious child who feared anything new. I can remember thinking that my child would not need to be disciplined harshly because he/they would be little angels. We would treat them like adults and they would react as such.

Sunday Social - Summer(ish) Edition

There's something about Sundays. Seriously, I think Sunday is my favorite day of the week. I know, I know, that's weird. I love those moments towards the end of the day when you know that the next day will be busy and you know you'll be separated from your loved ones so you try to soak up as much time as possible. You snuggle in bed in the morning, lazily get up for coffee, watch some shows...you know what I mean? 

This morning I had some work to finish up so I headed to my Sunday office: 

It's a rough life I lead, I tell ya.

Tourist In Our Own Town: Best Pizza and Brew, Mira Mesa

This is the first of hopefully many posts in a series called "Tourist In Our Town." I will be chronicling some of the finer food, places and experiences as we happily re-acquaint ourselves with San Diego. If you have a suggestion for a place we need to visit, please send me an email!

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We are big eaters. I know, shocker. Have you seen some of my recipes on here? We like the good stuff and we especially like pizza so of course we had to set out on a mission to find our new go-to hang out. I'm pretty sure we've found it.

Domain + blog name change

So -- you're going to notice some changes around here. It started with my domain expiring and me not realizing. Major oops, right? As I flew into panic mode, emailing different people at enom and feeling like my little blog world was unraveling, I started thinking.

You know what happens when I start thinking...

I'm sure you've noticed that I haven't been as present on my blog. I've had a hard time buying into it -- that's not to say I don't love blogging -- I miss it a lot actually. I have been lacking inspiration, felt bored and restricted by the "mommy niche" that I created for myself.

I realized that maybe what I needed was some rebranding, a new lease on life, if you will. I decided to rename my little space Things I Love, which in reality, is a lot of what I write about already.

I want to build on that with some a new series called Tourist In Our Own Town (first post coming Thursday?) that will highlight all of the fun places and things we experience here in San Diego.

How it feels to be moved in again

We have finished our move. Phewwwwww. *Huge sigh of relief*

This was a tough one. It was frustrating and hard to make it happen with two kids in tow. However, I am telling you -- the second we set up our couch in the living room and sat down -- it just felt right.

Like coming home.

On the first day as we were moving in, Gabriel and Jonas played outside almost the entire day. We didn't have to sit with them every second, making sure they didn't fly off the huge ledge of concrete or run into the busy road.

The sidewalk is flat and it makes for easy teaching of bike riding. The grass in the front is perfect for rolling around on.

We got a killer deal on some Pottery Barn couches and now all of us can fit on one couch. Who knew how amazing it could be? So of course on the second or third night we were here, Adrian and I snuggled up on the couch to watch Silver Linings Playbook (amazing, btw).

On Monday we signed Gabriel up for gymnastics twice per week. He won't start preschool until the fall so we want to keep him extremely busy. Yesterday he had his first class and, well, he loved it once he got going. He had a hard time separating himself from me but once I walked out, he was completely fine.

Adrian and I also are doing a free one-week trial at the local Crossfit gym. It's very different from my old box, but I think the results will be even better!

That's pretty much all that is going in our world, just trying not to kill my husband as he has one month off of work before he starts his new job.

How about you? What's new?