Newlywed News

Well I'm clearly not going to become a famous blogger considering I'm not so good at this:)
I guess it's been about a month since I last updated and lots of things have been happening! We are very busy here in Carlsbad. Lee has been traveling quite a bit and so have I. Lee's travels take him for several days to a week at a time, where mine are mainly day trips (two at the most) to LA. And sorry to offend anyone who finds LA to be an enchanting place; I happen to think it's the worst city in America! Why anyone would chose to live there is beyond me. The traffic, the smog, just the general vibe of the city... it's just not my style. And lucky for me I get reminded of how much I dislike it about once a week!

This is just one example of the nightmare I deal with on the 405 in LA. That's 10 lanes of traffic, both directions, bumper to bumper. Just to put it into perspective, one of my clients lives 12 miles from her office and she said it takes her no less than ONE HOUR to get to work - no thanks!!

So on to happier times in San Diego County! :) Lee and I have been trying to get out and explore. We felt like the first couple of months we were here we were terrible about getting out to see the things our new city had to offer. We were just fine hanging out at Carlsbad beach, soaking up some sun. And though there's still plenty of that, we have attended a couple of festivals in nearby beach towns, spent the day in Temecula wine country, and an afternoon at Balboa Park which would really take an entire week to walk through, see all of the museums and exhibits (it's also home to the San Diego Zoo) and eat at the great bistro's and restaurants. It's a 1200 acre park just outside the heart of downtown SD, but it feels like you're in a completely different world. It also has a dark park, so CiCi got to tag along and enjoy the afternoon with us as well!

Looking out into downtown from the Balboa Park bridge.

CiCi and the friend she met at the Balboa dog park, resting under a shade tree before their next round!

And of course we still continue to enjoy our little town of Carlsbad:) Still so many new things to find! If any of you are familiar with the alkaline water craze - well Lee and I have jumped in! There's a mineral water aquifer right in downtown Carlsbad that people from all over come to get water from. We have two 5 gallon jugs that we fill up about once a week. I can't say I "feel" any different, but apparently alkaline is supposed to restore your body's natural pH balance. There's studies to believe the acidity we are putting into our bodies could be one of the major causes of cancer. Of course I'm no scientist or doctor, but it makes sense to me! So for $3.70, I'll keep filling up my 5 gallon water jug. If you're curios to check it out, here's the link:

http://www.carlsbadalkalinewater.com/index.html

A visit from the cousins! Hanging out at one of the local wine bars, Relm

The view of the sunset from our patio. Of course pictures never do mother nature justice! The sky was the most amazing shades of blue and lavender on this night.

Enjoying brunch on Carlsbad Blvd (also highway 101)

A sunset walk on the beach

These little blue jellyfish found their way to our shores after the hurricane in Mexico blew them our direction. They are everywhere!

Lee bought a surfboard, so he's trying on his new wet suit and ready to hit the waves!

And saving the best for last.....

That's right! We have a baby Skierkiewicz on the way!!! :) We are so excited to welcome this little nugget into the world sometime around March 7th! We've had two ultrasounds and everything looks great! He/she is right on track with growth and showing a healthy heartbeat! I've been battling some pretty serious nausea and looking forward to that finally subsiding in the weeks to come. In the last ultrasound (pictured above), we discovered it's definitely it's fathers child because it's already hyperactive! Now that it's little arms and legs are able to move, it's apparently occupying it's time in my stomach with karate lessons and jumping jacks to get strong;) The doctor could barely get a picture because he/she wouldn't stop moving! No wonder I've been so sick! We can hardly wait to find out the gender, so we are having a 15 week ultrasound to discover the sex! The appointment is just a couple weeks away, so by the time I sit down next month to write an update, I should be able to announce if baby Skerk is team pink or team blue! So now that baby is on the way, we have been super busy house hunting! Right now we are renting a two bedroom townhouse and with us both working from home, one of the rooms has to function as an office meaning we are out of space! Real estate around here is not only expensive, but the inventory is low, so we put in TWO offers today hoping at least one of them goes through - fingers crossed! We toyed around with the idea of moving inland to Temecula where we can get a little more for our money and although that's still a viable option, for now we are hoping to continue staying close to the coast and enjoying this weather that we have become so accustomed to. Say a little prayer for us that one of our offers gets accepted so we can move in and start painting the nursery :)

I'll leave you with a picture of everyone's favorite, trouble-making pup - CiCi

"locked up"

Until next time....
XOXO,
Kristen

It's hard to believe Lee and I have been married for 7 months (boy time sure does fly when you're having fun!)! This has been a year of change to say the least. We got married on January 18th and that's when I went from 'Kristen Carr' to 'Kristen Skierkiewicz', which will forever further complicate my life. "I'm sorry, can you spell that?" "Oh wow, that's a doozy!" "How do you say that again?" are just a few of my favorite phrases when calling for carryout, making a doctors appointment or talking to Time Warner Cable. So if that's not a big enough life change, then in March we decided to move to sunny San Diego! It was one of those "if we don't do it now, we never will" life decisions. So after Lee got all the necessary approvals from work, we put the house on the market and started packing! It all happened very quickly....quicker than I probably would have liked, but what is the saying? Just rip the band-aide off....or something like that. The house went on the market at 1:00 on a Monday, and by Tuesday at 5:00 we had 14 showings and two offers, one of which we accepted. We still didn't even have a place to live in California! So that next week we flew out to San Diego and were lucky to find a place in Carlsbad (North County) that we love that is only 2 miles from the beach (Lee's biggest criteria when house hunting!). So fast forward through all the tears, headaches, anxiety and stress and here we are. Almost two months in California and we couldn't be happier! I think it's still sinking in that this is now "home", but as each day passes we feel more settled. We have California drivers licenses and licenses plates (if you've ever heard horror stories about the DMV out here, whatever you heard is true!), we are frequenting local farmers markets for organic produce, we purchased road bikes to get around town and Lee has taken up every water sport he can possibly find time for. We still sound like mid-westerners and haven't picked up phrases like "gnarly" or "super rad" (yes, yes they absolutely say both of those here in SoCal), we are still trying to figure out how to cut so much meat out of our diets, and do not consider ourselves Liberals... but I suppose at least two of those three things will come with time:)

Now to the most important subject that I'm sure you're all waiting for an update on.... Miss CiCi! Of course she's the cutest dog in Carlsbad and she LOVES that California is so dog friendly because she gets to go almost everywhere we go! A few of her favorite spots are the dog beach, any outdoor patio that provides her own doggie dish and Home Goods;)

Here are a few pics to share so you can see some of what we've been up to!