Oh, Southern California, how I love thee…

A lot of people complain that Southern Cali is just some big touristy place… well, for the most part, it could be.

You got Los Angeles with all the Hollywood glitz and glam… Orange County with your malls and Disneyland. San Diego with the baseball fields and beaches… well, the beaches are really everywhere… But what do I call southern Cali? Home…

Lived here my whole life… My parents are originally from the Midwest… Dad’s from Missouri, Mom’s from Iowa. When they got married they lived in Iowa and had 3 kids. My dad’s been a Trucker since he got out of the Navy (GO NAVY!!)… So my mom stayed home and took care of my older brother and sisters. They eventually moved out here to California and had my other brother and I… 5 in all, and yes, I’m the baby and proud of it! So Cali is my home sweet home.

We’ve traveled to Iowa MANY times to visit family through the years… spent time in the snow (FUN!) and saw some of the seasons, which as most people know, California doesn’t have any real seasons… We have the sun, then some rain when we need it, then the sun… so really, we have 1½ seasons for the most part, but it’s okay… if I want to see the seasons, it’s just a flight or a car ride away, so I’m good. But ya can’t beat living 15 to 30 minutes from anything and everything. 15 minutes to the beach, 15 minutes to Disneyland, malls in every direction, 30 minutes to Los Angeles, okay so it’s about 1.5 hours to San Diego but who’s counting? 15 minutes to Angels stadium, 30 minutes to Dodgers stadium… really anything that’s interesting happens here or around The OC…

Now don’t get too confused with this area being like the television shows “The OC”, “Orange County”, “Laguna Beach”, “The real housewives of Orange County”… Not to be offensive but those are the snooty snoots of Orange County and they live in the uppity up part of town… once again, about 15 to 30 minutes from here… but there’s the normal, everyday life, working families as well. I live on a cul-de-sac… I’ve had the same 3 neighbors since I was born, same neighbors since my parents moved in several years before I was born. It’s kind of like my own little Mayberry, like from The Andy Griffith Show… everyone kind of knows everyone else. My one neighbor can actually tell you all of the birthdays in our whole family… strange, but true… Everyone’s also from a bunch of different places… neighbors originally from Utah and go back every summer… neighbors from Holland… neighbors from the Philippines… neighbors from Vietnam… neighbors from a few cities over and moved here… a little bit of everything. I enjoy it.

My neighbor from Holland actually has a windmill in her front yard on her lawn surrounded by little bushes and flowers. I love looking at it… I love our next door neighbors whose kids I grew up with, and now they have kids, and now their kids know us and wave at us every day. It’s just really cute.

Although my heart longs to travel and fly and explore, I still love that sense of “home”… a place you know you can always come back to… kick off your shoes and play around like a kid, even though you’re a grown adult… but it doesn’t matter cuz you’re home and you’re free to just be you… I like that.