Sitting on a potato chip

We're lived in San Diego for 10 days now and we are having a blast exploring our new home! There are so many amazing things to do here. We keep forgetting we aren't on vacation and have plenty of time to do them all. It's so weird.  We often over-plan our days because we are so eager to get out there and see lots of things.  But we're learning to pace ourselves and try to remember that we'll be here for 3 more months. Except for time in the sun... we are most certainly NOT pacing ourselves in that area. It's sunny and 70º every. single. day.
Will doesn't mind that I work night shift because it gives him a chance to play around with his cool camera and take killer skyline and sunset pictures. He's the bomb.

View from Coronado 

San Diego skyline at night

We live in a little boho/hippie area of San Diego called Ocean Beach. It's right on the Pacific Ocean and it's very "eclectic," as my friend Megan said (I made a friend here already! Yaay!). It's perfect because I can wear my hair curly and messy every day. Whoot! But more on OB later... 
Just south of us is Point Loma, and between us and Point Loma is an area called Sunset Cliffs. The name pretty much says it all: an area of gorgeous cliffs perfect for watching the sunset. We rode our bikes there for a little sunset date and it was phenomenal! We could spend many an evening there. Every part of the cliffs is so different and varied, especially depending on the tide.

Ok, time for me to explain the weird title of this post. Last night, Will was on Pintrest (I know, right?!) looking up cool things to explore in SD and we found a place called Potato Chip Rock. No lie. That's the name. Google maps even will take you to it. So we made the trip and it was SO worth it! Not going to lie, the hike is pretty rough. Extreme incline the whole 2 miles up, and walking back down isn't much easier. You have to be so careful not to gain too much momentum otherwise you'll hurl yourself down the rocky path. Workout: check! Our legs are sore today, which only gives us a better excuse to relax at the beach all day.

We are truly loving living here! It's been SO difficult getting to this point, but we've made it. I've always dreamed of being a travel nurse and I still can't believe it's really happening; I'm living it. The moving, the paperwork, the applications, the documentation, driving thousands of miles away from our closest friends and family... it's all VERY hard, but very worth it. And often the best things in life are also the most difficult. 

I've been reading the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life by Donald Miller per my wonderful friend Kearsten's recommendation. It's fabulous; perfect timing in my life to read it. Will and I have often said, in response to something upsetting or funny or frustrating, "Well, it's just part of the story." It's perfect because this book talks all about creating your own story.  I just had to dog ear these two quotes:

"Here's the truth about telling stories with your life. It's going to sound like a great idea, and you're going to get excited about it, and then when it comes time to do the work, you're not going to want to do it. It's like that with writing books, and it's like that with life. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain.” 
"I found myself wanting even better stories. And that's the thing you realize when you organize your life into the structure of story. You'll get a taste for one story and then want another, and then another, and the stories will build until you're living a kind of epic of risk and reward, and the whole thing will be molding you into the actual character whose roles you've been playing. And once you live in a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time."