Emily and Mitchell in the USA

We did a bunch of small things this week!  On Tuesdays during the summer, the little town centre area near us does live music, so a group of us went to go and check it out. It was very busy and lots of people had brought their own chairs to be able to get a seat up front. It was fun and we sat at the back chatting and seeing some people we hadn't seen in a while which was nice.  Afterwards, we all went for taco tuesday at a cafe in Downtown. It was called Taco Station and was decorated just like an retro gas station. The tacos were good and we had one filled with potatoes.  On Wednesday I went for another hike with Stephie. This time we went to crystal cove to do a beach side hike. We arrived in the morning and parked up in the sandy car park. We took the hiking trail which straight away had some amazing views of the sea. There were still lots and lots of wildflowers around too which was nice to see in the middle of summer.  Along the trail we also saw several long s...

Summer is officially in full swing, and to start the week off, we hosted a barbeque in our apartment. We tried to use the grill by the pool, but being 4th July and a hot day, it was already full of families and kids, so we set up a disposable barbeque on our balcony and invited everyone over. We'd made some sides and bought some veggie sausages, and other people brought meat, drinks and desserts. We started about 4pm when it was starting to get a bit cooler and we could spend time on the balcony and not melt in the sun. It was lots of fun and very busy! Once the sun started to go down, we drove over to mount Rubidoux to watch the 4th July fireworks! It was very hectic driving and luckily we were able to park in a friend's driveway, I'm not sure we would have been able to find a space otherwise!  They were fun, but not as impressive as the ones we'd seen at the baseball game last week. It was only here we remembered we'd not taken any pictures of the day, so we took ...

  This week has been so hot and sunny (finally) so I've been making the most of it and getting out and about before I start working again.  On Tuesday, after dropping Mitchell off at work I went for a quick hike up mount Rubidoux which I haven't done in a while. It's only 3 miles round trip, but it's a lovely view of the city below and at this time of year you need to start early in the day. It's summer for schools, so it was busy, but quite nice to see so many people out and about in the outdoors.  On Wednesday, I went for a meet up event to go and see the local grove of coastal redwoods. It's in an inland park and they're not as big as you'll find up north, but it was still very nice to see in the evening light. Unfortunately, the organiser of the event wasn't very organised, so almost no one was able to find the right starting point (or even the right park) but I had the number of another girl from previous events, so we found each other and had a...

This week I was suffering with a little cold for most of it, so our week was pretty quiet. Mitchell did go and meet his improv group for a meal on Tuesday though which was nice.  On Friday we almost went to go and watch a baseball game, but decided to do it next weekend instead, so we met the international group for a quick drink instead.  On Saturday, we had a little date lunch with iced tea and salad, finished off with a doughnut and a s'mores flavoured cupcake.  In the afternoon, we picked up Pam and went to watch Klaudia's roller derby match. We'd not seen roller derby before, but it's two teams on roller skates, and the star player of each team has to get around the track as many times as possible, while the other team tries as hard as they can to stop her. It's pretty intense and we saw lots and lots of players fall over, and two leave the field with ice packs, not to return.  It was two hours, and by the end Mitchell was really getting into it. He's decid...