Today is the anniversary of the day my family moved to San Diego from Pittsburgh in 1984. We left below-zero weather and arrived 5 hours later to a Santa Ana SD day. It was like a dream. It was so bright out! We roamed the neighborhood and marveled at the weird trees. +

We were renting a 1970s split level house that had lemon trees in the back yard. The grass needed sprinklers. There was so much sunlight, so little shade. Our stuff hadn't arrived yet, so we went out to a Chinese restaurant and I feel asleep at the dinner table from jet lag. +

The next day, we drove to La Jolla Shores. My sisters and I jumped in the ocean in our clothes. People looked at us like we were out of our minds, jumping in that freezing water. We didn't understand why no one was at the beach. It was 70 degrees out! Where was everyone?!?

Monday came and we didn't have school because it was MLK day, a holiday we didn't have in PA. Tuesday, I went to school in a bungalow classroom and ate in a "lunch arbor." I was dressed all wrong. Everyone was wearing jelly shoes, which I'd never heard of and thought were ugly. +

I'm still in touch with and see the friends I made that day. I'm still in awe of San Diego sometimes. The ocean is waaaay too cold to swim in in January, but it's so (!) beautiful! And my native San Diegan kids take it all for granted somehow. They don't even like the beach.