Update Part 1: The apartment and the weather

Well, I guess it's high time for me to give an update on our family. We finally got our internet up and working more than a week ago (after several frustrating delays by the service company which shall remain unnamed), but I haven't really been in the mood to blog. I think I kind of got out of the habit after not having the internet for so long, and we've just been busy having fun doing so many other things. I'll try my best to recap all that we've been doing! There is just way to much to write all in one night, though, so we'll do this in parts, ok?

We completely love our new apartment. It is much bigger than our last apartment, with a spacious living room, a huge kitchen, and enormous bedrooms (these terms are all relative, but to us the rooms feel big!). Kimball has a bigger bedroom all to himself than either Jordan or I had growing up. I love it because we can keep all of his toys and books in his room, instead of having them spill out into our living room. When we first moved in, I felt like everywhere I looked was more storage space. First a huge walk-in storage closet. Then a coat closet. Then a pantry. Then a huge sliding closet in the dining room with built-in shelves. Same size closets with shelves in each bedroom. Lots of kitchen cupboards. More built-in shelves in the living room. It's so great! And best of all, there is a space for each and every one of Jordan's books. If you are still wondering how many he has, we think it's around the upper 2,000's. Luckily, Jordan also has an office at school (currently all to himself), so many of his books are making their home there now. I like that there is a lot of space in our home and that every single spot doesn't have to be utilized to store something.

Also, it has a large sliding back door and other windows that let in so much natural light that we hardly have to turn on any lights during the day. Yet, there isn't any direct sunlight that comes in due to our north-south exposure and the huge trees all around, so the apartment is always comfortable, instead of baking like our Provo place. This is good, since there isn't even a cooling unit in the apartment. I love opening all the windows during the day and having the near-constant sea breeze blowing through the house, hearing the windchimes, and just feeling so peaceful. The surrounding area is made up of apartments just like ours, and there are lots of toys out on the lawn that Kimball likes to help himself to. Just a few feet away is our laundry facility, complete with several clothes lines that are exposed to the direct sun. We like to line-dry our laundry, but I found that the clothes must come down before the sun goes down, or else the air gets so humid that the clothes get damp all over again!

Speaking of humidity, it really isn't bad at all. It's just about perfect, really, because my skin doesn't feel so dry, but it's not sticky at the same time. Often in the mornings there is a lot of fog and cloud cover, which retreats towards the ocean by noon. Sometimes the beach is sunny, other times the cloud cover never quite makes it past the shore. The temperature has been a little quirky; when we moved in, it was quite chilly, but the next week was what people were calling a "heat wave", though I don't think it ever got above the mid-80s. However, I heard that it was over 100 degrees inland. We are much cooler here by the coast.  I have also heard several times that September and October, and parts of November are the hottest months around here. I think that regardless of the month, it will always be comfortable, and jacket-weather at the coldest. Basically, it's perfect!

More to come later. Here is a funny video of Kimball just being cute.