Enjoying and Scouting inland San Diego

Our first prospective location: Romana, Julian, Valley Center CA

To see our assessment of the city itself scroll to the bottom.  I can't figure out how to position the photos and they are all kind of big and take up alot of this post, but this is my post for my memories and my kids to read one day so.. Im not sorry there are a ton of pictures, just sad I don't know how to arrange them better... anyway

Regarding our adventures, we spend the first few days of our trip at Dixon Lake in inland San Diego (at the impossible to park campground if you recall from my last post).  We stayed a few days longer than we had originally intended so that we could assess some of the maintenance issues on the RV- but the first day was pretty relaxed.  Josh busted out the swing for the kids and I worked a bit in the trailer. 

View of the town from "up" in Dixon lake- and out little picnic area.

Josh set the swing up for the kids to play.

Here the girls are drawing in the sand "like toothless" from the movie "How to Train your Dragon"

Three Sisters!

Coming down the stairs from the cliff our RV is on

Cheyenne and Charlotte- they love eachother!

She wanted to be called "toothless"- another Train your Dragon reference.

View of the RV on the cliff... it was unnerving and we bought an H shaped brake that goes between the two axel tires- I felt much better after that!

Our good friend Bill Lewis, whom Josh met on craigslist over 8 years ago, came to say goodbye (and collect a decorative elephant he gave us years ago when he moved from San Clemente).  He and his wife live in Temecula- which we had scouted out prior to buying the RV along with Murrietta, Lake Elsinore and Wildomar

Didnt take a pic the day he came to say goodbye but here is proof we have known him pre-kids (even pre foster kids).  Circa 2007.  Deaf and signing friends mixed with 2 silly guys!

The elephant he came to collect- we packed it in the RV with us.  Glad he was able to get it as it sure did take up alot of room in our "tiny home"

We decided to go to SD because we wanted to go to the Wild Animal Park one last time, and do Julian apple picking which our little family tradition.  Luckily we were able to do both with one of my parents.  My mom came down Friday night so she could “stay the night” and go with us to the Wild Animal Park on Saturday.  It was nice to have my mom come down and kind of help us serenade the RV.  Here are some pictures from the park day- it was HOT

At the Bird Show

Precious moment at the Bird Show

Cooling off in the mist of the waterfall- it was HOT

All of us together- except Cheyenne... she was taking the picture (j/k)

At Savannahs favorite thing- Lorikeet Landing, where you feed the birds nectar and they eat out of your hand, nibble your ears etc.

Taking a selfie with a Lorikeet

Not so sure about those bitey birds.  PS- this is Levi, yes I know he needs a haircut, just not really sure how to do it.  Give me some youtube resarch time people!

Such a cool view from the tram.  We also got to see the "Cheetah run" which is when the trainers pull a toy down a long golfcourse type track at 60 mph and have the Cheetah chase it.  Well this time the Cheetah caught it, which apparently isn't "suppose to" happen.   It was interesting watching them use the cheetahs best friend huge dog to lure it back into its cage.

Black Rhino- one of 4 left in the world.  So sad, Savannah was seriously concerned.  It is the only female so we were told and they are attempting to cross breed it in hopes of revitalizing the species.

Look close- the the right is the male lion, in the middle are two females, one is belly up!

I love this girl!

And so does her daddy!

The next morning my mom left and that was really hard on all of us.  I keep telling myself she will come visit wherever we end up but the fact that I won’t really be able to visit her (because of the kids) was tough on me.  It was especially hard because she moved down to California to be closer to us, and this whole idea of “finding a new state” only came onto our radar after our 3^rd baby was born and after she moved down.  The guilt of that was hard, but we made the decision over a year ago so I *should* have been a little more prepared.  I still struggle with it.

That same morning (Sunday) my dad met up with us to go Julian Apple picking- which ended up being pear picking.  It rained.  Its funny how nobody goes out in California when it rains.  We decided to do it anyway since we were potentially moving to places where we better get us to it (Oregon, Washington, North Carolina, Florida etc)

And we are off to a good start- found a wagon, PopPop on duty and Levi happy to eat the first Pear

The girls picked some but dad found the best ones up high.  We quickly learned that if one fruit from the tree wasn't sweet- none were.  And so we stuck with trees that had sweet ones!

It didn't really rain much while we were there- sprinkled a little.  One time we all had to hid under a tree together- but only for a few minutes.  I got the umbrella due to having Cheyenne with me.  Dad was the picker and I was glad!

Al chowing down on some Julian Pears!  All you can eat while picking... these kids are fruit-a-holics so this was heaven to them.

Levi never left the wagon- he was happy to get whatever his big sister would bring him, and hold onto the bag for us.

Had to give her my little princess (no teeth so I wasn't worried)

Savannah found one she couldnt reach so asked for a little help

The picking place gave Charlotte an umbrella to use while we were there... she felt pretty special!

Now it was Charlotte turn to ask for help in finding that "perfect one" up high that only the reacher could get.

This is my favorite pic of the day... the "we are done" picture.  Savannah with me telling me stories about all the sweet ones on the sweet trees and life lessons related to that.  Charlotte right behind her.  Dad pulling Levi

 While driving around in SD we really like the Romona and Julian areas.  We decided that every city we go to, even if it wasn’t originally on our list of places to consider, that we should look at trulia, Zillow, realtor.com, area vibe, citi data, indeed and tripadvisor.  So we did that for Romona and here is what we came up with:

AreaVibe Livability Rating: 74

(we are “hoping” for something around 80)

 

Crime:

Violent Crime 517/100K

(we are looking for under 300/100K)

Local Family Amenities:

Wild Animal Park, (tripadvisors main to-do is wineries- not real family friendly)

We LOVE the idea of a yearly membership somewhere like the Wild Animal Park within an hour or two of where we live, but this area is kind of remote and we would have to go into neighboring cities to find more family activites- at least 5 family activities in town is what we want- as simple as a cute ice cream shop, a bowling alley, a childrens museum, a local park etc.)

Cost for a duplex (what we are hoping to get first):

Didn’t find any at the time that were for sale in the actual city, but nearby they were about $350K+  and the cheaper ones were in higher crime areas

(For this type of property we aren’t really interested in mobile homes or land, but established property – either a duplex or a triplex with at least 2 bedrooms, preferably 3 in the unit we would live in.  Our budget here can be extended out a bit since rental income can count toward the requirement but $350K would be pushing what we would feel comfortable with- and if that’s the low end in this area we are in trouble. )

Cost for a 4 bedroom home on at least 2 acres (what we will be looking for when we get into a duplex):

$650K was the cheapest we found

(We might be able to swing more once we are in and out of the duplex a year down the road but knowing that there are MANY homes in $250-$350K range is what we are looking for- this is just super overpriced for us)

Economy:

Most popular type of job= Construction, Income bracket for senior accounting jobs- they have a few

(Comparable to what Josh was making but not enough to afford a $650K home. )

Weather:

 

(a bit hot in the summer- but AC would make that livable.   Much dryer than we were hoping for- we want to have a mini farm or at least a garden).

Closest Airport:

SD Airport

(reasonable distance!)

Closest Community College: 

Palomar CC in Escondido- 30 minutes away

(reasonable distance!)

Closest major city:

San Diego- 36 miles

(So much Beauty and things to do in this city- Id be very happy to be in a suburb of SD)

Other things we are considering for the property itself:

Nearest high tension power lines, nearest dump, nearest prison, types of pests/bugs, size of town, amounts of families in the town, good churchs, political vive, homeschooling flexibility, vaccination laws, rental restrictions (weekly, monthly etc).  All of which we look up in ever area

Problems with the area (for us): 

There were a lot of above factors that didn’t quite fit into our parameters enough to really investigate the town further and actually go look at homes- mainly the remoteness and the price of “forever” homes.

So that area- though desirable- is likely out for us. We did do similiar stats for the neighboring cities but in general I knew the landscaping wasn't really what Josh was after for the price.

We made Monday Oct 5^th our last day.  My dad came out again and we all went into town to see if we could get the fresh water tank plastic welded.  

They were closed so we all went to a great little Italian restaurant my dad recommended called Mamas and Papas.   

 

I often wish I had a camera right on my temple- so many precious moments that would have been ruined if I would have busted out a camera; my dad holding the baby, playing with the girls (spiderwed in hand), carrying them.  He is their PopPop and we all miss him dearly.  He was even harder to say goodbye to because, unlike my mom, he likely won’t be able to visit us, and it’ll be years until I can visit him either.  The girls were especially sad not to be able to see and say goodbye to Uncle Bradley and Aunt Madeline (my ½ brother and sister).  We had so many goodbyes in just a few days that maybe it was for the best.  One last special family came to wish us luck on our journey- our good friend Mike and Rachel Conran- who live on an 8 acre avocado farm not far from where we were staying in a city called Valley Center.  They are like second grandparents to our kids and have always been so generous and thoughtful of us all.  This decision was very tough but they, especially, realized that we had to do what felt right for us at the time and encouraged us to consider our childrens future over our own present.  Here is a picture of Mike holding Savannah when she was just hours old- they visited us in the hospital to welcome our little “Michael” or “Michelle”- Rachel hosted my baby shower for Savannah.  If I did the whole Godparent thing, that would be these guys.

While I was packing up I came across these masterpieces created by Savannah- oh what this trip must be like through the mind of a child- this is my glimpse

Moving to ????  somewhere with sunshine and clouds via a trailer!  Nice!

She drew this when we were on the CA AZ border and we purchased the trailer.   How precious a gift to find it now.  Oh what this who adventure must look like through the eyes of a child. 

I am not a good blogger with picture- I have no idea how to get them to fit better in this blogspot thing or how to rotate.  But you get the cuteness.  This was when we went into Lake Havasu where we bought the RV.  I had all 4 kiddos in there alone playing motorboat and COULD since it was shallow without waves or dangers of animals.