I Feel Home When I See Faces That Remember My Own

I'm always a bit sad to see Labor Day weekend arrive since it means saying goodbye to summer. Summer and I really love each other and yet it passes too fast and I never do all the things I said I was going to do and I end up feeling vaguely unsatisfied for most of the weekend.

However, this summer was pretty alright. Races and hikes and trips and fun visitors and plenty of flirting-I am pretty pleased with what summer 2010 brought. Corey had talked me into topping it off with a quick weekend trip to California to hang out in some beach houses our friend Carin was organizing.

I flew into LAX and as soon as Corey and Eliza picked me up we started laughing and pretty didn't stop until I left on Tuesday.

I will spare you the travelogue especially since I posted plenty of silly photos and obnoxious inside joke status updates on Facebook but the trip was pretty fabulous. It was great to catch up with a lot of old friends and to make some new ones. We went four wheeling and saw Hearst Castle and ate good food and I finally FINALLY went on a vacation where I got to dance as much as my little heart wanted. I faced my kareoke fears and got to sing Journey at the top of my lungs. I overdosed on single mormon friends which I don't really have much of here in the Springs. I have said this before and I will say it again-I am ridiculously and embarrassingly spoiled when it comes to the quantity and quality of good people in my life.

Maybe the best part of the trip however was getting a little bit of time in my beloved Huntington Beach. It is not the prettiest beach in Orange County and the city itself is a bit sleepy but I am just crazy in love with that place. My intention all those eight years ago when I packed up my car and drove out to California was to be an LA girl. But the minute I walked into the chapel in HB to go to church with my friend Racie, I felt like I was home home home. Those first six months were rough as I faced the reality of my first adult move away from home without the safety net of college or a mission. I spent many nights in my bedroom on Brookhurst and Hamilton wondering what on earth I had been thinking. I trained for the marathon that helped pull me out of my homesickness in that town. I rebuilt a network of friends, I advanced in my job. I made a scary decision there to leave and start over again in Boston and when I came back two years later, HB was a place to relax and breathe after a stressful East Coast experience.

I know Colorado is the right place for me now and as I'm creeping up on my year anniversary in this place (cheesy blog post on it's way folks), I am the happiest I have been in a long, long time. But Huntington Beach will always make me a little wistful for days when a bike was the best way to get to the pier and sand was the best thing to run on and the sound of ocean waves out my window was the best natural white noise machine. I may be in an adult relationship with Colorado now but it will always feel like a teenage fantasy that HB was my first.