Remember when I wrote about how I kept a kind of free-form travel diary when I lived in London during college? And how my #AlamoDriveHappy resolution was to start a travel diary for each of my kids, so that they could learn how to travel consciously, and have their own reminders of where in the world they’ve been?

I improved on it a little.

Before we left for California I bought a journal to start for my son, but then when we sat down together to paste in things we’d gathered over the first couple of days, I realized that this moment in our lives isn’t exactly about “what I’m experiencing” or “what Indy is experiencing.” It’s about what we’re experiencing all together, as a family, and that’s what I want to use this journal to commemorate: our spring and summer of us, when we leave the life we had for a whole new one, and everything that happens in between.

Off to California today! Indy's coming with me, because I thought it would be fun for him (airplanes, warm-weather playgrounds, beaucoup sushi, etc) and much less fun for Goldie, who is generally the easiest baby ever but who is possibly slightly less easy when jet-lagged; I don't know, but I decided that a heavily-itineraried trip would not be the best time to experiment. (She's staying home with an on-spring-break Kendrick, who will be the recipient of ten thousand photos of kitchens and living rooms from all across the South Bay area over the next five days.)

First up: a couple of days in San Francisco with Morgan, and then it's off to San Jose (which is sort of the nexus of all the areas we're looking at) to spend a few days looking at houses. I think. The "I think" is because every house that I have found over the past week on various home-search engines that I don't hate turns out to be sold already. Oh my god, there was this one house I came across - it was SUCH A DREAM (we're talking soaring windows, unbelievable kitchen, amazing school system, skylit family room, views views views and a CHICKEN COOP, which is obviously the best thing I can possibly imagine) that I called my broker in a panic and said "put an offer on it! Sight unseen! I don't care!" Her reply? "…It sold for tens of thousands of dollars over the asking price. In about 24 hours."

Greeeat.

The "hot market" that we're experiencing at present, it appears, is quite wonderful when you are the one selling your house and perhaps slightly less wonderful when you are the one looking for somewhere to live.

This photo has nothing to do with anything other than that it's baby-related, and the easiest DIY in the world (just a dreamcatcher, basically, except turned on its side), and I totally wish I had made one for our daughter's crib (not making one at this particular point in time; I have the feeling that delicate webs dripping with feathers might not travel especially well, and we have some serious traveling happening this summer).

Anyway, babies.

Spring!