I don’t often end a month and think, “what a great month that was!” but August was just that! I am so happy with the way the Summer ended and the Fall semester began. It wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely positive! So, what were some of the highlights of August?

Trip to Monterey, Mission San Juan Bautista and Stanford

We had a quick, but full weekend trip at the beginning of the month. We drove down to Monterey on Saturday morning and did a campus tour at CSU Monterey Bay. The campus is beautiful. Not much was open because it was a Saturday, but we saw the student union, part of the library, their new classroom building, first-year dorm rooms, and some turkeys meandering across campus! It felt like a place my daughter would thrive and she seems excited about the prospect, so that was a plus.

We stayed the first night nearby in San Juan Bautista. I had not been to this Mission before and the city and our hotel was so cute! We had dinner at Jardine’s, walked around town and saw a lot of old buildings, old cars and the Mission and then headed back to the hotel for the night.

The next morning, we headed back to Monterey for my daughter’s favorite place on earth, the Monterey Bay Aquarium! I think her real draw to CSU Monterey Bay may have been the tour guide’s comment that many students will intern at the aquarium and EVERY student gets a free ticket to the aquarium every year!

We finished up at the Aquarium pretty early, so we headed out to drive the 17-mile Drive and although we got turned around and never made it to the other end, we did have a nice stop at Pebble Beach and enjoyed the little museum and the seats overlooking the course and ocean.

We then drove all the way up the coast to Half Moon Bay and cut over to drive to our hotel in Stanford for the second night. It was a beautiful drive, but I didn’t get any photos. The next morning we had to be at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital bright and early for a heart cath that had been postponed a few weeks before. It went well and all looks to be stable in her heart!

Train Trip to Bakersfield

This was another quick weekend. We took the Amtrak bus to Stockton and then hopped on the train to Bakersfield. Our plan was to go down, spend a couple of days, and then drive my in-laws’ car back up for my father-in-law to have when he got back from Montana with my husband.

We had a fun visit with historical tours of my mother-in-law’s hometown and a visit to their library for a booksigning and a ton of good food!

First day of Senior Year!

Fun with Friends

We did dinners at friends’ houses and went to a concert! I don’t have photos from all of the visits, but here’s a few highlights.

Fall Semester First Classes

All went well with them! I’m actually really looking forward to this semester. It is so nice to NOT have classes four days a week (only three this semester and one of those it is only a 5-6:15 pm class). Last semester, I taught Monday through Thursday at 8 am and that was ROUGH. Never again for that.

Home prep for Cozy Season

I moved a few things around and created a little reading corner and I got a new vacuum! I am also in the process of decluttering a lot of areas – my linen closet, my bookshelves, my kitchen cabinets. I even baked some banana bread – with LOTS of chocolate chips. I guess it is a Fall Cleaning instead of Spring Cleaning for me. Getting ready for cozy season!

A good book

I have not read as much this month as I would have liked – but it was BUSY! I am finishing up this book today:

and will be jumping right into reading August’s BOTM club’s book:

And Coffee and Spritzers…of course!

I had a Little Pink Grapefruit at my friend’s house, I had two Dirty Gurl strawberry vodka drinks at the concert (no photos – totally forgot), and last night for a dinner party, I made End of Summer Spritzers. So many fun drinks in the month of August! And of course, it is Pumpkin Spice Latte month!