Sunday, January 12, 2020

Celebrating our 1st year in Half Moon Bay

Celebrating our 1st year in Half Moon Bay

Cynthia and Vanessa

Before we moved to Half Moon Bay last December, we had not actually spent one night in HMB. So it was a calculated risk when we decided to buy a house here. But … we like it even better than I was expecting. Clean air and friendly new neighbors. Easy living by the beach with a short drive to the bank, stores, yoga, and the library. Joshua, whom we worried about the most, has made some good friends for video gaming and hanging out.

 

Some downsides: power outages (3 days total), less diversity, and that drive over highway 92. I will probably get a new electric car because my old Leaf isn’t great on the winding roads, especially if it’s foggy and dark.

 


Some highlights 

  • Getting out of my stabilizing boot after breaking my left foot. The good news: I'm now evened out after I broke my right foot 3 years ago!
  • Being an Impact Coach for a Techwomen team from Zimbabwe, who won a coveted grant from the US State Department to fund their social action project to help disabled girls learn STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) in their country.
  • Going to the Out & Equal Summit in DC for the first time and getting to meet Oracle Pride Employee Network (OPEN) coworkers from around the world.
  • Finding out that I'm not 100% Han Chinese with a decent percentage of Dai Chinese (a minority mainly in Yunnan) and Vietnamese. 
  • Working on a yet to be finished children's book on Women and the Vote for a book packager.
Joshua
Joshua in Osaka with classmates

Joshua is a senior in high school, doing his high school requirements at Foothill College and enjoying it. He's also organizing Smash Bros tournaments, his favorite video game, at our wonderful (and new) Half Moon Bay library. Peter and I got practice at being empty nesters when he spent 3 months in Osaka, Japan as a high school exchange student. We'll have to visit Japan some time to test his new language skills. He plans on continuing at Foothill and then transferring to a California university though he may try a stint at the coding school Silicon Valley 42.

Vanessa

Vanessa is now Chief Operating Officer at Maxable (https://maxablespace.com/), a California startup that focuses on providing homeowners the education and resources needed in building an ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit). She spends most of her time working remote from Guadalajara, Mexico, but still travels a lot for both work and leisure. Outside of work, her greatest news is that she recently invested in a one unit of a duplex in the historical district of downtown Guadalajara. She hopes to build a community towards co-housing eventually and is excited to get her hands  into homeownership and plans to renovate in early spring. She’s still playing music and learning languages and hopes that once things settle down in the summer that she can return to producing an album once a year.


Peter
Josh, Cynthia, Peter and friend Hayden in Santa Barbara

Peter is doing well, but had a few minor health complications from cracked ribs to his continued battle with sleep apnea. He enjoys collecting and cooking local seaweed and being the family historian by taking lots of video and photos. 
Seaweed soup!
 




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