Summer vacation has come to an end.

Well, the littles are back in school. They started on Wednesday last week. Emma goes back to North Carolina in two days, Zach's week of leave is over tomorrow morning, and I start classes again in eight days. Yep, summer vacation is at an end.

In the month since I've last posted, we've gone exploring a bit, we've gotten the two kids involved in scouts, and we passed the six month anniversary of losing Hannah. We've gone camping in the redwood forests, we drove through California's famous wine country, we went whale watching, and tomorrow I'm going to spend time with Emma poking around Carmel-by-the-Sea.

One of our more minor adventures was a brief trip a little more than an hour south of here on the Pacific Coast Highway. If you've ever seen a movie or TV scene in which someone is driving a convertible down a two-lane highway on the cliffs bordering the ocean... That's the PCH, California 1. The scenery on that road is amazing, so it's easy to understand why it gets used so often. We went to go visit a narrow, forty-foot tall waterfall. It isn't a natural fall, it was created because of underground pipes following some cliff erosion, creating the fall and a small beach underneath it. You can't go down to the beach, but it is really pretty to look at.

Cub scouts. A good friend of ours runs a small pack nearby, and his daughter is besties with Taylor, so we've sort of aligned ourselves with the pack, signing Taylor up as an official scout, Connor unofficially (he wants to do all the things without actually joining), and Zach has signed up as assistant pack leader. We've been two two pack events so far, and Zach will start planning every other event as we move forward. It's nice to have a social life that involves the kids, and with people we really enjoy getting to know. Our first event we went to was all about fire safety and making smores. The kids loved it.

We spent a weekend on our second camping trip of the summer. We went north about six hours and stayed two nights among the redwoods. Literally, our campsite was nestled among several of them. We drove the Avenue of the Giants, went swimming in the south fork of the Eel River, visited Ferndale (a really cute Victorian town), and enjoyed the slower life that comes with sleeping in the woods.

The day after we got home from the forest, we went whale watching with Blue Ocean Whale Watching out of Moss Landing. Wow, what an amazing experience. I can't wait to go again. We were on the boat for just about four hours, and we spent a great deal of it watching humpback whales and sea lions feeding near the surface. It was totally surreal, because we were surrounded by a fog bank. Couldn't see much past a certain point, and definitely couldn't see the shore, so I'm not sure how far out we actually made it. There was something freeing about being out on the waves, even if it was cold. And watching the whales breach to feed was incredible. Right before we turned around to head back, one of the larger whales swam right under our boat. An amazing finale, for sure.

It's still hard making memories and hitting milestones without Hannah. I had a dream about her today, and then this evening while we were out for frozen yogurt, I saw a girl who (in profile) looked like she could have been Hannah's doppelganger. We've hit six months, so half of the annual firsts without her are behind me. It's the coming half I worry about, though. She was an autumn girl, all the way. She loved fall, and pretty sweaters. She was obsessed with Halloween and all things spooky. Her birthday is a week before Christmas, and then there is Christmas itself. Learning to live with missing her is the hardest chronic thing I have ever experienced. But I'm getting there. I start classes again in a week, and keeping busy should help. It will hurt sending Emma home early Tuesday morning, because I will once again be without either of my older two girls in my home. I'll miss Emma very much until I see her again.

I am excited to start classes again. I've discovered that when I use Hannah's camera, I dislike using presets and I'm not overly fond of priority modes, either. I definitely prefer being in fully manual mode. I bought myself a new lens, and I'm eyeing a film camera. I'm taking a film black and white class this fall, and I'm definitely interested in taking the second level course in the spring, so having my own instead of using the school-provided cameras would be great.

I'm learning to enjoy things again. It's a slow process, but it isn't without it's small victories. I love using the camera, and I can see buying myself a bunch of accessories and additional cameras in the future. I get excited about unique opportunities. Not a lot, but at least a little. I'm making progress.

I miss the east coast. I miss the familiarity I have there. I miss the happiness I felt last Christmas, the enjoyment I took from the changes in weather, the east coast beach trips, the people, and the lower cost of living. California is beautiful, but it isn't home.