Our New Apartment

Here are pictures of Lua's first home-- our new apartment in Santa Cruz.  

The three of us are living in Family Student Housing on UC Santa Cruz property, which means that we are directly on campus and just minutes away from Dan's work at the school.  The apartment is a two-story unit with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, kitchen, study, and balcony.  The balcony is broad (the length of the apartment) and overlooks the Monterrey Bay.  

Our new apartment

If we were to take you on a tour of our apartment, it would be a very short one.  The entire floor plan includes about 1000 square feet of space.  

Once in the front door, you'll notice a set of stairs and a ground floor corridor.

Entering the apartment

The stairs lead to the living room, balcony, and kitchen.  The corridor to the right leads to the bedrooms (our room and Lua's room) and the bathroom.

The first bedroom is Lua's nursery.  It's not quite finished, yet.

Lua's green and white nursery

The second bedroom is ours.  The full-length window (our "headboard") is actually 10 feet off the ground, which gives us a lot of privacy.  The room has a full view of the bay.

Our bedroom

Directly opposite our room is a handy storage area, built into the space below the stairs.

Storage and laundry

And, to the right (at the end of the hall), you'll find the bathroom.  It is a fully-functional, run-of-the-mill, totally average facility.

Yup.  That's a bathroom.

If we want to see the upstairs, we have to backtrack to the front door.

Back to the beginning

This time, we'll go upstairs into the living room.  This is the best room in the house.

Cathedral ceiling, hardwood floors, and lots of light

From here, the balcony is to the left (towards the windows) and the kitchen is to the right.  Like the bathroom, the kitchen is totally functional and acceptable.  At least it has running water!

Yup, that's a kitchen

Finally, we can step out on the balcony to get a view of the bay.

Looking down the hill and over Monterrey Bay

And that's our whole apartment.  Honestly, it's a lovely home in such a lovely place.  I didn't expect to like it so much!

I feel thankful to be living here.  We don't know if we will stay here for the full four years, but, after all of this cleaning and unpacking, we are certainly disinclined to move again.