Call April Hay
http://www.greatmissionviejohomes.com/
http://www.socdreamhomes.com/
We've lived in one of two Mission Viejo homes for 25 years and have raised three wonderful boys here. Mikie is a senior at Mission Viejo High now, so we decided to make a college road trip up the coast of California to tour all the UC campuses where he had been accepted. We invited our oldest son, Steve, who was visiting from D.C., and his wife, Caren; our youngest son, Mark, also came with us. To transport all six of us, we rented a big black Chevy Suburban.
Mission Viejo to Sacramento was the first leg of our long road trip. Up the I-5, we munched on trail mix and apples for about 6 hours until we arrived at a nondescript two-star motel . Bad beds. The next day, we toured the UC Davis Campus and then drove to the charming little town of Davis where we ate fish and chips at a greasy little dive. The homes in the central part of town were not like Mission Viejo homes, they were older, some built in the 1920s with a Queen Anne influence. Other homes were boxy and had large flat roofs. On and off campus, thousands of bicycles were neatly parked by every building, as most students get to classes via bike. Davis was a nice place, despite the fact that a student had been arrested a few weeks earlier for building a pipe bomb in his dorm room. Only freshmen get housing, so he must have been a freshman. Kids do dumb things sometimes.
In the early evening, we continued our trek, finding another two-star in Berkeley. This one looked depressing from the outside--very grayed with freeway dust. However, the motel was doing some experimental remodeling in one of the rooms and offered that room to four of us. At my Mission Viejo home, I recently painted the downstairs light yellow, which I thought was a bit bright and daring. Well, this room really gave us a sample of the avant garde. Our room was bright turquoise with IKEA-like furnishings and imitation brown wood floors and a bright Orange shag rug between the beds. Above the two queen beds were two giant panel photographs that captured an image of the sign at Mel's Diner. The counter in the also-turquoise bathroom was a multi-level slab with an inlaid vinyl print of bright party colors. The bedspreads were turquoise and brown striped. The room had a very nice flat screen TV. Staying in this room was good in that everything was brand new and clean, and the bed was great. The decor was like nothing I've ever seen in Mission Viejo homes before, but it made me laugh, which was good.
Our tour of UC Berkeley was a real treat. The guide was smart and knowledgeable. The campus was phenomenal. I was in awe. This was the only school my son had not received a decision from yet, so I was hesitant to build up his hopes or show how impressed I was with it. I didn't want him to feel like we would be disappointed if he didn't get accepted. So we all kept our excitement under wraps. Mission Viejo homes in our area send the kids to Mission Viejo High School. The outstanding IB program and AP classes there really enabled my son to apply to good colleges. The high school was the main reason we chose the Mission Viejo homes that we did.
That afternoon we drove to San Francisco and did some very quick sightseeing before going to our aunts home in Sunnyvale for a Hungarian Dinner that she cooked for all of us. She is a very smart and very nice Hungarian woman who worked for Intel for many years It was a delicious dinner! We spent the night at a two-and-a-half star in Sunnyvale. The next day, we drove around UC. Santa Cruz. The rustic campus didn't quite suit us, so we skipped the tour and headed for Pismo Beach.
As we were driving up to the very nice Lighthouse Suites hotel in Pismo, Caren tapped me on the shoulder and handed me her I-phone. It had a message that Mikie had been accepted at Berkeley! We all cheered and decided to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant and share a bottle of Champagne. It was a happy evening.
The next day we drove to the beach and rented 4-wheel ATVs to ride on the sand dunes. This is a favorite family activity whenever we go to Pismo. We had a blast and spent a couple of hours zipping up and down the dunes. That night we had dinner at the Cracked Crab, another favorite place. They throw a whole bucket of crab and shrimp on the table and give you all sorts of implements to pry open the crabs. Yum!
The next day we headed back to our Mission Viejo home, a bit tired and sore from the ATVs, but happy nonetheless that we had not only seen some of the UC campuses, but that we had spent several days together with all three of our boys.
If you are interested in finding out more about buying Mission Viejo homes,
please call April Hay today.
http://www.greatmissionviejohomes.com/
