Hello! Welcome to Beach2Branches. I am excited to share the ups and downs, ins and outs of moving our family from San Diego, California to Washougal, Washington in pursuit of building a custom home on 5 acres in the country. It all started with a trip to Seattle when my husband, Mike, and I fell in love with the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. It was a cold, rainy, November weekend and I loved every minute of it. We started looking at homes for sale in Woodinville (a suburb of Seattle) and dreamed of living in the country with more space and big evergreen trees. This was 6 years ago. Well, our dreams slowly faded as the price of property in Seattle exploded and we could no longer justify a move but the fire was lit. The more we talked about it, the more our extended family started dreaming with us. Zillow is a dangerous thing when you spend hours looking at properties in remote locations and wonder what life would be like if you just went for it. We imagined a life with fewer crowds, less traffic, and a slower pace. We wanted to live somewhere more rural but near a big city where we could easily enjoy great restaurants, concerts, nightlife, shopping, and near an airport.

Over the next 5 years, we talked about it often and wondered if we were crazy? bored? seriously crazy? but there was still that tug to make it a reality. After all, we had lived in San Diego for most of our lives. We owned our home for almost 20 years. Our children were born there, our best friends lived next door, we built a community, and the people in our daily lives were so important to us. It was difficult to explain why we wanted to give all of that up for something so unknown but we kept going back to the idea.

Around this time my dad’s cousin and his family announced they were moving to the Portland area. Steve and Viki are tried and true San Diegans born and raised there and they were going to leave the only place they’ve ever lived. Along with their daughter Sarrah and her husband Tim they sold their homes (in a week) and moved up to Southern Washington (Vancouver/Washougal). For two years, we followed along as they got established in a new place and fell in love with the area. We visited many times and quickly saw the appeal of this beautiful place and were intrigued by the idea of taking our equity from our home in Southern California and building a new life in Southern Washington. Washington has no income tax so this was especially appealing for Mike.

As our discussions ramped up and we thought this might become a reality, we decided it was All or Nothing. My family is very close and all lived within a few miles of each other in SD so we weren’t willing to move unless we were all in. This meant my sister’s family (husband and two girls), my parents, my uncle and his two girls. That’s a lot of people to uproot and take a huge risk!

April 2019 - we visited Steve and Viki with my two kids (Alex 18 and Kendall 16) to make a decision once and for all if this was something we were going to do. It was raining the entire week and I was certain the kids would hate it and want to stay put in our sunny, beach community but they both loved it up here. We drove around different areas and looked at homes. Spring was starting and all the trees and flowers were so beautiful. The rain didn’t hinder our ability to do fun things and we all decided it was a reality we would move…but where exactly. After driving through Vancouver, Camas, and other neighborhoods nearby we came to Washougal. It’s a smaller, more rural town just East of Camas. The roads are tree-lined and the properties are larger. There are farms with cows, horses, sheep, goats, and adorable barns. It’s right on the Columbia River Gorge and directly across the Stateline from Oregon. The Portland airport is a 20-minute drive and it has a very small but adorable downtown area. We all exclaimed, “This is where I want to live!” So it was settled. We were moving!

But wait….it’s not that simple. First of all, Kendall was just finishing her Sophomore year of high school and moving away for her Junior year would be difficult. Second, we’re not moving without the rest of the clan so how are we going to make that work? Third, selling our home of 20 years?!!! Ouch! It was so much easier to just stay put. We had several family meetings with my sister, her husband, and my parents to go over the pros and cons of moving. On one visit with Steve and Viki, we sat at their table and made a list with weighted numbers on reasons we should move and reasons we shouldn’t. It was at that moment we realized we were all ready for a change and as long as we did it together we would make it a good decision. There is a quote from the movie Shakespeare In Love that we live by. “Strangely enough, it all turns out well. It’s a mystery.” What this means to us is that no matter what you do it will work out because you will make it work out. Whatever choice you make it will be the right choice. No one has a crystal ball to predict what the consequence of a choice is, but you do whatever it takes to make it a valuable choice.

We made our decision and we were moving to Washougal. Alex wasn’t a factor in our decision since he would be off to college in Colorado in the Fall but Kendall wasn’t ready to move in the middle of high school and leave all of her friends behind. So, we planned to move when she graduated. This gave us a few years to plan and prepare. Everyone was on board and we were going to take the next two years to move up whenever the timing was best for each family. My parents were ready to move immediately. My sister and I were going to wait. My uncle was ready to go right away too. Then, a property came on the market and it was an opportunity for all of us to build a custom home on 5 acre lots next to each other. We flew up to see it and fell in love. Read more about it on the OUR HOME page.

We bought the property and our plan was in place. We would design our home while still living in SD and would move up to Washougal once Kendall graduated from high school. Then, she decided she was ready to move now. She loved the idea of starting over and making a new life in a new place. She knew that if she didn’t get a chance to live in Washougal and make a life for herself here, she wouldn’t ever feel connected to it. Kendall is a very independent and self-assured teen but as her mom, I was hesitant about what a move like this would do. She made up her mind and wanted to go now. So, we changed our timeline, put our home on the market, sold it in one weekend, I flew up and bought a home for us to live in while we build, and Alex graduated from high school all in a two-week time frame. Yikes! It was a crazy time full of emotions, excitement, and change. My sister and her family also decided the timing was right for them so we all set our sights on moving before the next school year started. On August 2 we drove 6 cars, 3 dogs, and 10 people from California to Washington and never looked back.

Follow along as I share our adventures in moving to a new town, making a community for ourselves, and building our dream home on 5 acres in Washougal, WA. Thanks for joining us!

XOXO, Michelle