back to california!

just over a year has passed since we left our home in pasadena. today we travel back for a short visit! i thought it might be fun to blog while we are here. if anyone is still reading, i hope you enjoy!!

#2 negative - smog

august will be the last month of the sky is big in pasadena.  

i have accepted a position at salford mennonite church in harleysville, pennsylvania.  we will be moving in september, so august will be my farewell month to the city of pasadena.  when we moved here from virginia i posted a list of the ten things i would miss most about harrisonburg.  i figured that would be a good way to end our time here, so each day i will be doing one final rundown of life in this great city.  i have prepared two lists - ten things i won't be sad to leave behind, and twenty of my absolute favorite things about pasadena.  i am going to start with ten positives and ten negatives, alternating back and forth each day.  concluding with my top ten things about life in pasadena.

#2 negative - smog
 

while it might make for a beautiful skyline, the pollution hanging in the air above pasadena is really pretty terrible.  i hear it is much better than it was even a few decades ago - and all i have to say to that is i am surprised people were willing to live in that.  when we moved here four years ago i had very mild seasonal allergies (almost none in fact).  after a year of living here i had to take off the shelf allergy medication to make it through certain seasons.  by the end of the second year i was taking those pills almost every day.  by year three i finally got a prescription product, and now in year four i can already feel that starting to lose its effect.  

simply put, there is just a lot of garbage in our air here.  this article ranks los angeles county as the second worst place to live in the usa based on air quality (second to bakersfield, ca...  wow).  needless to say, we won't miss this - especially as parents of a young child.  it is time to get her some cleaner air.

it's my air-o-plane

did anyone else at the rose parade sense a theme (beyond the official theme of "a cut above the rest")? i noticed that at least three floats in the parade had planes flying off the front. i really like the design, but don't these float makers get together to make sure they aren't doing the same thing?

northwest pasadena from an airplane

you can make out the 210 as it snakes north, as well as the golf course at the rose bowl and parts of la canada flintridge.