We have officially been living in Arizona for a year and a half, and I gotta say, we are just starting to make the desert our home. While Keal was born and raised in Santa Barbara, I migrated from México to Cali for college. We both love California deeply and were lucky enough to call LA our home for over 6 years. This is why it has taken us so long to get used to a different state. We miss the weather terribly, those perfect sunny and breezy days, the hoodie weather, the creative vibes, the trendiness of it all, the housewives! You name it, we miss it.

For those of you who haven’t read my story, we moved to Scottsdale at a point in our lives where we desperately needed a change. I had been freelancing for a little over a year and Keal was fresh off of quitting his job. We traveled for two years and were met at a crossroads… go back to Cali in search for full time jobs, or move to Arizona. The reason we picked this desert state is because Keal’s brother lives here and we are obsessed with my niece and nephew with whom we have great relationships. We wanted to be closer to family and they were the best (and closest) bet.

What we didn’t take into account was that we did not like the state at all. We moved without really knowing anything or anyone. We didn’t think it through that much, we just knew we wanted a change of scenery and went for it.

The heat was something we were not prepared for and everything is, well, brown. Long gone was the west coast ocean, the cool breezes and the ability to walk everywhere. It was a culture shock for us. We went from being able to walk across the street to a Whole Foods, a Bar, a Starbucks, to not being able to walk at all because of the extreme heat. Actually, you don’t see many people walking around outside much and at first, this made me extremely depressed. It wasn’t until recently that I stopped feeling like we made the biggest mistake of our lives.

Since then we have made our peace with it and have decided to just embrace desert living. I mean its trendy right now right? Right? In all honestly it has been a process to change our lifestyle to fit this state, to find our groove and learn a new normal. We’ve made some great friends and met some amazing people. We even bought a townhome and are total homeowners now, something that was lightyears away from us in Los Angeles. So moving here, even as hard as it was, has been good to us.

BTW, sunsets in Arizona are beautiful. They are the perfect shade of pink and orange that makes me stop and just gawk every time. 

Moving to Arizona was not something I envisioned for myself. Actually, these photos were taken at the Saguaro by our house in Downtown Scottsdale, we picked it because it reminded us of LA, funnily enough. Since then I have let go of my need to cling to anything even remotely similar to LA and have just gone with the flow.

This experience has taught me so much and now I think that it so good to get out of your comfort zone, to explore new things and sort of force yourself to think differently and feel differently. Find the beauty in everything and any circumstance. If you find happiness where you are instead of where you want to be then you are golden and even though we miss our old home, we are determined to embrace desert living and call Scottsdale or home… for now.

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Have you ever had trouble adapting to a new place? Share your story with me in the comments below!