Sean Flinn

For this week’s visit out to the new home site, we decided to try something new: riding our bicycles from our current place to the new one. Dad Flinn, an avid cyclist, opted to join us. Total mileage, round trip, was to work out to ~21 miles (with a nice break for pictures and lunch at the halfway mark).

Fortunately, Orange County has some wonderful biking trails near our neck of the woods. My plan was to have us ride along the back side of the Upper Newport Bay ecological preserve, then catch the head of the San Diego Creek Trail, which runs from the bay all the way out to the mountains in the east. This would take us through parts of Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, Irvine and Tustin — a nice little Tour de Orange County.

So, with the weather stuck firmly in “May gray” mode — overcast and cool, perfect for biking, we slapped on our helmets and set out.

I will truly miss having the bay so close to our home (which made it a great place for biking and running) — but now I know it’s an easy bike ride away, at least.

Sadly, our riding plans were scuttled at the halfway mark. Dad somehow broke his bike’s chain just as we were riding up to the new neighborhood, necessitating a rescue mission by our good friends (and soon-to-be neighbors) John and Alicia. At least we made it to the house before the mishap, which meant that we were still able to show Dad the home site and take some new pics.

Dad & Katie pose in front of the house. They’ve now covered the front in pre-stucco paper, a step forward from the yellow moisture guard.

We now have actual windows on all three floors.

Sheetrock has started going up in the stairwells … there are giant stacks of the stuff in each room now, so we imagine this phase will start moving along quickly as well.

After we recovered from the bicycle mishap, we hauled ourselves over to downtown Tustin for a late lunch and a beer at the Tustin Brewing Co, as part of our “try a new restaurant in the new neighborhood every Sunday” plan. Good marks on their IPA.