Last year when we moved into our last apartment, we looked at is as a big step up.

We were moving North of Wilshire.

North of Wilshire.  North of the tourist madness.  A nice, quieter neighborhood where we could sort of be domestic without becoming too boring.  A tree-lined street where we could still walk to the city-like atmosphere of Wilshire, but we could also be just far enough away from it so that you couldn’t hear the traffic.

If you know Santa Monica, you also know that “North of Wilshire” means “South of Montana”.

Montana Avenue, which is like Santa Monica’s answer to Rodeo Drive.  Lots of cute little shops and stores and boutiques that I can’t really afford.  Lots of celebrity sightings.  Lots of Brentwood soccer moms at their soccer mom lunches while the nanny has the kids.  Lots of amazing cars and beautiful purses.  Lots of great people watching.

On the other side of Montana there aren’t apartment complexes.  There are gorgeous, multi-million dollar homes.  There is amazing architecture and unbelievable landscaping.  (see TRex)  Just across that one road, there is this other neighborhood that is fun to walk through, but completely out of reach.

Until I realized we just moved there.

Now, technically, we are still on Montana.  Not really North of Montana.  But our apartment is on the North side of the street, so I’m just going to go ahead and lump ourselves in with the wealthy producers and lawyers and doctors and whatever who live on this side of the street.

Brad and I are going to bring a little flavor to this side of the tracks.

Watch out.  We’re North of Montana now.

xoxo