MOTHER & DAUGHTER MOVE TO MALIBU

- Victoria Wachtel, Contributing Writer

Tastybaby asked a mother-daughter duo, Victoria and Lizzy Wachtel, to tell us a little bit about why they moved to Malibu 2 years ago.  Here, in their own words (and one of Lizzy's first-ever stabs at writing on a computer!), are their stories:

Victoria (mom):


After living in Malibu for 2 years, I sometimes wonder whether I walk around here, still struck by lover’s first bliss. After moving here from England, I daily find myself reveling in Malibu’s beauty, majesty and peacefulness. I feel that I have stumbled upon a hidden gem and I regularly pinch myself to check if I am dreaming or not.

Things happen here in Malibu that I know simply do not happen in many parts of the world anymore.

Just the other day my daughter Elizabeth and her friend Aura wanted to visit the local pet store, “Pet Headquarters.”  As we made our way over to the store, a woman holding a tiny 8-week-old puppy walked past us.  Of course we stopped to pet the puppy, and while we were oohing and aahing, we found out that the woman was returning the puppy to the pet store after taking it out for a play in the local bank!  A dog park at a bank?!  She told us that they often let the puppies run around the bank for an hour! That fired the girls up with puppy fever more than ever.  In all of my life in England, I never entered a pet store without leaving with a sad and depressed feeling, wondering at the fate of the poor creatures.

Then there was an instance a few weeks ago when my friend lost her cell phone, unbeknownst to her. I was at home and my phone rang.  Someone said “Victoria, I found a phone on a bench in the Malibu Country Mart and you were the last person who was called.” I proceeded to describe what my friend looks like, and suggested the lady leave the phone at a nearby restaurant, Taverna Tony’s.  Within minutes, Tony took it into his hands to find Liane and phoned every local shop he thought she might be in.  As luck would have it, he traced her down in short order, and she had her phone back in her purse before she even realized it was missing!
Later, when the lady who found the phone spotted my friend (I had described her pretty accurately), she called out to her, and introduced her entire family to their new-found "friend."  People are just friendlier in Malibu!

I will never forget when I first moved here and it was going to be my first Christmas without my husband, who had passed away 9 months earlier. I had fallen very ill with one of the worst flus I had ever had. I had been at home in bed for days with my daughter looking after me, and my neighbors brought us food. It was Christmas Eve and I felt terrible that my daughter was missing out on all of the energy and the feeling of ‘the night before Christmas.’.  I pulled myself together, and we ventured out to Trancas, a local shopping area.  There was a little Christmas fair going on with a few vendors selling their wares, and as Elizabeth and I were walking by, I stopped to look at a stall selling the most beautiful shell jewelry.  Being passionate about shells, I started talking to the vendor, Hughie, who heard my English accent and enquired as to how I had wound up living in Malibu. I told him how I had decided to start my life anew in Malibu, and he could see that I was struggling over the loss of my husband and having a hard time with it being Christmas (not to mention feeling ill), so he gave me the biggest hug and started to sing me a song. I can’t remember exactly what the song was about, but here was this stranger singing to me and just filling me with such love and kindness and genuinely wanting to alleviate my pain for a moment.  I will never forget that day for as long as I live, and since then I have seen him around many times, and sometimes we will sit and have a coffee together.  I have also met his wife, who is as sweet and as charming as he.  Whenever I see him around I always remind him of that moment when he brought joy and love into my heart on that Christmas Eve, and I feel grateful to be living in Malibu.  I wonder if he truly knows how much that moment will forever be imprinted into my memory.

These are just snippets of my life here in Malibu, and there are countless more like these. The sense of community I feel here now that I have become a part of this place is something I cannot imagine finding anywhere else. All I have to do is to look at the joy on my daughter's face and to see all of the wonderful friends that she is making, and I know that moving here is the best thing we could ever have done.


Lizzy, age 9:

I first  moved to Malibu about two years ago. when I was seven years old. it has been the most amazig two years of my life. i go two the most amazing elemtray school. i just love it over here. one of my favorite things to do in Malibu is to go to Malibu yogert, it has the most delicious ice cream and yogert. i love living next to the ocean and mountains. i have great friends and everybody is so fun and loving, like my godmother. i see my friends every where I go. i have the best playdates in the whole world. i have the best godsister and godbrother  that I could I wish for ...

one of my other favorite things is to go to the Malibu chily cook off, because it does not come often. And because it has fun rides and games. and near the chily cook of there is the pet headquarters in the Malibu country mart which has really  cute animals. but I like to play with the puppies the most, once there was this really cute bichon frisse that I played with, and when you blew on its nose he gets really crazy. Its funny!      

And this is the Malibu that I love!!!!!!!!!!!!