It's almost here

The packers came today and within about 7 hours packed up just about our entire house. The additional cost to me was totally justified by the fact that if I had been packing the house myself it would have taken me probably an entire week, which just isn't conducive to trying to sell a house at the same time. I was very surprised when it was time to bring the kids home from school that they didn't freak out to see everything packed away. Alex got a little upset once or twice in the car as I was describing that his room was in boxes to get him prepared. But then I pointed out that anything NOT packed in boxes wouldn't make it to New Jersey with us, and didn't he want all his things to make it there? But once we got home both he and Grace seemed okay with it all.

They load up the truck tomorrow and we begin our four night stretch of a different hotel every night. Should be interesting on how that is handled, both by the kids and by the dog.

Tomorrow should be full of tears. Both kids will have their last days at school. I think goodbyes at Alex's school may be the hardest - I've had kids there for the past 4 1/2 years, plus I worked closely with all those ladies for a year and a half. It will be sad at Grace's school mainly because she loved going there so much. And we'll be going to dinner with Mom & Dad - don't even get me STARTED on how that will end after a bottle or two of Sangre de Toro at Cafe Madrid!

But here's a few pics of what we are moving to. We didn't get any shots of the front of the house when we were up there last weekend, and I don't want to share the photos of the bedrooms that REALLY need some different paint colors. But I've got these to tide you over until we make it up there on Saturday:


Our back yard as seen from the not-to-code deck. Just need to add some more railing so my kids or dog don't go flying off a 5-ft up deck edge. The little playhouse seen here in the back of the yard should be a big hit with the kids. It could use a freshening coat of paint, but I don't think the kids will care one way or another.


I hadn't realized it when we first saw the house (with carpets, etc. in it) that the hardwoods downstairs are laid out in these great patterns. Both the living room and dining rooms have these cool diagonal lines going through them, and there is this neat cross-hatching in that space between the two rooms.


Our nifty little fireplace. It's probably about 5 feet high and has outlets on the top at either end of the mantel, so the first purchase we made for our new house were two groovy lamps at Ikea to light up the room. Of course that involved a trip to Ikea in Newark, which while you are browsing and seeing all this cool, cheap furniture feels like a fun time. Until it is time to self-serve your furniture pieces in the warehouse area, transport them yourself on big weirdly-rolling dolly cart to pay lines (which we used the self-serve ones just to get out quicker), only to discover the sides to your 7 ft. tall pantry shelf unit will no way in hell fit into your tiny Ford rental car so you have to deal with the purgatory that is the Ikea returns area. You come out prepared for the 30 minute drive back to your house saying NEVER AGAIN. But then you discover the side pieces for the pantry can actually be ordered online, and you realize that ANY delivery fee is better than going through all that again. Wow - sorry for the off-topic rant there!


From the house you can walk three houses to the right and find this path that will take you to the 250 acre Tamaques Reservation (park) chock full of fun stuff for the family - play areas, baseball diamonds, hiking trails, jogging track, etc.


And here is the little pond you first hit upon reaching the park. I wish we'd had the camera with us the day before when we walked over - there were probably at least 20 of these geese hanging out there that day.

Hopefully once we get up there I'll be able to post some more photos of the house (esp the front) and at least one photo of Grace's new school, which is literally three houses to the left and across the street. But first I have to survive the 3 1/2 day drive. Yikes.