Goodbye...

Earlier this week our family said goodbye to our friendly little neighborhood. 

Goodbye to these 3 lovely and kind horses who were such a warm 

welcome to us every time we turned in at the bottom of our street. 

Goodbye to these nice wide sidewalks.

Oh the miles our strollers put on this pavement...up and down...

almost every day we'd be out an about on these sidewalks. 

And goodbye to The Awesome Park. 

The Awesome Park is the official family name we came up with for this totally radical 

(can you think of a better word to describe this sight of fun?) place just steps away. 

Goodbyes and moving can be really good. A time for cleansing and purging of old things, a time for a new take on a different neighborhood, a time for a brand new space to decorate!!!! I especially love how a new space gives a totally new look and feel to existing things without having to spend any money (other than the cost of moving). We are only moving a few minutes from our current home, but am still so ecstatic about having a new space to live about, new neighbors to meet, new nearby restaurants to frequent, new grocery to shop at, new walks to go on, and new parks to play at that we're really not sad about saying all the above goodbyes. They all were part of nice memories created over the past 3 years that we'll forever keep.

The timing of this move also just feels really right. Maybe that's because I've been moving every 2-3 years for the past 11 years (woah, that's the first time I've ever calculated that!), or maybe it's because we're out of that newborn stage with Grant (prefer to keep life easy during that time!), or that it won't interfere with Benjamin's upcoming Birthday BANANZA (future post to come..), or with my husband starting back up in school in a couple weeks. I believe in the right timing of things and so far that approach has served me well. Renting has also served my husband and I well as we've both enjoyed the transient and maintenance-free lifestyle as renters. It's especially ideal for us right now as he continues to go to school while working full-time and our new place just happens to be conveniently located within walking distance from his work, which means even more time for us to have with him from the minute he's off! 

So all in all we feel like we're in a win-win situation, not to say our house world hasn't been turned upside down over the past month or so (yes, it was my genius idea to start packing a month ago- how else does one tackle the task while caring for two little ones?). But, when we look at all of the benefits and little luxuries we'll be experiencing at our new place, we're welcoming the changes and ready to be movin' on. Here's a list of things I've learned during the packing of our family of four: 

• Whatever hasn't been used recently will suddenly become an urgent necessity immediately after it's been packed (i.e. Grant's nasal aspirator).

• Whatever box looks like the perfect box to put a grouping of things in won't be, but I won't come to this realization until halfway through packing it, and won't want to admit my mistake so I'll either keep packing it until it's full, or tape the cardboard sides around whatever's oddly sticking out.

• Not a good idea to eat our way out of house and home when still moving locally. What I mean by this is that I stopped intentionally re-stocking food (cause it's just extra to carry over) and tried to have us all eat every last bit of food that we had. We conquered this a week ago, so I then had us going out to eat for every meal which got super expensive (although McDonalds has impressed me with their newer menu items), and not fun to live in house with a hungry growing toddler and nursing mama (I finally gave in yesterday and bought fresh produce!).

• There's no such thing as having too many boxes. One ALWAYS has more stuff than they think they do.

• Kids + packing = lots of un-packing and re-packing.

• Sleeping in a new place for the first time to me is always odd...it's like I'm having a sleepover for the entire first month or so!

Well, I better get some rest as we continue to make this transition between houses. Hope you all have a wonderful rest of summer (who knows when we'll have internet/office/computer up and running). Be sure to stay tuned for upcoming posts of Benjamin's B-day (now that's going to be serious monkey business!), pics galore of our new place, and my cool IKEA finds!