Our Moving Adventure

We're officially out of the apartment. Mo and I left yesterday morning and Bill closed later that day. We are done with the apartment forever. It's weird to close a door so completely on that part of our lives, but like I've said, it's all for the better. Still, it was an amazing apartment, a genius investment on Bill's part and it served us well as our "starter home" to raise our young family in for the past few years. The place will be missed.

I'll miss this place!

We walked around the whole apt yesterday and said "bye bye." I was way more emotional than Mo, she really just couldn't wait to go "outside."

During "Phase 1" of the move- living on blow-up mattresses in an empty apt

Last evening we spent our last night in Manhattan at a hotel right near Mo's school. So today we're in the final phase of the move- staying at Bill's buddy's place in Orangeburg. We close on the house next Tuesday, and already have the final walk-through and closing time all set up. We're so incredibly close.

We had a wonderful impromptu playdate on Gwen's roof last Friday. The nice thing about being in the city is we can still do things like these during the week occasionally.

Mo has been taking all of this incredibly well. Even last night in the hotel she was a complete trooper. I can only assume she thinks this is a vacation, whereas Bill and I know differently. But she's been great. I can't wait to see her with the twins (Dan's kids), as they're almost exactly a year older then her and she LOVES older kids. And of course I think she'll be in heaven at the house. She loves climbing stairs (and great, because we have 3 staircases) and once we get her bed set and the playroom all done it'll be fun to see her enjoy her own space.

Bill and Mo treated me to brunch at Frank's last Saturday for Mother's Day which was really sweet.

Mo loved my squid ink linguine. She has her Mom's taste in food :)

My Mom comes for 10 days at the end of May into June and I think it'll be wonderful for her to have some bonding time with Mo, plus it'll give Bill and I a chance to get used to the commute without having to worry about how Mo is taking it. Moira's vocabulary has expanded so much. She knows a lot of her body parts, her ABCs up to E, and some colors and shapes. Plus outside and apples are fairly new words... we're still working on "let's go Orange". And she says "I love you" which is just the sweetest. She just got another tooth, making that 4 on top, 4 on the bottom and all of her molars are in. We've learned when she get crabby or whiny it's usually a sign that another tooth is coming, and lately she's been super sweet, giving lots of hugs and kisses.

We had a special Mommy-Daughter dinner last night at Pies-n-Thighs while Bill had a client dinner

At Mo's Mother's Day party at her school and the very special card she made me

I'm trying to enjoy the adventure of moving and not freak out but really, I just want it all done. I feel ready to snap- especially considering all the new responsibilities of being homeowners. I spoke to my best friend, Brenda, last night- who actually built her dream house with her husband 3 years ago and she said it's tough the first year, just getting used to everything, but smooths out after that. That's what I hope for. I think the first months will be tough but once we settle into a routine it'll all pan out. And once this is done, we'll be done with this process for hopefully a VERY long time.

The Irish cross and prayer my parents gave me almost 10 years ago to the day when I moved here!

Upcoming:

• Dinner in Queens tonight at Donovan's, then our first night out at Dan's.
• My friend Preethi gets in from Chicago for a week and we're having brunch with her and a bunch of my friends on Saturday
• Dan opens his pool this weekend so we're hoping to spend some time there too
• And we close on Tuesday... it's so close