Transition and pictures

June 30, we left NYC and moved to the DC suburbs. The most asked question is: are you sad to leave New York City? The answer is a confident: "Nope!"

It's not that we had a bad year - but it was a really uncomfortable year, if that makes sense. We made the best of it, Lilly had a great time, but it was hard.

So far, in just 2 weeks of being out of the city, our new life is not hard.

Maybe it's because we know we're here "permanently" (except we're renting our house - for 1-3 years - so we'll have to move again, but within the same area). But we love this house so much, we love our neighborhood, we love the stores on the street nearby, we love the restaurants, we love the people we've met, we love the church, and I am so confident about Lilly's new school, which she starts September 1.

We've never lived in the suburbs, since we became a family. Lilly's lived in a small college town, a beautiful foreign country, and the big apple, but never a normal suburban neighborhood. And we're loving it.

Here is my niece Julianne in Charlottesville as we stopped by two weeks ago to meet the movers at our storage unit. We miss Spudnut donuts!


As part of the move from Manhattan, we needed cars, since we had been living the year without any. Jon picked out his first car that was from this century - a 2008 Honda Accord.




Lilly Loo is enjoying her new backyard. During a rain storm last week, we went outside and watered the plants (not practical of course, but it's summer and it's what she felt like doing).

She loves gardening.
Lilly's new front door.
We (I) cooked Saturday night, after our new table and chairs arrived for the screened in porch. How relaxing was it to cook in a big nice kitchen (compared with a tiny NYC kitchen), and eat outside looking at our beautiful backyard (compared with the dining table being in the small living room of our NYC apartment). Proving that we take something from each life experience, a glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc definitely accompanied our meal.

Miss Lilly was relaxed and happy as well.
After dinner, Lilly checked on our vegetable garden, and then ran through the backyard hose - first time with that summertime experience.
Another first: Lilly learned how to write the number "10" for the first time ever - so cool - and we are so proud of that girl! She actually learned it from Elmo and Zoe on Sesame Street, so cheers to tv for teaching my child something! (Mommy helped teach her though, as we watched it together, paused it multiple times to remember how to do it, and the first few times I helped her, before she figured out she could do it on her own - smart girl!)
Last night, Lilly and I baked corn bread - definitely not the first time we've cooked together in our new kitchen, and not the last either. Loving including my girl in the meal process, but we've done that for the past year, so it's not totally new - but having space to do so, and having our real kitchen stuff (which was in storage while we were in NYC) is sooo nice. As usual, Jon popped in at the last minute to help and sample the batter and appear in the picture. :)