Planing another East Coast Excursion

Call us crazy, but our family has done the East Coast long-distance-travel-thing twice in less then six months.  Each time we tweaked it and became more efficient travelers.  I could suggest what others should do when tackling this trip, but every family has different needs.  For example:

- We needed restaurants with take-out or outdoor seating options because we had our dog
- Traveling with a potty-training toddler meant we needed to keep bathroom breaks a priority
- When I was pregnant with our second child, we needed to stretch our legs more often

You catch my drift, every family has different needs and priorities when traveling. So instead of writing about my suggestions, I'm thinking I should just do the drive again and share our experiences while on vacation.  Then what works and what doesn't will just become apparent.

Now that baby #2 has arrived and our family is never going to settle into a routine, I figure why not shake of the cobwebs and take another trip?!  I have a cousin getting married near Atlanta, Georgia so we at least have a final destination and can back-schedule our trip with that end-goal in mind.  I also have a really good friend who just moved inland from Charleston, South Carolina so it would be great to add her as a destination stop as well.  Off to dust off the maps and plan the trip!

Becoming Residents of a New State

This week we became residents of Pennsylvania: new drivers licenses, new license plates, registered to vote, and completed all our U.S. mail forwarding.  Both my husband and I have mixed feelings about it all.  It's almost as if we are mourning the loss of our New England identity combined with it marking the end of our six month family adventure.  We are incredibly grateful to finally be living a reasonable driving distance from a lot of family.  We know we are fortunate enough to be able to find jobs so quickly.  We are definitely blessed to be living in a townhouse community that offers us more then we could ever need, including one of the safest neighborhoods I think we have ever lived in (and we have lived in some incredibly safe places!)  There is so much to be grateful for and yet there is this unsettling feeling that can't be placed. I've been told in the past by many people that I'm not the best at navigating simplicity or complacency so I'm wondering if that has anything to do with this unsettlement.  Or it could simply be that we have only been her for 4 full weeks so far so it doesn't quite feel real yet...  ok, probably that's the issue.  We were hopping around so much that I still feel like we are going to be moving again!

Summertime Activities for Kids

Can you believe that summertime is upon us?  In a few short weeks school will be out and I'm sure we all have grand visions of activities planned and vacation time with family.  And if you haven't even started thinking about ideas, how about try some of these:

1. taking a nature walk in your local State Park
2. picnic with friends and family near a lake or a playground
3. try your hand at fishing at a local pond
4. plan a trip to a beach
5. explore along a bike path
6. visit community gardens

Are you catching on too a pattern here?  I say "get outside and enjoy some sunshine, or go jump in puddles along with your kids when it rains," the options are endless!  Lucky for us as parents, adventures don't have to be expensive or extravagant for children to have tons of fun and make memories last!  And bonus prize - the less stressful the event, the more fun we have as adults too!

Move to Bucks County, PA

Our happy family :)

Guess what?  We've moved again!

For all the readers who have been following our adventures: thank you for joining us on this journey, and for new readers: a big welcome and feel free to check out the archives to catch up on why we sold our house back in October 2015 and have been living all over the east coast since December (how have these past 6 months gone by so fast?!)  And a HUGE thank you for all our family and friends who have supported us during the ups and downs along this road - love to all of you!

So no surprise here, we've moved again.  But this time it's for longer then a month in a vacation rental because this time we signed a 13month lease in an unfurnished townhouse - gasp!  Yes, it's true, we are settling down for a little while to enjoy some non-traveling adventures ahead of us.  As many of you who know, I'm now 7months pregnant.  It's a good time to settle into one place with more consistent doctors, stable living environment, and not to mention getting our own bed back finally - yippie for comfort!!  My husband also accepted a great career opportunity at a solid company which is super exciting!

Ok, ready for the tour of our new naked home before we put millions of boxes or furniture inside to create chaotic clutter?  Welcome to our new home, complete with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and a finished basement!

Our end-unit townhouse

PODS being delivered

We sold a lot of our stuff before we put it in storage, but we still had one completely full POD and one packed about 1/3 full.  Being in a townhouse means we don't actually need to use our push-lawn mower, snow blower, power washer, etc so we are just keeping them in our utility storage until our next place.

Keiki with our new keys!!

Dining & living room, outside patio

Kitchen

Master bathroom with two sinks!

Master bedroom

Kids bathroom

Two equivalent kids rooms

Such modern utilities!
Keiki's whimsical attire makes me giggle,
complete with:
1. Minnie Mouse purse filled with bracelets
2. Irish shamrock antennae headband
3. Star shaped fairy wand  

Spacious finished basement,
soon to be huge playroom and a place
to simply run around on rainy/snowy days!
Also has an extra finished room that can be
made into an office or guest room

AND second floor laundry - I'm going to become super spoiled in this place!