2013_07_10 Wednesday

This will be my final post from New Jersey. We officially sold our charming 1916 Dutch Colonial today. So, let me back up to Sunday...

Sunday:
We visited Nannie and Grandpa for one last time and, of course, to celebrate Jonathan's birthday. She made a blueberry bundt cake for him that Dave could also eat. Aunt Jen and family also came over to help celebrate. Although it was a little stressful because of buying/selling houses, we did have a very nice visit.

Monday:
Jonathan opened his birthday gift: a skateboard! He was asking for one, and we figured he'd better get it before his helmet got packed up. He was really getting the hang of it.

Tuesday:
The movers arrived at 9am and were fabulous. Jonathan had a playdate with his KinderGan preschool friends (Luke, Gio, Ariella, and Avermy). It was a very special date. We went to Benihana for his birthday dinner. What fun! Elise totally missed the show b/c she missed her nap and was absolutely exhausted. Both kids used chopsticks (they were bound) expertly and focused so intently on eating. Then we had a sleep-over with our awesome neighbors, Craig and Aoi. We stayed up way too late and I (at least) drank too much! But, what fun!

Wednesday:
Picking Elise up from KinderGan today was painful; that school is one of the most special places I know. I also got a few good-bye gifts from friends: such nice gestures of women I really liked and would like to stay in touch with. Dave left with the cats (I had gotten sedatives for them) around 10am, heading for southern VA. Packing the car was a challenge; we just had too much stuff (the movers missed a couple of things that if taken, we would have had enough room in the cars for what we had planned on taking, I think). I had to leave most of our plants. Jonathan's actual birthday was spent at camp, where he did not tell a soul. (?!) Saying goodbye to Priscilla was also tough; she's really become part of the family. We left town at 4pm and headed to PA for 7-10 days while we wait for furniture to arrive. When we arrived at the Barony, there was a personalize ice cream birthday cake waiting for J2.

We are settling in to the Barony now.

Signing off...awaiting a new chapter in our lives and this blog...for the latest and greatest, continue at: http://thegahardwicks.blogspot.com/

2013_06_27 Thursday

Jonathan is on break this week -- getting to sleep until 8am! -- and helped me get Elise off to camp this morning. His former teacher, Fayge, welcomed him into camp and let him play with some of her penguin puzzles (since he brought Penguiny with him). On the way home, he decided to make a penguin diorama out of unused moving boxes. He disappeared into the dining room with mini marshmellows as ice bergs, white/black crayons, paper, scissors, and glue. So far, here is the highlight:

JD2: Mom, here is the Empetor (aka Emperor) penguin and here's the Mac and Cheese (Macaroni) penguin.

He and I went to the zoo to touch the sharks and sting rays; those things are much more slimy than I remember. He also rode a pony, although he had some buyer's remorse when we walked through the parakeet cage (he could have bought one seed stick if he didn't ride the pony).

Yesterday, he and I made fruit popcicles out of all the frozen fruit I've been saving for no reason, Greek yogurt, and OJ. Both kids had one for breakfast today. By the end of the day, the kids had each had four! We're slowly making our way through all our perishable foods!

Now the bad-ish news:
We may lose the GA house after all. There are some mold and water problems in the basement/apartment that are quite $$, and we are asking the sellers to remediate fully; they've been less than communicative. We have until tomorrow to walk away w/o losing our earnest money. That would be a real shame, as we'd like to work it out with them. We'll just have to see if they respond, and hopefully positively, tomorrow. Pins and needles until then.

2013_06_19 Wednesday

Jonathan got a rocket popsicle for dessert after dinner:

Jonathan: Mom, why are popsicles called that? they don't pop in your mouth like Pop Rocks do.
Mom: Gesh, that's a good question and a really good observation.
Jonathan: Yeah, I'm going to call them Lickers because that's what you do to them.

Next convo:
Elise: I want to be called 'cantelope'
Jonathan: which one? the one that runs or the fruit?
Mom: do you mean antelope or cantelope?
Jonathan: oh yeah.
Elise: oh yeah, I want to be a zebra-striped giraffe.

Elise told Dave as we picked him up from the airport a few weeks ago that he new name was: Pomegranate. We nearly cried laughing. She was dead serious.

2013_06_06 Thursday

So, now I'm stressed. We had our house inspection today, and it lasted about 3+ hours! I was put off by that inconvenience, but...

When I finally came home and E was way off her nap time, the dude's knee pads were sitting on our front porch, and the trellis underneath the porch was knocked over (still can't figure out why he needed to be under there at all). I got to struggle with it (unsuccessfully, mind you), as the city has lots of feral cats and raccoon that I would like to avoid having squat in/around my home (one cat had already ventured in). As I walked around the house, various lights and fans were on or off and windows up or down. Not as I had left it but not helpful either. So I had to inspect the whole house myself, and when I checked out the basement, I noticed that the steps that we just had painted are all scraped up showing the old paint again,  the insulation in the laundry room (below the kitchen) was pushed out and not replaced, he left rust (?) scrapings on the ground near the furnace, and there's some hunk of old metal in my laundry garbage can. That all annoyed me. [Deep Breath] I decide to make dinner, and as I went to put the dirty dishes away, I  got soaked when I pulled the dishwasher rack out not knowing he ran the machine (various cups got filled with water b/c I didn't stack them in expecting it to run nearly empty). I feel really imposed upon...or maybe stressed out...or both...with this process. I reported all this to our realtor who has passed it along, but the inspector won't come by until tomorrow, which also burns me up. That said, we won't get his official report until next week, but I am so ticked off that I can only imagine and stew on what is on that list.

2013_06_04 Tuesday

I must be delirious. Elise was up at 4am with a cough attack, and I didn't mind being awake then. It's so quiet and cold and just getting light. If I weren't so darn tired, I'd actually enjoy that time. By the time I was drifting back to sleep, Dave was getting up to catch his flight. Anyway, after trying cough syrup to no avail, I tried Benedryl and that either knocked her out or fixed the problem. Might have been the former because she peed in her sleep. She had been dry for 4 nights. With the insane heat that we've had the last few days, I've tried to keep her hydrated; perhaps too much so! Luckily, it's cooled down considerably.

2013_05_29 Wednesday

We have housing news. We had our broker open house on Thursday afternoon. Then, a couple came by on Friday night. They asked us what it would take to take the house off the market. By Saturday, they had submitted a bid +$50k over our ask. We still had our scheduled open house on Sunday just in case this bid fell apart for some reason. We went into attorney review on Monday and review concluded today (while Elise and I were at the Nature Center studying caterpillers and butterflies/moths), so we have officially accepted their bid. That means no more showings; the best part was that we were gone from Thur-Tues, so we weren't even inconvenienced by any showings! We do have to stay staged through next Thursday, when we have the inspection (they waived appraisal and non-structural inspection issues), so we anticipate that to go fairly quickly.

We head down to ATL for our first on-the-ground house hunting expedition. As it turns out, there's a new student playdate is the night we arrive at the school Jonathan is 99.9% likely to attend. I'm working with folks down there to let him participate despite not having an actual address yet.

2013_05_08 Wednesday

For my birthday, I took the family to a burger joint, the Cloverleaf Tavern. It has a huge beer selection, so I thought that would be fun. Little did I know that Wednesdays are kiddy day, so they had a balloon artist there who kept the kids busy for awhile. Jonathan got a huge palm tree with a snake winding up the trunk; Elise got a My Little Pony. They were about the size of the kids! On the walk back to the car, she fell on her pony, and all but the head popped. But, she said it saved her from falling. ;o) It is a bit creepy to have a horse head (even just a balloon) in her room, though!