Our Serendipitous Journey

Today while talking with Andy we realized that when we stopped counting the weeks, somehow it turned into 5 months. We have been out here almost 5 months! It's already Christmas break. At my school they call the gym, music, art, computer classes "Specials". "We are going to specials", "when you go to specials", etc. At my old school we called it specialists. I started to call it specialists the other day and stopped myself and said "Wait, you guys call it specials, right?" and my teammate looked at me and said "We aren't you guys anymore. You are one of us". Just a few months ago I was 'funemployed' and now I'm part of another team of people that I didn't even know existed before August. Our journey to PA has become our new life and it's amazing how easily we slid into it. Along the lines of school I think it's time to point out how incredible my new coworkers are. Teammates, coworkers, colleag...

When Andy and I first decided to move to PA we were trying to figure out where to live. It's a bit overwhelming looking at a city where you know none of the suburb's names, let alone what they are like. The few times I had driven through Philadelphia on major highways I had only ever seen row houses. I figured that was for sure what we were getting ourselves into. It turns out I was completely wrong. (Please don't tell Andy I said that. It will ruin everything that I have led him to believe for 11 years.) We started by picking a general area that we heard was a good place to live and was close to Andy's office. There was hardly anything to rent. The houses were small and the rent was expensive. Andy started looking at apartments and I had a few good reasons why that was a terrible idea (1 of them being Deb). As we continued to look we realized that apartment does not have to mean 700 square feet of 15 year old crappy carpet, dusty window air conditioners and ...

In case you missed the memo, Sarah's having a baby! I could not be more excited to become an auntie (again) and get to spoil that perfect baby girl. My mom and I were able to fly out to Denver to help throw a shower for Sarah and John. Of course, everything went as planned...well...or not really. But it DID end up to be a perfect weekend! I am trying to save up my 'personal days' so I can travel to Denver when the baby is born and get to snuggle with 'Boo' and her cute little adorable perfect bundle of babiness. All of those words together are a thing. I booked my flight for the early evening and had a connecting flight out of Minneapolis. Due to weather somewhere, my flight out of Philadelphia got delayed and I found out mid-flight that I wouldn't make the flight to Denver. That was the last one out of town for the evening. After feeling sad, I got a hold of my friend Amanda and she was free for the night! I landed in Minneapolis, called my dad to co...

Last time I blogged, I left off at 'company karaoke'. So fun! They rented a place downtown and we had so much fun hanging out with so many different people. It's hard to imagine how quickly this company went from an idea, to a group of over 100. I'm not even sure how many people there are working there, but I know I don't recognize most of them. It's really, really cool. It took us quite a bit of time to recover from our night out, so we finally got the weekend at home that we wanted. It was lovely. One of the best things about being on the East Coast is that there are SO many places you can go and it's just a couple hour drive. Philadelphia is really located in the perfect spot for what I want to do. We are about an hour and a half drive to New York, 2 hours to the shore (as I'm sure you know by now) an hour to Baltimore, and 2 hours to Washington D.C. Last weekend, our aunt from Chicago was in D.C. so we drove down there on Sunday to spend...

Counting the weeks can no longer be a thing because I have now lost track. We are settling in to our life out here and it feels like home. We are busy during the weeks and exhausted at night and the weekends seem to always be full of more than we can fit in. The only complaint Andy has is that he's not home enough. Andy has been traveling back and forth to MN and when he's not there, people from MN are traveling out here. That makes for a lot of happy hours and dinners with friends. I get to tag along with the boys, which I love. We generally are just having fun. A couple weekends ago we went to Wisconsin/Michigan to spend time with Andy's family as we said our final goodbye to his grandfather. While it's not the ideal reason that we like planning trips, it was really a great weekend with family. It was peaceful and relaxing and absolutely beautiful. It is always great to see Andy's side of the family, especially since many of them have made their homes i...

So I'm two weeks into the school year which makes it feel like I am officially into the swing of things. This week I've really been thinking about how grateful I am to have a job teaching in an elementary school. Coming out here I wasn't sure what I was going to do. My PA license is 4-8, so that limited my elementary school options to 4th or 5th grade. I obviously would teach in the middle school but that change would have been a lot to handle. There were hardly any job postings so I just assumed I'd end up subbing for a year and I was really okay with that. I wasn't sure that I wanted the stress of working full time with a move to a new place. Now that I am doing it, I am so incredibly happy. I can not even imagine how bored or lonely I would have been without a group of people that I interact with on a regular basis. I love having a schedule and I can not even explain how happy I am at this school. I know I keep saying it, but it is an absolutely perfect ...

It was one month ago yesterday that we got the keys to our new apartment and one month ago today that we moved in. I celebrated today by baking in the kitchen for the first time. I have a banana cream pie currently cooling in the fridge. Andy is celebrating by cooking in the kitchen for the first time. We also got our living room couch delivered today so we are going to celebrate by eating a meal that we cooked in our new kitchen at our new dining room table (delivered a few weeks ago) and then sitting on our new couch. I feel like such a grown up. This was my first week of school and it was absolutely wonderful. The kids are great, the school is great, the staff is great, and I left every day with a huge smile on my face. I am really looking forward to this year. There are more staff members offering more help than I could ever imagine. Every single morning someone pops their head in my room and asks me if I'm ok and if she can help me do anything. She puts up bulletin...

It's hard to believe it's only been 3 weeks. Everything is so busy that I don't even have time to realize that our entire lives have essentially changed. I started school last week with meetings and new teacher induction. It put me at ease to finally meet some people and get into my building and classroom. A lot of the unanswered questions that made me nervous were answered so I am feeling really great about this new job. This week we had teacher workshop and besides 2 2-hour meetings, it was 4 days of working in our rooms. I got to organize, decorate, and meet with my team to look at curriculum. My team is absolutely phenomenal. It is a perfect mix of "here's what we teach" and "do your own thing". I am grateful to have been offered a position in a school where I feel like it's a perfect fit. The new job interfered with my personal life a little bit (go figure!) when Sarah and Phil came to town! It was so much fun having my siblings...

This past week has been extremely busy. Andy was gone all of last week and I was working on unpacking, watching our friends kids, and trying to convince Deb that she didn't have to scream and scratch and cry and bark every time I left the apartment. We're getting there. On Friday Andy was in Minnesota and closed on our house! I can't believe it sold in the timing that it did, we got what we wanted plus some, and the timing worked so well for Andy getting back for closing. Since I pre-signed everything it was quite simple I hear. The best part about the whole thing is that the lady moving into the house LOVES the house. She is so excited to be in the neighborhood and in that house. That makes selling it much easier. On our side here, we LOVE the apartment. I was not sold on the idea of apartment living when Andy first mentioned it but not having yard work and worrying about something breaking every time you flip on a light switch is AMAZING! Everything is so wel...

It has officially been one week since we got to move in and things are coming together. We have the loft upstairs mostly put together with a great chaise lounge that turns into a bed, a bookshelf and a tv. It's basically our 2nd living room. Our bedroom is functional in that we can sleep, watch tv, shower, and get dressed. The kitchen is also functional. It's a mess as we put everything on the counter that we don't know what to do with, but still functional. The guest room is the dropping grounds for everything random. The dining room table was delivered last week and is perfect. Now we just wait for the couch and pick an entertainment center and we have ourselves a home! I spent most of last week unpacking so I treated myself to a little beach time with my friend Hailey. We went to the Jersey Shore on Friday night and spent the weekend sleeping, eating, and hanging out by water. It was absolutely perfect. It was everything I love about ocean towns all in one w...

We drove to PA and everything was fine. Our stuff arrived on time and the movers were great. We are living happily ever after. Nobody would read our blog if our trip was that boring, so here's the real story. We were in the hotel in Eagan for 2 weeks while our stuff got shipped to PA. That turned out to work well. The week before we left I stopped to get gas next to the hotel and had a flat tire. I called Andy and his first question was "Well, did you call your dad?". (I'm not even going to in to how much I will miss my mom and dad. That will have to be another post.) So I hung up and called Papa Jim to the rescue. He drove, through rush hour of course, and get to the hotel and immediately found a nail in my tire. He had the stuff to plug it and has an air compressor that plugs into a wall. We brought my newly plugged tire (and the flat spare that he told me to check 6 months ago and I never got around to) up to the hotel room and got them both filled w...

Or new address is : 2409 Ellis Drive Glen Mills, PA 19342-3407

Yesterday we got a birthday invite in the mail for our nephew AND a Facebook invite for a Black Family gathering in August. This is the first time I got pretty sad about being gone because we had to RSVP "no" to both. I was pretty bummed that we saw Andy's extended family for the last time a few months ago and I wasn't sure when I would see them again. Andy and I had some time in the morning to be at the house and organize the few things we had left. I brought some furniture to a friend and went to another friend's son's 1-year birthday party and Andy met up with his family for dinner. I met up with them for drinks afterwards and was looking forward to spending a final night out with his family. A few minutes later our aunt, uncle, and a couple cousins walked in. I thought it was so coincidental and great that they were out on the town at the same place as us! Then some more people came and I figured it out. They were having a party for Andy's dad...

I am so grateful for these last 2 weeks of being in town but not focusing on packing and organizing. We have been busy spending time with friends and family and finishing up things we need to do around here to get ourselves ready to leave. Andy's family from Texas was in town so it was great to see them before we go. We also got to spend time with my aunt and cousins on the water over the 4th of July. One thing that we are realizing is that it will be harder to see out of town family unless we coordinate it. That was definitely something we took for granted with so much family being in MN. I've also had time to get back to the house and clean up without feeling too rushed. It's been good to really make sure the house is looking good for the new owner. I've also rechecked the cabinets for things I have forgotten about 5 times. I did that once and found a whole shelf I hadn't packed so I'm a little paranoid that I'll leave something behind now. Sp...

Today is the day we move all of our stuff into pods to get shipped to PA.  We had a pretty crazy storm last night and woke up to no power.  Good thing it's sunny out! 2:00-moving out is pretty much done! We need to bring a few more things a few more places and do one final cleaning.  I have 2 weeks to get that done though.  It's hard to believe the house is empty! Everything will ship to PA early next week so it will be there when we arrive.  We are still without power from that crazy storm last night.  I'm glad I emptied  the fridge and freezer yesterday.  Timing could not have been better for that.  We have been in this house for 7.5 years and NEVER lost power. I guess that's the universe telling us it's time to go.    

I decided to start this blog to keep everyone informed of our happenings. I realized that I kept repeating the same thing to the same people and other people weren't updated on what was going on. I will try to keep everyone up to date here. To back up a bit: Andy and I got the offer to move to the Philadelphia area back in March. We knew it would be an option but we weren't counting on anything until we saw it in writing. There is still an office in MN, but the PA office is where the curtain wall factory will be. This is a great opportunity for Andy to be near where his projects are, mostly in New York. I turned in my resignation at Sky Oaks Elementary in April once we had everything settled. While it's hard to leave the school where I started my career, teaching jobs are everywhere so it's easy for me to relocate in relation to my job. Little did I know that I had to retake ALL of the Praxis, specific to Pennsylvania, and then get a criminal check, FBI finge...