Take Me Out

Over the past two months, we have been absolutely swamped with packing, cleaning, painting, moving and unpacking. But we did manage to also squeeze in a little fun AND a couple of firsts.


When Marty came home announcing he'd bought 4 tickets to a major league baseball game less than a week from our move date I thought he might actually have lost his mind. How on earth did he think we'd have time to spend an afternoon at the ballpark when we had SO MUCH TO DO?! But it actually turned out to be a welcome retreat from the craziness and stress of the last few months - as well as Elise and Luke's first ever baseball game! The kids were absolutely amazed by all of the people and the noise - and had a great time people watching while eating all the classic baseball watchin' foods. But their favorite part was definitely singing "Take me out to the ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch. On the way home, Elise grilled us for the words and made us repeat the song again and again until she learned the whole thing (which she and Lucas both did). I would say we have two bona fide baseball fans on our hands.

Elise and Audrey giggle at their first sleepover

Our last weekend in our old neighborhood, Elise participated in her first ever friend sleepover. She and her buddy Audrey are so close now they have moved on from calling each other "best friend" to calling each other "sister" (which is actually incredibly confusing for people not aware of this when Elise randomly mentions her "sister" in conversation. Then I have to quickly explain that there are not any secret love children in me or Marty's past and that I am also not pregnant now or ever again). These two have been joined at the hip, practically since birth and their parting is definitely going to be one of the harder aspects of moving. Elise has been begging to have a sleepover with her "sister" for months so after some lengthy discussions, Audrey's mom Jodi and I decided to go ahead and try it. We were in the middle of packing chaos so Elise went to Audrey's house for the big night.


I had a back up plan of spending the night too, but almost from the moment we walked in the door Elise was begging me to go home so she could have a real sleepover. It all turned out wonderfully well - the girls had a fantastic time and actually slept too. Elise was still incredibly excited about it when I picked her up the next morning and Jodi and I are wondering what we've gotten ourselves into now that both girls are begging for more sleepovers!

Another difficult part of the move will be the separation from our neighbors, Elias (6) and Saira (4). Especially in the last few months, all the kids have gotten incredibly close - and have come to rely on the built-in-playdate aspect of having neighbor friends. The kids freely ran in and out of each of our yards and houses, created lots of games and money making schemes (their latest was selling homemade art and flower pedals to pedestrians - and they made quite a bit of money on that too!) and made plans to run tin can phones between their windows.

Elias and Saira's parents threw us a Farewell Party the Friday before we moved and invited all of our neighbors who we have come to know and love over the last few years living on the block. It was such a wonderful evening - sitting back and chatting, eating, drinking wine, laughing and watching the kids have a blast together. It was a ton of fun tinged with sadness because it was the last evening we'd have like this. I am sure we'll have wonderful neighbors at our new place too, but I do feel like we hit the neighbor jackpot here. After dinner we walked down to the Diner for ice cream - a perfect way to end a great summer evening, and a six year stint in a great neighboorhood.