Early December, 2018 I was asked to vacate my apartment of 14 years. I loved my little place despite it not being perfect anymore. When I moved there it was quiet and convenient. At the end it was noisy and congested. The landlord was generous and gave me 6 months to vacate.
Sooooo. I thought, why not move back to Texas and take this opportunity to spend time with my family. My parents, sister, aunt, cousin, granddaughter and great grandchildren all live within about 4 hours of each other with the majority being in Houston. I haven't lived in Texas for over 30 years and only get to visit once or twice a year so I thought everyone would be excited! However, they weren't. It was more like "why?" And they were right. I would not have been happy being there (I LOVE SNOW).
On my return from the annual trip for Christmas, I started thinking about where I wanted to go. I have so many dear friends in the Newtown area that I didn't want to go too far and I've always wanted a house in the mountains (although it was always going to be a tiny house). So I moved to the Poconos!
I found this cute little house in a gated community convenient to alot of things to do.
It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath corner wooded lot. The community has amazing amenities - lake with paddle boats and kayaks, pools, tennis courts, playgrounds.
So I set the move date for March 2nd, found a mover (Dan the Mover was amazing!!) and started packing. And of course a snow and ice storm moved through that weekend! Dan and I decided that they would show up Saturday morning, load the truck and we'd decide at that point whether it was safe for them to deliver me that day or if I would have to wait till Monday when there was another snow storm predicted.
Saturday morning came and the storm wasn't as bad as thought. Traffic cams showed clear roads in the Poconos. It was a long day but I have to say the girls (Poupon and Autumn) did a GREAT job on the trip. And Dan, Alice and the guys provided an uneventful move. Whew!
I'm all moved into my little yellow house. Now to prepare for my granddaughter Kimberly, her husband Brett, my grandson JT and my four precious great grandchildren's arrival in 4 days. Yep. You read that right. 4 days. That was the kids Spring Break so we had to take advantage of this opportunity. I quickly started trying to find essential kitchen things (dishes, pots, pans) and linens for the beds.
I can't tell you how much fun it was having the kids here!! Ok. There were a couple of days when it was ALOT! But I wouldn't have traded that week for anything.
We had snow on the ground and kids loved it. Well mostly the big kids. Bryce didn't know what to do with it and kept trying to wipe it off the driveway. It was deep enough that little bundled up Brinley could barely stand up. But Kynzlie and Kolton would have stayed out all day if we'd let them.
Here are some shots of the kids' snow fun.
We spent a couple of days at the house enjoying the snow and catching up. The kids had some fun with the hoola hoop, painting some boxes, puzzles and I even got Kynzlie interested in weaving! She sat down and wove a scarf in a couple of hours which she proudly wore to NYC the next day.
On Monday we headed out to NYC. What a trip! A 2 hour drive to the train into the city. We walked down to Central Park (with a stop at the M&M store) with the intention of ice skating at Wollman Rink. At the park I decided to treat everyone to a carriage ride. It was very fun and Kynzlie really enjoyed the horse. But when we got to Wollman Rink it was closed. Bummer! We headed back up to MidTown where we met up with my friend Greg. Greg, JT and I watched Bryce and Brinley while the rest went skating at Rockefeller Center.
Leaving Rockefeller Center we stopped in the Lego store. Kynzlie and Kolton each got a kit. They have this really cool thing where you can stand in front of it with your kit and it comes to life! It was amazing.
Next up was snowtubing at Camelback. Omigosh! I haven't had this much fun in forever. I don't know how many times we went down that snow but it was enough to tire us all out. And by the way, they have the BEST hot chocolate at the snack bar.
We woke up Thursday morning to head down to Newtown. I had a fall down the stairs on my hip on Wednesday so I decided to sit out the Philly tour. I was going to stay at the hotel with Bryce and Brinley while the others went downtown. But when we woke up Kynzlie was sick. She was going to stay with me and the littles so Kolton decided to stay too. Kimberly, Brett and JT went to Philly for the day followed by a Flyers/Capitals game.
Now that the family is gone it's time to get down to business!! There are bedrooms to be painted, boxes to be unpacked and settling in to do.
Here are the pictures of the house the day I moved in.
I'm slowly putting my stamp on the place. Have painted both bedrooms (still have to paint the closet doors), put up shelves in the office space, still have another shelf to put up in my craft area and a fireplace wood rack to put together. Then I'll turn my energy to the outside. Best I can tell noone has lived in this house since August or September and no Fall maintenance was done in the yard. There are leaves and sticks and limbs laying all over. I'm ready to clean it up and plant some color!
It's been an interesting two months. There is a family of deer that visit every day. Up close and personal.
In addition to making friends with the deer Autumn's also charming the groundhog.
But mostly Autumn like to lay around and sleep while Poupon is more into the fireplace and computer games.
