NJ Visit - 3

Last part, I promise!!

Sunday we got up early and went to mass. Some family flew out and couldn't be there, but most of us made it. The church we went to we have been going to for decades. It was the church I was baptized in 24 years ago and probably even my mom was baptized in! It goes way back. So during mass the priest did a special blessing on Babci and Poppy and all their friends and family got to celebrate and acknowledge their 65 years together. My uncle colorized their wedding portrait and had it displayed in the house, and of course we got plenty of pictures of the happy couple together.

After Mass

After church we went to the Holiday Inn and had a huge family brunch together. We pretty much took over the entire restaurant!

Speech!

The cake made by my mom's cousin, a baker!

Cutting the cake

 Sunday we spent saying goodbye to more family and spending time with Babci and Poppy. We also got to see my other two brothers who live in town. We left Monday much later than we planned, but we knew we had to leave early or late to miss traffic.... and late won out! We said our goodbyes and left NJ around 3pm. We hit DC in time for rush hour to Ryan ok'd a stop in Alexandria!!! I was so excited! We went to our old apartment and had dinner with our neighbor Adam (he said it made his Monday) and even saw Carrie. Rylie loved running around and everyone was shocked by how big she got! I believe Adam compared her to a baby polar bear.... :P

On our old stoop. Some things never change.

 We got on the road VERY late after that... around 10:30pm with six hours to go! Oops. I told Ryan I was fine to keep driving so he could sleep and drive later. Well the last hour of my drive was torture. I felt myself getting tired and chugged my diet coke and opened the windows. Ryan told me to wake him when I got tired but I didn't want him to be too sleepy to drive either. I made it another three hours into North Carolina before I gave up around 1:30am. I drove from NJ to VA and then to NC... I was done! I passed out in the car and woke up three hours later in our driveway at 4:30am.

Tuesday we just were lazy bums and tried to sleep and watch Doctor Who on the couch.

Amazing vacation if I do say so myself!

PCS - Part 1

Wow... I don't blog for two weeks and blogger looks totally different! I am a little confused on this new interface thing but I hope I get used to it soon. I cannot believe tomorrow we will have been in our house for two weeks. We are finally settled in and Ryan checks in on Tuesday to start work. I have definitely gotten spoiled having him all to myself the past few weeks. Considering I am not working yet (nine applications out so far, no response back at all on any) I am wondering how I will feel once it is just me in the house. Anyway, back to the beginning! The weeks leading up to the move involved my mom coming to help for a week, a drive to Jersey to see the family, and a semi college reniuon at a local bar to say goodbye to everyone!

Ryan was due to land at Reagan Airport at 11:30pm the night before the movers were due to arrive at 8am. No big deal. We lived literally right down the street from the airport. I could turn left out of the apartment and drive for ten minutes and be there. Well.... when my husband flew from Palm Springs to LAX they sat on the runway in LA for over an hour since no gates were available. His flight door CLOSED EARLY and refused to let him on the plane even though it was still fifteen minutes until take off (the rule I believe is ten minutes). After being bounced around from person to person he got another flight into Dulles Airport, both Reagan and BWI were not an option apparently. Dulles is a good forty five minutes from us and his flight was landing an hour or two later, but what can you do?

Then his flight got delayed again. And again. And again.

Long story short I went to bed at 11:00pm, woke up at 2:00am and drove almost an hour to Dulles to meet Ryan when his flight landed at 3:30am. Naturally his luggage SOMEHOW got on his original flight so none of his bags were at Dulles. So at 4:00 am we are driving to Reagna to pick up his bags. Naturally my grand nine months apart reunion was a little different than expected (aren't they always?)! Between my sleep deprivation and his annoyance at everythin from airplanes to the state of California as a whole, we were both kind of cranky. By the time we got home hit was about 5:30 in the morning and the movers were due in less than three hours. Ryan's reunion with Rylie girl was downright adorable though....

We were home so late/early that our neighbor Adam was leaving for work and stopped to chat with us. Finall around 6:30 am we collapse into bed, I didn't bother changing out of my jeans, and tried to sleep. 8:00am on the dot my phone rings with the movers being ten minutes away. Before I could get up and get Rylie outside, they were there. Four guys and a big truck to pack up our entire lives... except for my husband still sleeping in the bed. Ugh. I had to go in and yell at him (three times) to get up and he ran and got breakfast for everyone. We played with Rylie girl outside and tried just to stay out of the way mostly. By noon we were down to what was coming with us in the truck.

At this point we were both deliriously tired and wanted to blow up our air mattress and pass out. Here, I goofed. I forgot to buy an air pump... major wife fail there. So in the car we go, we return our cable box to Comcast, grab a quick lunch ala drive thru and run to Walmart for said air pump. By 2pm we were passed out! We napped a few hours and the next few days were sort of hazy. We took Rylie girl on walks together, went out to dinner with Adam and once by ourselves to our favorite restaurant, and said goodbye to Alexandria. We strolled King Street and the Waterfront, played with the pup at the park and basically did a lot of walking. When you have no TV (and um, no furniture) it makes you go out more!

Saying goodbye to Carrie was very difficult for me... honestly it was the only time I shed a tear during the entire process. She came over with Poncho and we all hung outside for a bit, like always, and then we walked her back up towards her apartment and walked to our favorite Italian place for dinner. As soon as she went one way up the street and we went the other I had tears running down my cheeks. Carrie got me through these last nine months, it would not have been the same without her and she has easily become one of my best friends.

Before I knew it, Monday morning rolled around. Naturally things went wrong. Rylie gets carsick and needs Benadryl to be ok in the car and we couldn't find it. Ryan went to four gas stations and then just waited to CVS to get more (it was in the trunk of my packed car in case you were wondering). We wanted to be on the road by 8 and didn't get on the highway until well after 9. Oops. I was nervous about the drive, I've never been the driver alone in the car for more than four hours really so the six to eight we were looking at had me nervous, but I did it! I followed Ryan who followed his GPS down 95 and the backway through Farmville.

We stopped a few times, to let Rylie out, grab food and get gas really. I had a moment where I was rocking out to my iPod that turned out kind of funny. I'm blasting *NSYNC and singing and dancing (fist pumping and waving my arms may have been involved) to Crazy For You when suddenly I get a text... "You having fun back there?" Busted. I look at the truck and I can see my husband laughing hysterically in the sideview mirror. This happened more than once. A rock the size of a small meteorite also hit my windshield less than five miles from the North Carolina state line on 95.

It scared the bejeezus out of me, but luckily it didn't hurt my visibility and I could still drive fine. Not fun to have happen on moving day though. We had to be at our closing by 4 so we were pushing it regardless! My parents and my brother were already in town to help us move, clean and settle, so we met them at the house around 3pm. Of course it was locked but I got my first sight!

We handed Rylie girl to my parents and jumped in the car again. We got a cashiers check at the bank and squeaked into our closing with the lawyer and realtor a little bit after 4. I signed my name on more pieces of paper than I ever though possible and then we were done. We have a house! Chris, our awesome realtor, took us back to the house, opened it and let us inside for the first time. He also gave us a welcome mat, some decorative lights, a watering can and a wonderful card as house warming gifts.

Looking inside we had a LOT of work to do.... but that you shall see tomorrow!

 EDIT 12/15/14 PERSEC

Saint Patricks Day Parade

I cant believe it has been almost a week since I blogged. Wow. With all the paperwork back and forth between three states for the house, my uncle being in town, long walks to tire Rylie out and helping Carrie move I just failed to get to my laptop like I wanted to. I also had to upload tons of pictures to blog about what I wanted to blog about!

So let's go back a week to the Alexandria Saint Patrick's Day Parade! Carrie and I walked down and got a good spot on King Street and enjoyed the festivities.


Here we go!


OOH RAH!


Bundled up but the sun would appear later. And we were right in it!


Is it weird that I love bagpipers??


Hard Times Cafe horse unicorn


Irish Dancers


Bally shanners!


Rylie needs a sibling.... an Irish Wolfhound would be perfect!


Alexandria's finest


Post parade awesomeness


Music at Pat Troy's


Rewarded with Hard Cider!


Classic cars


DeLorean Love!


Flux Capacitor included!

Since there was drinking and not much eating we grabbed some lunch (and maybe another cider) before taking the pups for a walk. I am really going to miss Alexandria. I love living here. And I will miss my amazing neighbor and friend.

Semi - WW - Rylie Girl

Thank you all so much for your advice and recommendations yesterday. Ryan and I are lining up a realtor, applying for a mortgage/loans and a whole slew of other things. At least at this point it looks like we may be able to add a little more to our budget (yay!) but we shall see.

Last night was Bunco (!!) so my neighbor and resident sanity keeper Carrie watched Rylie for me. While I was gone Rylie girl enjoyed playing with Carrie's boxer Poncho and cat Skyler (her first feline experience). Apparently they ran around and played the entire time I was gone. Of coruse I have to drag her home as someone did not want to leave and proceeded to run around my apartment like a loony before running in circles chasing her own tail.



Then I took a shower and Rylie laid in the bathroom nearby. I think a combination of the running, the heat, the chasing the tail and maybe a littel dehydration made what happened next come into play. I heard a grumbling sound. At first I thought it was the pipes in the wall. Then I thought it was me. Then I realized it was Rylie. Before I could do anything she threw up on my bathroom rug. Ryan wanted to know why I didn't run her outside... um, because I was in a towel? Anyway it was not that bad and she seemed perfectly fine after. I think it was just a combination of everything to make the perfect storm.

Sigh.


Anyway, onto the Wordless Wednesday part.

Carrie took some AMAZING pictures of Rylie when they were hanging out and emailed them to me. I was so excited, I really do love these pictures. Thank you Carrie!






Puppy yawns!!! I love these!






PS - How did my little pup pup go from this...


To this in just over a month?! She is growing up so fast!

Thank you

Thank you all for the kind comments you gave me on my last wreck of an entry. Blogging on no sleep while very emotional sometimes causes an entry to be a bit of a mess! But I appreciate all of you for helping me.

That day when I got home from work I called my mom and, surprise surprise, cried to her for about an hour. When I hung up the phone I tried to drag Rylie's crate out of my room but it wouldn't fit through the door. Typical. I was crying again. Then my neighbor Adam came and knocked on the door to drop something off for me. He saw the tears running down my blotchy red face and I think I may have scared him a bit!

"Are you ok?"
"Nooooooo!"

The whole thing poured out and still in his uniform from work Adam helped me move the cardboard divider in the crate and fold it up and drag it into the dining room. Sure it isn't pretty in there, but I am not having any dinner parties anytime soon! After that I took Rylie to PetSmart for more food and she nearly gave me a heart attack when she jumped out of the moving shopping cart! This coming from the pup who won't even jump in and out of the car yet! She made tons of new friends of course and I got her a big ol' candy cane rawhide since it was 'Christmas' and 75% off. She loves it!



We got home and played a bit but she started dozing in the living room and kitchen. Even though it was 8:40 I was exhausted so I put her in the crate, covered it, went in my room and turned on the air conditioner and shut the door. She whined for maybe five minutes and then was blissfully silent. Ryan called and I (surprise) cried to him before passing out long before 10pm. Rylie barked around midnight so I took her out, she went, came back inside and went in the crate. Minimal whining. Repeat at 4am and then at 7:20am when I got up. Bliss!

Since then she goes to bed around ten (um, as do I...) and wakes up maybe once at 4 and then 7:20 to eat breakfast. Saturday she did that and then slept again until 10:30am. I was ecstatic. Last night she went to bed at 10 and woke up at 715!!!! Whew! If this keeps up I shall be a happy furbaby mommy.

Saturday my friend Cat came over and we took Rylie into Old Town. We literally could not walk more than five feet without people going "Oh my goodness a pippy! How old is she? What is her name? Can we pet her? She is SO cute!" So our conversation was a little stilted to say the least. When we got to the Starbucks at the bottom of King Street Cat went in to get is some drinks and we were practically mobbed! Then we met Fred.



Fred is a Great Dane. Rylie was smaller than his head!



He was super sweet and Rylie was running around him and on him playing, losing interest and bounding away and then bounding back again. We had a crowd of people come watch and even start taking pictures on their phones! I wonder now if Rylie is randomly on the internet somewhere...

Then Cat and I went and sat in the park and just talked. It was nice. Rylie romped a bit and then curled up in my lap to nap. Then in Cat's.



When we walked back to the car Rylie passed out in Cat's lap in the front seat! I woke her up for dinner and we got to Tango with Daddy for a bit. Then I put her in her crate, no fuss, and Carrie and I walked up to Southside for dinner. When I came back we walked around again and she passed out around ten. Bliss.

Today was low key, I went to church and the grocery store, Rylie napped and chewed things.

Overall Rylie's downtime is spent watching tv...



Sitting in my lap...



And catching her own tail in unusual ways...




So things are getting better. I sometimes feel a little overwhelmed, but it is definitely getting better. I love that little pain in the butt! Thanks for your advice once again, and if you don't mind continuing to send good thoughts and prayers our way, I'd appreciate it!