Monday, July 23, 2007

ROADtrip

We finally got internet access today and I'm so excited, however the lack of it did make me realize I might have a bit of an addiction, but oh well, I could have much worse addictions so I figure I won't obsess about it too much. I'll apologize now for the length of this post but wanted to cover the last few days of traveling and unpacking....


dayONE
Texas sent us off well this morning it was overcast and slightly cool, as if Texas was saying, “see I’m not too bad you don’t have to be so happy about leaving.” I started the day off driving with a sense of excitement I wanted to be the one that drove out of Texas, there was something thrilling and liberating about it. We’re driving into this new season of our life with so much fear, excitement, love and wonder. What does New York City hold for us, what adventures will we have besides the obvious watching Dealey grow and become the little person he’s meant to be. We can’t wait to find out.

It’s been an interesting week leading up to our departure we have some dear friends going through a really rough time in their life and I know Matt and I both have struggled with walking away from friends we’ve had all our lives but as my friend Rana said,” friends come in and out of your life but that doesn’t mean they’re aren’t always your friend...”and it’s so true. Life is full of so many seasons and I think it would be impossible and overwhelming to maintain ever friendship at high capacity through every season and I do believe that different friendships/relationships go through periods of growth when you need them most.

When we stopped on day one we we’re 743 miles from the only life we’ve ever known in the only city we’ve ever lived together and apart. It definitely leaves an unsettling feeling in my stomach, but then I look over to D and he’s so calm, just sleeping the day away with no cares in the world, no stress, luck little guy! Wish we could look at and live life that way.


dayTWO
Well, day 2 started much like day one...TOO EARLY! However I must give props to my mom she took over taking care of Dealey so Matt and I could both get a little extra sleep. We expected this day to be shorter but contrary to our desires it was longer than day one. None of us could pin point exactly what made it so long we had some traffic, maybe stopped a few more times but nothing too crazy. However we ended up in the wonderful town of Haggerstown, Maryland, we got to drive through the historic downtown to get to our hotel and it was so cute and quaint. We can not wait to go back sometime and explore.

WHAT?: Hungry Mother State Park.....you probably have the same look we did on our face....what the crap?! If you haven’t been to Hungry Mother....well you just haven’t lived!

Nothing much else to say about day two of our road trip to NYC just lots of beautiful landscape as we traveled from Nashville, through the rest of Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.....


dayTHREE
Sunday, we all woke up excited that our trip was almost over (it wouldn’t be until later that we remembered the end of driving meant that we had to unpack the truck). It was a short 4 1/2 hour drive from Haggerstown to Staten Island through Pennsylvania & New Jersey. We got in around 2:00 after getting lost and somewhat turned around in Jersey trying to get to a specific bridge to get over to Staten Island. We started unpacking the car and the truck into the first floor apartment......

That’s right I said first floor apartment, the crazy people on the second floor are causing all sorts of problems but they have finally agreed to get out of our apartment by the 31 of July so we’ll be moving again in a few weeks, probably on the 5th, but Carlos & Andy two strong guys, one is the landlords son (Carlos) and the other one is a family friends anyways Carlos has the muscles as his mom Maria put it so hopefully it will go quickly and I can finally after more than 4 months unpack our stuff and get back to a somewhat normal life. The hardest part about it is that Matt’s going to be gone on and off through the month of August so he won’t be here to help with much unpacking and after only spending a short time together here he will leave for a week and half and as soon as he gets back we have to move again so I am desperately looking forward to him being home and being able to spend the little time we have together playing with the Dealey Monster and exploring our new home.

We have to thank everyone for your prayers as we traveled a VERY special thanks to the Avants', Tammy helped us pack all day Thursday and then Thursday night we invaded their home for the night, all 6 of us! They have been such wonderful friends through the darkest and brightest moments of our lives since we’ve meet them and we will miss them and all our friends so much we talked about all our friends while driving and also talked about how we can only hope to find as many wonderful peeps here in NYC. Speaking of meeting people we had our first random meeting today and Dealey proved to be quite the conversation starter. We ate at a great pizza place called Cafe Milano (this one’s menu goes in the definite KEEP pile) we had an awesome NY style pizza with pepperoni and Italian sausage sliced not the ground up stuff, so freaking yummy. Anyways, sorry I got side tracked, this nice lady with a toddler just started talking to me, asked how old D was and it went on from there she said that we would love it here and there’s lots of families and kids, then she introduced herself as Karen and said she see us again, it was awesome hopefully I will see her again walking around or at the park!

We hope everyone is doing awesome, keep those blogs updated and I’ll do the same and seriously anytime you get the urge to take a trip NYC, do it! You get to hang with us and D so all around it’s just the best trip you’ll ever have! :o) The Maples B & L (because you all know I do not do mornings) is always open! Love, Hugs and Skittles all the way from NYC....

6 comments:

Sheyb said...

*So* glad you all made it to NYC safely! :) Sounds like life is hectic, like mine, but I know you'll get through it! You're a strong woman! I haven't even meet you yet and I know this! :) Good for you about being so optimistic in a totally new place!! Yay for you Rach!

Kim and JD said...

I am happy to hear that you made it and all is good. Please keep in touch, we will miss you guys!
Keep updating pics of D man so we can see him... Hugs!! :)

eleventhirtysix images said...

I'm so glad you guys made it safe... but I miss you already!

patti said...

What a road trip...I'm so excited for you guys...keep those great stories coming and pics of little D!

Thought of you today R- I went to chuy's and ate up the dressing!!

The McKays said...

the trip out sounded good; glad you were able to enjoy driving and exploring. we've talked so much about how important it will be to make new friends, so i'm glad to hear that it's already started! how did cafe milano's pizza compare to gino's?? xoxo

Rachel Maples said...

no comparison on the pizza just different the great thing about NY pizza is you can eat a slice or two and really enjoy it, with chicago style it's so thick you have to have a big apetite to eat it and even then one slice and you're wondering how you're going to get up from your seat....I love them both, can't wait to have gino's again!