Hello - Goodbye

We've said a lot of hello's in the past month. We said hello to our beautiful daughter Merrill, to family and friends as we traveled across the country, to our new home, to new neighbors, and to a new way of life. Of course along with each 'hello,' we had to say a lot of goodbyes. We said goodbye to being a family of three, to lots of friends ad co-workers in Connecticut, to our old home and our much-loved neighborhood in Fairfield, and to all of our established routines in life. It's been an adventure to say the least. Here's just a glimpse of what we've been up to....

The week before we moved, Merrill and I headed up to my school for an introduction as well as final good-byes. It was nice to see my students one last time and to say goodbye to all of my wonderful co-workers. I learned so much from working there and will always be thankful for the opportunity to do so.

The weekend before the movers came, we hosted one last get-together with our mommy group. The mommies all looked at us like we were crazy when they saw nothing was packed yet -- I took having packers very seriously :) -- but were happy to come and socialize while the kids played. It was a great day out, so the party eventually traveled outside where the kids played ball for a bit and then spent some time playing in the water table. Needless to say, most of them ended up stripped down to their diapers -- I think they had fun!!


wonder why Jonathan ended up naked! ;)


Will thought the whole thing was pretty funny :D!

a rare moment when Millie was sitting still! This was her second outfit....


Chase taking it all in...

We were very sad to have to say goodbye to this group of families. The mommies have been a HUGE support for me as a new mother and its been great seeing all the babies grow into toddlers. We'll be keeping a close eye on everyone through the world of technology though and hopefully the mommies will still answer any frantic e-mails I may send out ;).

Just a few days later, the packers came and the move we had been talking about for over 9 months was finally happening. It was amazing to see our lives packed away in just one day. (somehow it's taken WAY longer than that to UNpack our lives... ;)). Thursday, July 30th the movers were back and the truck was loaded. This day brought our last set of goodbyes for CT -- it was time to say goodbye to Stephie and all of Millie's friends at daycare as well as our home for the past year.

It's hard to sit still for goodbyes when you are 21 months old!

Millie told Leo to "try again" after this hug ...

...so they did :).

**notice what a hot, sweaty mess Millie is ... maybe not the best way to start out a trip... we did wipe her down a bit before sticking her in the car :) **

After picking Millie up, we made one last stop at the house so Millie could see that it was empty. We went through and said a quick goodbye to all of the rooms and then it was back to the car to start our journey to St. Louis.
And so our goodbyes end and our hellos begin ... but more on that later ;)