Settled

We are settled into Sue and Joe's house now and have sort of a routine figured out. Ben is now working full time at the Tufts Labs and I am watching Finley full time. Finley and I spend our time checking out local towns, farms, cooking, playing outside at the local zoo and various playgrounds. She is currently very obsessed with horses, cows and Elmo. Her language skills are growing by the day. It's amazing to hear her put words together. This morning she said "hair mouth", when she wanted help getting a hair out of her mouth and if she doesn't want something anymore she'll say "take this".  She hasn't quite gotten a rhythm to her speech, so there is often a pause between words. She is also getting very opinionated and has an unbelievable amount of energy. She is ready to be potty trained, but it's difficult to do when we aren't at our own house. The other day, she pooped on the toilet, but we aren't pushing for it too hard. We have another two months here.

Things are settled with our house other than needing some paperwork from the Shryock's, but they are cruising the Mediterranean. I am looking for houses to buy everyday, but we really haven't settled on a location and nothing is really sticking out at me. I'm not a huge fan of many colonials or capes unless there is a front porch. I'd really like a Victorian style house. This is definitely not the most important factor, but it's hard to get over a first impression. After being here for a month and experiencing the extreme heat and it's only May, a pool is becoming more of a necessity. I am willing to be more flexible about the age of the house as long as it's well made and the neighborhood is established. There is nothing I hate more than a generic new house plopped down on a freshly cleared lot in the middle of a subdivision.

Another factor to consider in towns to live is that I am thinking about going back to school! I didn't think this would happen and I'm not sure yet, but I am looking into Doctor of Physical Therapy programs. It's a three year program and the pay is so much better than what dietitians make, but I would need to retake the GRE, several prerequisite classes and get lots of shadowing experience. Anyway, if I decide to do this it would be to start around when Ben is done with his school. The dilemma is that I'm not sure if I'd get into a school in Boston or Western Mass. Luckily we have awhile to think about that and for now, I'm going to continue working as a dietitian to get more clinical experience.

We are leaving tonight for Ontario for another flyball tournament. We will stop drive about 3-4 hours tonight and then another 4-5 tomorrow.

We made it!

We have been in Massachusetts for almost 2 weeks now. We are feeling a bit like gypsies, moving between Sue & Joe's house, our trailer and a cabin on a nearby lake for a few days. Finley arrived with her Grandparents safely and got settled at a cabin they rented near Sue & Joe's house on Lake Manchaug. She has been adjusting really well to everything and is a good sport about the lack of routine in her life. For the first week Ben and I stayed between our trailer and Sue & Joe's house, spending time getting the trailer organized, driving around to different towns and taking care of stuff related to selling our house.

Here are some photos of our camping experience at Herkimer NY. It was the night before we arrived in Massachusetts and was the nicest KOA I've ever been to. 

Speaking of selling our house..it's not going that well. We were excited to have a buyer after just a few days. We accepted his offer, which I wasn't too thrilled with since we gave him more than I would like for closing costs. Then he did his inspection and it seems like he was really looking for something to be wrong. When he didn't find anything, he asked for money for future repairs and small things. He wanted $2500 after we had already given him more than we wanted. We counter offered $1000 plus a home warranty and now he is upset because the warranty (even the best one available) isn't as expensive as he expected. At this point we just want this to go through because we already missed our window for getting top dollar. We will know by the end of the week.

Anyway, after Frances and Kenneth left for Reno we moved into the cabin for a few days and just got back to Sue & Joe's today with Finley. Now we are all in the same house and our stuff is only in 3 different places! We are so thankful that Sue & Joe generously are allowing us to stay until August! Finley will be a lot more comfortable in the house rather than the trailer! We had a hard time finding a rental house, but did sign a lease for a 3 bedroom house in Grafton (the town that Tufts is in).

We are also trying to decide where we want to buy a house and are possibly thinking about investing in a house near Tufts, staying until Ben graduates and then moving to a location that we really want to be permanently. The towns that we like the most locally so far are: Shrewsbury, Hopkinton, Holliston, Grafton. There are still quite a few that we haven't seen yet.

We are experiencing major culture shock. New England is quite a bit different than Seattle and even where I grew up in New Jersey. It's very old. Most of the towns were established in the 1600s, which of course means lots of history and farming/manufacturing that occurred in the towns. The town we are in now is pretty rural. There is a small downtown with a few restaurants and shops, lots of wooded areas, lakes, ponds. It's beautiful, but will take some getting used to.

 Sturbridge is one of the towns we are thinking about moving to. We took a hike there and went out to lunch after. It's a good fit for us because it's got a nice town down and lots of open space. It's also convenient access to New York. The only downside is that it's far from Boston and not the most convenient location to Tufts for Ben.

The lake cabin

Almost There

We drove from Cheyenne to Lincoln, Nebraska and then to Amana, Iowa without any major issues. The weather was amazing until we got to Nebraska, other than the wind on the highway. It's been rainy and cold here in Iowa. We have electric hooks though and two powerful space heaters, so we've been staying nice and warm. The driving has been going well. Ben usually leads with the truck and trailer and I follow with the Escape and the dogs. We find places to stop and run the dogs, but generally we stop as little as possible. I'm almost done listening to the 3rd book of the Hunger Games...that's a lot of driving time! There's been a cold that has passed between everyone in our family. I thought it was so great that I didn't get it. I held out for a long time, but it hit me hard. I'm trying to sleep a lot and take it easy.

Just when I was so sick of driving, we stopped in Amana for 3 days for a flyball tournament. It was awesome! We had lots of fun and the camping was great with full hookups. They even had inexpensive breakfast and lunch to buy. The Amana Colonies happens to be a tourist attraction, with lots of restaurants and shops with handmade goods. It was originally a self-sufficient religious, German colony. Our extent of the experience was going to the Ox Yoke Inn for some German food. The food was very good, aside from the peanut butter chocolate pie that was most definitely pudding pie and our extremely overly attentive waitress. I'd love to go back and check out the furniture shops and wineries. On Sunday night we met up with my friend Amy from nutrition school for dinner at a gourmet restaurant in Cedar Rapids, called Class Act. It was fun to catch up and have some time away from the trailer!

The Ox Yoke Inn

 

A generous flyballer made us a few cocktails

 Ben had a Walking Taco for Lunch. It's a bag of crushed up doritos with ground beef, cheese and lettuce. Apparently a popular midwest food that I had never heard of!

Today we had a long drive from Amana to a campground near Toledo, Ohio. Even with a three day break, it was a long, tiring day. I am ready to be done with this drive and get to Massachusetts. We are in desperate need of clean laundry and groceries. Tomorrow we are driving to Upstate New York. I cannot wait to see Finley. We miss her so much, but she is handling the situation as if nothing happened. We talk to her every night and she sounds very happy. She is sleeping and eating a lot as usual and enjoying undivided attention from her Gran and Pop. 

on the road

Well we are finally on the road. We left on Friday. It's been really chaotic, but exciting! Getting our house ready to sell was going really well until the last day. We were able to put Fin in daycare for several days, which was very nice because while she was eating snacks, playing and napping we were cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and some packing too.  We stayed at La Quinta for 3 nights, which was nice but made things more complicated. We had a hard time organizing everything between the truck, trailer and moving truck.

The last day was pretty awful. We thought we had just a few things left to do, but of course everything takes longer than expected and I ended up leaving with the dogs and Finley at around 3 pm. We then realized that Ben wouldn't be able to leave until 7 pm and our planned stop was 5 hrs away...which even with stopping in Portland for dinner would leave Finley and I and the dogs by ourselves at the campsite for several hours waiting for Ben with the trailer.  Luckily, we were able to cancel the campground reservation and get a hotel reservation. Fin and I met Brooke for some yummy Thai food and then headed down to Salem to good old La Quinta. Unfortunately, they didn't have any dog friendly rooms and it was too late to change hotels, so the dogs ended up staying in the trailer. It was a long, long awful day, but so nice to finally be done with the house and on the road.

The next day was so much better. We went to Mt Shasta and got into town at around 5 pm. We set up the trailer and then took the dogs to the dog park and Finley to a playground. We decided to skip cooking and went out to a local pub for dinner. It was a nice relaxing evening in the most amazing weather. Later that night Finley woke up in the middle of the night coughing, but went back to sleep after some cuddling and some heat in the trailer.

The following day we got to Reno at around 2:30 pm. We had some time to finalize the paperwork for selling our house and relax with Gran and Pop. The dogs loved running in the nearby golf course and we took care of lots of errands and organizing of the trailer. Finley enjoyed her sleeping arrangements and caught up on much needed sleep..she had been going to bed at 11 and waking up a 8 am. A girl needs at least 12 hours of sleep! We traded cars and now have a Ford Escape, which is a bit bigger and 4WD. I'll get used to it quickly with all this driving! We celebrated Finleys birthday on Monday with an ice cream sundae and we said goodbye until May 3rd. Ouch!

This morning we left before Finley woke up and heading out of Reno at around 9:30. We arrived in Salt Lake City at 7 pm, but lost an hour so we were in a bit of a rush to get the dogs some exercise, heat up leftover ribs make by Pop along with some frozen vegetables and finalize the organization of the trailer. We put all our clothes "away", put away the extra toiletries that we aren't using, organized the dogs closet and put a new memory foam mattress pad on the bed. Whew. Tomorrow we are going to Cheyenne, Wyoming - a 7 hour drive.

craziness

Next week at this time will be our last night in Seattle! Ahhh! We've gotten a lot done since I last posted. The garden and painting is basically done. The garage still needs some work, but thats Ben's department! The kitchen is packed and we are using the cooking stuff from the trailer. I cleaned out the food cabinets, packed some stuff, set some aside for the trailer and made a bag for donation. Based on the food we have left, we will be having Matzoh ball soup tonight and Enchiladas tomorrow night. I HATE wasting food, so when I went food shopping today I bought as little as possible and will try to eat only food in the house. It makes for some interesting meals!

This past weekend we left Finley with her grandparents for 3 nights for the first time! I missed her. A lot and missed her even more when I talked her to on the phone and she said "hi mama" in her happy little voice. The thought of leaving her for almost 2 weeks is terrifying, but we have no choice. It also doesn't help that we will miss her birthday! She would be miserable in the car with us for that many days and will have so much fun with her Gran and Pop.

With all the craziness going on, we took a trip to Victoria for a flyball tournament last weekend. Our friend Sue came to visit for it and we completely took several days off to tour around Seattle and take the ferry to Victoria. We went to the Pike Place Market and the Duck Tour here and visited the inner harbour in Victoria. Of course the ferry ride speaks for itself.  I needed that little break! I didn't think about all the things that are stressing me out and then when we got home it hit! We are leaving so soon!

 
 

23 Months

Finley is a very busy girl. She still sleeps very well, from 8:30-9:30 and naps from 1-4. Yeah that's not a lot of awake time, but when she's awake she really lives it up. She is non stop trying to feed the dogs, empty cabinets, put various clothes on, play with the dogs, "reorganize things", open and close doors. She seriously doesn't quit. The only time she stops moving is when it's time to eat and then she goes big too. The other morning she was eating cereal with fruit and I was eating a leftover Reuben sandwich. She was asking for some and I said you won't like it, but gave her a piece of sauerkraut to try. She liked it and ended up eating 1/2 my sandwich. Lately she's been really into being held, which is fine most of the time, but hard when Im trying to get something done. At least she doesn't care who it is that picks her up!

last minute

We are now down to about 14 days that we will be home to work on house projects. I am mostly finished packing aside from the essential things we'll need until the last minute. There are always those things that you don't know where to pack and keep avoiding until it's time to pack the truck and then shove them all in a box together. Im trying to avoid that and empty every cabinet and pack as much as possible. We've sold almost everything aside from two bookshelves, the grill, and Ben's old video games. Not too bad! Today Ben is power washing the house and I'm plugging away inside packing, cleaning and putting books on CD on my iPOD. It's been a major challenge for me to organize everything since we'll be in our trailer for awhile and space is very limited there. The majority of our things will be on the truck and then put immediately in storage, so we need to make sure we don't pack anything we'll need for the next few months. I'm often so overwhelmed with all the different factors that it's hard to get anything done. I've found that making really detailed lists is the best way go. Last night we walked to every room in the house and made an extremely detailed list.

I've been searching for rentals, but don't have any leads yet. I am getting very nervous about finding a rental that will be big enough, in a good location that will allow 3 dogs! The thought of living in our trailer for more than a few weeks is very frightening. I'm sure it will all work out, but I guess I like to worry about these things. 

We've been making an effort to see our friends for the last time. We went out to Quinns in Seattle last night with Kate and Jacob for dinner. We heard they have good burgers and it was true..they were pretty amazing.
 I've been trying to use up ingredients in my pantry so I don't have to compost good food. I hate wasting food. I had a lot of beans, cans of tomatoes, broth and cabbage in the refrigerator. The only thing I needed to buy for this recipe was the bread. It makes a lot and you really can't go wrong with any recipe by Ina Garten. She is the best! Ribolitta was one of our favorite dishes in Italy. We went back to the same place several times in Tuscany.

Ina Gartens Ribollita

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound dried white beans, such as Great Northern or cannellini
• Kosher salt
• 1/4 cup good olive oil, plus extra for serving
• 1/4 pound large diced pancetta
• 2 cups chopped yellow onions (2 onions)
• 1 cup chopped carrots(3 carrots)
• 1 cup chopped celery (3 stalks)
• 3 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 (28-ounce) can Italian plum tomatoes in puree, chopped
• 4 cups coarsely chopped or shredded cabbage or kale
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
• 6 cups chicken stock
• 4 cups stale sourdough cubes, crusts removed
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan, for serving

Directions

In a large bowl, cover the beans with cold water by 1-inch.  Allow to soak overnight in the refrigerator.

Drain the beans and place them in a large pot with 8 cups of water, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 45 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and continue to simmer for about 15 minutes, until the beans are tender. Set the beans aside to cool in their liquid.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large stockpot. Add the pancetta and onions and cook over medium-low heat for 7 to 10 minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the carrots, celery, garlic, 1 tablespoon of salt, the pepper, and red pepper flakes. Cook over medium-low heat for 7 to 10 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Add the tomatoes with their puree, the cabbage or the kale, and basil and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for another 7 to 10 minutes.
Drain the beans, reserving their cooking liquid. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, puree half of the beans with a little of their liquid. Add to the stockpot, along with the remaining whole beans. Pour the bean cooking liquid into a large measuring cup and add enough chicken stock to make 8 cups. Add to the soup and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.
Add the bread to the soup and simmer for 10 more minutes. Taste for seasoning and serve hot in large bowls sprinkled with Parmesan and drizzled with olive oil.

Our Epic Drive Across the Country

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