Quick Stopover in London

And, we're off!!!

On June 4, the moving company finished taking away all out things, leaving us with an empty home. What a strange feeling.
At 5pm on June 5, we sold both our cars.
At 6pm on June 5, we joined the new owners of our home on a walk through. They were absolutely lovely. We're glad to hand our precious first home over to a nice couple expecting a little boy in just a month.
Afterwards Jeff and Emily, who had been playing with our kids during the walk through, fed us a delicious dinner in the back yard. We made one last run to the storage unit, an illegal stop off to some school trash dumpsters, a stop at Cream King (only for the kids...really), and then crashed at our hotel at ETS.
The afternoon of June 6, we drove to the airport to leave our dear Pennington and all our wonderful friends and memories in NJ. On the way, we got an email from our attorney confirming the home sale had gone through.

So, with no more assets to our name, we flew off!!!

We have one thing to say...J&J flying us business class is AMAZING!!!
It may have spoiled us forever, because they're certainly not going to do that again!

We managed to pull off a quick stopover in London to see Fogo and Lekka!!! The newly engaged Fiona and Alexis to you! ;-)

It was such a treat to see them. We wish we could have had more time, but this was the only way the flights could work out. So, after a good number of hours hauling our way through terminals at Heathrow and storing our luggage, we tubed and bused out to East Dulwich to meet them at their flat. They treated us to an amazing french toast brunch. We caught up for a while while the boys showed their true colors of complete insanity after just a few hours sleep on the flight. Eventually we decided that a stroller nap was the only solution, and we headed off into London.

The boys loved the London double decker buses. Top level, front row for them! They were hysterical because here they are, so excited, pretending to drive the bus!

And here they are 10 minutes later, completely conked out!!!

We took them to see Buckingham palace - a favorite of theirs from their Paddington books. Unfortunately, they were both completely out and we didn't take a picture, somehow thinking we would return.

We wandered through St. James' park. Beau was a little intimidated by the guards, so we just took a picture of this guy, not with him.

Then we made it over to Trafalgar, visited St. Martin in the Fields where Fogo often sings, and headed up to Covent Garden. We dined at Nando's (mmmm....peri peri chicken!), and caught Simon and Irena for just a short time there before we headed back to Heathrow. Always fun to see cousins!!!

The boys loved the tube again on the way back. We collected luggage, and then Mike sprinted through the airport to collect our booster seats which hadn't made it to us upon arrival. This resulted in us almost missing our flight and being completely frenzied. The business class level on Singapore Airlines made up for it afterwards and calmed us right down! We could have fit one of us and both boys in a single seat!!!

Our very excited Lewis was invited to go and meet the pilot and sit in the captain's chair!!! 

The boys were pretty into all their first class treats, space, movies, and service. We slept pretty well, after some cajoling the kids to stop playing and lie down.

And then, we were in Singapore!
We arrived at our hotel late evening and finally crashed....sort of for the night.

Goodbye to New Jersey

Once Mike arrived back from Singapore, there was no rest for the weary!

He arrived back on Friday morning, May 30.
On Saturday morning at 8am, he headed off to pick up the Uhaul van while a few friends from the ward arrived to help us haul all of our NJ storage items off to our unit. That made it start to feel like this was really happening once we had a few pieces of furniture gone!

Mike and I snuck in a night out at a lovely benefit event up at Baldpate Mountain that evening. It was a gorgeous setting a really fun chance to chat with some good friends.

Sunday morning we met up with our dear friends the Jessops for a last family walk at Rosedale. They are moving to Spain just a few weeks after we leave for Singapore, so we've been going through the international move experience in tandem. We'll really miss them!

That evening we had a farewell open house with the ward at the LeSueur's home. It was so nice to have a chance to say some goodbyes to so many wonderful families we knew in that ward.

Monday we were off to sign papers with our lawyer and then finished packing our suitcases, got rid of the last possible items, and made our final piles for air vs boat shipment.

Tuesday the movers arrived. Somehow I thought they would just box items that day, but they wrapped and took all of the furniture from the downstairs and most everything from the basement that day. They work fast! It was such a strange feeling to watch our home empty out!

Lewis also had his pre-school celebration ceremony that morning. He was so proud of himself!
Here he is with Mrs. B and Mrs. Andrew.

That evening we had an absolutely wonderful goodbye party with our neighbors at Hillary's home. We have had the best neighborhood ever, and I've told Mike that if we end up back in Pennington, we have to move back to Eglantine Avenue again ONLY!

Jeff and Emily. We're still heart broken that we moved our kids away from their kids.
What were we thinking! Best of friends right next door! 

Mary, our most amazing babysitter, with two of her brothers.
Her mother, Mary Ellen, is one of the most angelic women I know! 

Garreth - Hillary's son!

Will and Ada enjoying their popsicles.

Cindy with Gracie. The boys talk about Emma and Gracie all the time!

Jelnica

Sam Kinsey

Matt Kinsey with Sonja Karp and one of her boys. Matt and Tara have been so friendly and helpful from day 1. And, Sonja is such a dear. Our boys have been well clothed for the past 5 years thanks to her hand-me-downs! 

Our dear Hillary. We will never have as wonderful a neighbor again!
 Absolute salt of the earth, and a dear friend to us and our boys!

And, the whole neighborhood clan! We've been so lucky to be living in Mayberry every day! 

Wednesday the packers finished everything and left us with an empty home. So, so strange.

Very emotional to say goodbye to our first home, the place we brought our babies home to, and a place of so many happy memories.

Our other drama for the day was that Mike somehow got a humongous splinter all the way up his fingernail and had to spend half the day at an urgent care having it fixed. Poor hubby!
I have to say, we knew that something was going to go quite wrong somewhere along the line. All things considered, Mike decided that he'd take this. But, it really hurt!

We ended the day by picking up our rental car and hauling all of our things to the hotel. Then we met another set of dear friends, the Herways, in Princeton for dinner at Winberries and the Bent Spoon for dessert - of course! It was so nice to be with them, and not nice at all to say goodbye! We will miss them dearly! What am I going to do without my modern dance friend?!?

An aside...I gave Beau a little baby doll as a gift. I knew he would love it - his teachers had told me how much he likes to play baby now that we're expecting. It's always quite an effort to find a boy baby doll, but I found a little blue one who sleeps in a little bundle sac. Very cute. Well, this is baby Lilly above, and Beau has named his doll baby Lilly. He insists that it is a girl, even though he's about to have a baby brother. Good for you kiddo! That may be the only way that we ever get another girl into the family! ;-)

Afterwards we crashed at the Chauncy Center at ETS...our area's best kept secret that they have such a great hotel right there on their beautiful grounds. I do have to say, it was rather hysterical to spend our last two nights in NJ overlooking my old office building!

Thursday the boys had their last day of school. We had planned on a park and popsicle play date afterwards for everyone in their classes, but a bit of morning rain got the better of us. One of Lewis' friends' moms was nice enough to offer to move the party to her home. So, the kids had a really fun time playing with some of their friends!

Beau really need to take a tap class! That's all he did the whole play date!

Lewis with Addy

Erin, Beau, Lewis, Sophia, and Sarah

I missed pictures with the boys before a few of them left - Liam, Jasper, and Quinn were here too, as well as Beau's friend Eleanor from his class. The boys have had such an amazing school and wonderful friends!

Matthew couldn't make it to our little party, so he stopped by the afternoon prior to spend some time and say goodbye. He and his sister, Ava, had put together goodie bags for the boys to take on the plane and even gifted some of his own dinosaurs - so sweet!

Matthew has always brought out the sillies in Lewis!

After a couple last errands of picking up medical records, we headed back to the house to help Mike finish cleaning. It was a race, but we made it!

We then sold our cars at 5pm.
Walked the new owners through our home at 6pm.
Were treated to dinner from Emily and Jeff in their backyard while the kids played.
Made our final, final stop off at the storage unit.
Had one last Cream King ice cream.
And, crashed.
(By the way, if you've been wondering how we fit this all in and still got the boys to bed on time...we didn't. They were a mess! 9pm or later bedtimes all week did not do wonders for their ability to hold it together!)

We feel so lucky to have landed in Pennington and absolutely loved every bit of our experience there. We'll really miss it!