Stardate 63532.33 - Highlands-Atlantic Highlands Trail

There is a pretty new trail between Highlands and Atlantic Highlands suitable for walking, jogging, or biking, with some secluded beaches and views out over the bay. We picked up a jogging stroller via Craigslist and Cheryl gave it a try with Loren on the trail.





At the end, in Atlantic Highlands, there is a playground where Cheryl let Loren have some fun.





Highlands, NJ

Stardate 63532.3 - Beach Vacation

Things have been so busy on vacation that we haven't even had a chance to post anything! So here are some pictures of the beach house we're renting and where we've been spending the past week.

Here Loren eats breakfast in the dining room (thanks to Aunt Marie for the sturdy chairs!).


Here is the living room with the famous (and large) green couch (thanks to my father-in-law Bill for helping me move it to the beach house).


Here is the small back yard by the driveway and part of the patio out back.


Here is the side yard.


Here Loren is playing hopscotch in the driveway. The house has off-street parking for 3, which is nice because we've heard that in the summer the streets get packed with cars and people have trouble parking by their homes (although we haven't really seen that yet).


Here is Kate enjoying a lunch of prunes.


Loren exiting the kitchen.


We have a lot of pictures we've taken, but I'm trying to quickly get something up on the blog this morning before the girls wake up, so I'll save them for subsequent posts.

Highlands, NJ

Photos from the beach

In the absence of our camera, here are some not-so-great photos from my iPhone to keep you up to date on our last couple of weekends. Last weekend Curt's dad and his girlfriend came for a visit. Loren enjoyed the dinosaur at Veterans Park in Highlands while we killed time waiting for a table at Inlet Cafe.


Grandpop, Grandma and Loren


Valerie and Kate



You know these two


Granddad and Kate


Loren on the bay while we waited for the check



The next morning Loren was up incredibly early for some reason. To get her out of the house I took her for a hike on the new Bayshore Trail. Here she explores the "deserted beach".


This weekend our friends Chris and Lisa came to visit with their daughter Lily. Here Loren and Lily hang out on the back porch.


This morning we went to the Highlands Farmers Market and the girls got cookies at Waterwitch Coffee and Tea.


Then we had a gorgeous afternoon on the beach in Sea Bright.

Stardate 63505.31 - Vacation

We're at the beach house for 2 weeks of vacation. I packed our older, Cannon Powershot S2 IS camera to leave at the beach since we never use it anymore, but neglected to check the data card slot first to ensure it contained a data card. It did not. So now we're going to have to take a little trip to a store over Fourth of July weekend (I'm sure it won't be crowded) to get a data card for the camera.

We've got friends visiting this weekend and then we go a few days before Cheryl's brothers roll into town for about a week. Then we'll finish up the vacation with just us before returning to the city and work.

Sorry no pictures! You will just have to wait until our shopping trip.

Highlands, NJ

Stardate 63476.32 - NoVA Trip

First, I want to point out that this post is number 1,000. That is correct - we've posted one thousand times to this blog. I posted almost every day for some time, although with the time constraints we have these days with work and kids we're lucky if we post every 2 weeks.

Second, we went to Northern Virginia (NoVA) this past weekend to attend the 1-year birthday party of Caelan, the son of one of Cheryl's roommates in college. I won't dwell on the pain of the drive and Kate's two modes (sleeping or screaming), but we did get to visit with some friends and family while we were there. Since we lived in NoVA for many years before we moved to NYC, it is just impossible to visit with everyone over a three-day trip. Next time we'll stay with Cheryl's brother Andy and his wife Jen and make them throw a big party for us so we can invite everyone we know and no-one will be left out!

We drove down on Friday and went over to Brian and Allison's place to meet their son. They hosted a pizza party and Trent and Jenny came over with their boys. It was a lot of fun chaos.


On Saturday we went to visit Lucy and Mike in Warrenton and spend time in their pool. While it hasn't topped 80 in NYC in some time, it was 90 in Virginia when we were there.



The hat was borrowed, and there have already been sufficient comments on Facebook regarding my farmer's tan.



The birthday party was Saturday afternoon, and apparently we forgot to get the camera out because we have no pictures of it.

Sunday (Father's Day) we ate breakfast in the hotel and then went to meet Monique and Justin for lunch, since with the craziness of the party we didn't get a chance to speak with them too much.

But first, we stopped at a park near their home to wear Loren out before getting back into the car for the long ride home.



Kate enjoyed her first time in a swing and it seemed to work as Loren for the most part was very, very good for the drive home. Kate, on the other hand, was a different story and I don't think we will be traveling long distances with her again until she is a bit older.

This weekend my Dad is coming up for a visit so we'll try to get more pictures up a week from now.

NYC

Stardate 63476.32 - Kate Eats

We recently started Kate on solid food (you can compare her expressions with Loren's first bites of food here). Just baby cereal right now, but she seems to really enjoy it! Loren also enjoys helping.





NYC

Stardate 63436.35 - Beach House!

What a crazy few weeks! As we mentioned, our counter-offer on the studio next door was turned down so that was the end of our wild idea to combine apartments into a bigger space. Instead, we decided to rent a place on the Jersey Shore to spend weekends on the beach. We've got the place for a year, to decide if we like the area and the weekend commute and if so we may purchase a weekend place out there. Even in the winter we're likely to spend weekends there as it is better to be cooped up in a 3-bedroom, multi-floor, 2 bath house than in our apartment in the city!

Oh, yes, I also had a pretty big birthday at the end of May when I turned 40. We spent it carrying loads of stuff to Cheryl's parents' place to pre-stage it for the beach house. Loren helped Grandma make me a peanut butter pie - yummy!!



Then this past Friday we finally got the keys to the beach house. Here Loren poses in front of the place, which has great roses and landscaping.


It does have a small yard on the side and in the back that I had to mow on Sunday. Loren helped with her mower.


We spent most of Friday and Saturday moving things into the house and visiting garage sales close by in NJ to furnish the place. Sunday we finally got to take a break and spend some time on the beach, which is just a 2-minute walk from the house.


We got out early on Sunday so there were not many people there yet.




We ended up staying until Monday morning. I got up early and drove the car back home (and I still made it to work early), and Cheryl took the girls for a ride on the ferry back (so they wouldn't have to be up at 0500). Now just a few short days in the city before we head back out there. We're having a problem with the high-speed Internet DSL from Verizon so they are sending a tech over Friday to take a look, so I'm going back down Thursday night and the girls and Cheryl will come down on the ferry after work on Friday.

NYC

Stardate 63402.5 - Memorial Day (Observed)

On Memorial Day we walked over to Central Park and visited a playground, had a small picnic, and stopped by Bethesda Fountain. It was a gorgeous day and we all had a great time. Of course, we would have enjoyed the day even more had we been spending it at our beach house--but alas, we don't get the keys until next Friday.



NYC

Stardate 63396.22 - Fairy Loren

It seems like every post I write these days I talk about how much time has elapsed since the last post. Here are some random pictures from around the apartment from the last week or two. The photo above is of Loren in her fairy costume. Below is Kate in her new(ish) exer-saucer (thank you Craig's list!).



Here is one of our weeknight babysitters, Sarah, with Kate and Loren (and our messy apartment in the background).


Lastly, here I am with Kate at Cheryl's Grandmother's condo on the beach in Sea Bright. Kate is practicing her standing. She really, really, really wants to sit up and she is trying so hard to do it.


NYC

Stardate 63375.03 - What a Roller Coaster!

It has been a little crazy these past few weeks. First, we've been thinking about getting a used car to replace the 8-year-old Toyota Rav4 that we currently have. It is a little small for a family of 4 and luggage, and we are starting to have some space issues with luggage when doing things like traveling for a long weekend. We found some good deals on some loaner Volvo XC70s, but by the time we got around to scheduling a trip out to the Long Island dealership they were all sold (at least we knew a good deal when we spotted it!). So that sort-of fell through.

Then, the studio apartment that abuts our unit on one side went up for sale. We entertained grand notions of buying it an combining units, but it turned out that the seller really wasn't all that interested in selling (he'd rather rent), and he really was not interested in any offer below his asking price (and we were not upping our offer without a counter-offer, especially in this market!). So that fell through.

But the excitement of having more space made us think about how we keep spending all the summer weekends in NJ, and how we keep trying to cram into Cheryl's Grandmother's beach condo (1 bedroom, 1 bath). So we decided to look at real estate on the Jersey Shore, with the idea of purchasing a summer/weekend home. While looking, we found a terrific 3-bedroom 2-bath house in Highlands, NJ with a driveway and a little yard that is only 2 minutes from the beach (an article on the town from the New York Times is available here). We decided to rent for a year to see if we liked the area enough to eventually buy something. Our lease starts the first week of June.

We're looking forward to having a place to escape to on weekends that is bigger than our current place. Not only can we store stuff there, but we can also use it even in the winter months as it will be better to be cooped up in a 3-bedroom house on weekends than in our 2-bedroom apartment in the city--more room for the girls to spread out. And Loren loves the beach so, so much. And look how happy Kate is when she got the news:


Here are some pictures from that weekend we went out to NJ (Mother's Day Weekend, actually) to look at property. We went to the farm in Holmdel Park that we have been to several times before with Cheryl's parents and Grandmother. We also invited Chris and Lisa to bring their daughter Lily and join us. And our friend Michelle was in town and so she also met us there for a visit.




Once we were back home, Loren asked for a photo in her new dress with Kate.


She then took this picture of me and Kate. I think she did a pretty good job! I had to squat down so I'd be level with her and the camera.

So we're all looking forward to weekends on the shore! We may even stay out a week or two over the summer as the commute in on the ferry won't be too bad. All part of our grand experiment to see if we like it.

So no car, no bigger apartment, no purchase on the shore, but a 12-month rental to see if we like it. And that crazy journey is why we haven't posted anything in 3 weeks to the blog.

NYC