unpacking and updating.

we are back.
great trip, more on that later...

i'm doing my best to get things totally unpacked and put away so i can start unpacking all of the "we're moving!" boxes that had piled up before we left for our taylor family vacation. i meant to update before we left but unfortunately there was far too much going on for me to really share anything.

but here's how august played out...

goodbye old friend.

my camera broke. officially. which meant i had to use my phone and instax for the majority of the trip. i did give in a few times and pulled out the point and shoot but it's no secret that i hate that awful thing. saying goodbye to my canon has been difficult. (especially since my new one won't be in the budget for a few more months... ugh.) joey gave me this camera to take to south america with me 7 years ago... best present ever. well, besides this little cutie of course...

little miss helped inspect each book while we packed.

over the course of three weeks we were thinking about moving, moving, and so not moving. i posted about our amazing weekend in asbury park, but unfortunately that was not the right path for us... adding four hours travel time to joey's day is just not an option right now. no matter how damn cute the house is *sigh*.  i decided at that point to give this area another try and found an amazing place that was pretty much perfect, but unfortunately our application was not chosen...

a very frustrating decision based on having vs not-having pets... but i'm over it. mostly. 

so now we are again sitting tight. we have absolutely no idea what this final year of joey's current contract will bring so we are keeping our options open and putting focus elsewhere for the moment.

just about when the moving issue wrapped up our attention became focused on hurricane irene.

late night "emergency supply" walmart run.

we decided to get all of our supplies late wednesday the 24th instead of waiting until friday and i was so happy we did... when we did go out friday for just a few last minute things shelves were empty.

our family enjoyed the weekend in. nyc/nj transportation was completely shut down so we hunkered down in our little apartment, walked the dogs in between rain bands, and enjoyed lots of playtime & cuddles. 

abby gets another shelf!

thankfully our family and immediate neighborhood came through the hurricane completely unscathed. i know many on the east coast weren't as lucky and we feel very blessed to have been through two hurricanes (wilma in 2005) with no major injury/major damage. i got a lot of cleaning and prepping for our trip finished while abby + joey got lots of father/daughter time in. i got started on a knitting project that was waiting in the "casted on" pile and was even able to spend some time re-organizing the bookshelves (one of my favorite rainy day activities).

and then... september. *sigh of relief*

date totally saved. (love this!)

it was time! roxy was dropped off at the farm to be boarded for 2 weeks, i did some last minute "fall/SF weather" shopping for little miss, and i got us all packed up to head home to indiana for the first part of our vacation.

as i said our vacation was great. i can't believe how much we packed into the past 10 days... we saw so many people that we love, and had such an amazing time. i'll be sharing the whole trip in a few parts over the next few days because this would become a ridiculously long update otherwise.

so now i'm back where i began! unpacking. revising + adding to my to do list + project queue. getting things back to a normal routine while making some more changes in our current space.

and most importantly enjoying a new stage of parenthood with joey - raising a toddler...

when it's just too quiet in her room.

but that deserves an entire post as well.

love.