Best Halloween Ever!

We had the best Halloween Ever today!  Hoboken really knows how to throw a parade.  We went to the annual "ragamuffin" parade this afternoon with Mia.  All of the town was dressed up.  Including adults, kids, babies, and dogs!  It was so funny and lots of fun.  Mia was a pumpkin fairy for Halloween.  It was really fun to see her all dressed up.  She didn't mind the costume, but would not wear the head piece.  After the parade we had Ashleigh and Joe Hannibal over for our first Hoboken "sauce" dinner.  Mike did a great job as usual.  Overall making today the best Halloween ever! 

 Shot of Washinton Street during the Parade

 Costume Contest on the little league field

New Apartment!

Sorry it has taken so long to post some shots of where we live here in Hoboken!  Here are some pictures of our new apartment.  I took them while Mia was napping, so we have to post pictures of her room later :)  Mike made sauce for our first dinner party with Ashleigh and Joe Hannibal.  Yummy!  So the kitchen is set up for dinner.

Kitchen/Dining Area and "Bob" stroller spot

 Living room looking fro the hallway

 View of whole place from the front door

Master Bedroom/Office (still a work in progress) 

 Other side of Master

 Master Bath

Mia/Guest Bath 

 View to front door/kitchen from couch

Too young to throw a temper tantrum?

Mia has been into everything lately. She loves all things dangerous. When I remove her from the dangerous object this is what she does ...

Throws herself on the ground and cries.  She will literally put her face on the floor and cry, cry, cry.  She'll even stop and look up at me and then put her face back on the floor and continue to cry.  What a little drama queen this little 10 month old has become.  It's actually really funny.  I laugh every time.  The thing that cracks me up... how does she know how to do it?  I mean you would think a temper tantrum would be a learned trait... guess not!  It's really cute though and we  love every minute of it.

Mia's new playground

Mia and I decided to stop at the playground before we started our walk this morning.  This is one of many playgrounds in our "square mile" city.  I do have to say this playground has the best view of any playground I've ever been to.  I hope Mia will enjoy it for years to come.  She sure enjoyed herself today on the swing.

Because we don't tell you enough...

How much we love you.  Thank you for being you.  Thank you for making us the people we are today.  We love you so very much.

xoxo ~ Mike, Katie, and Mia

Below is a link to an article about Lyle Corey, my good friend Caron's father.  He was an amazing man.  A man that we can all learn from.  Most of you had the honor of meeting him, but for those of you who did not, here is a little bit about his life...

http://rocnow.com/article/local-news/201010100340

Dinner Plans... Changed

Nana, Papa, Ryan and Hannah came to Hoboken to visit and see our new place.  We had great plans for dinner at a Latin place on the water overlooking the Manhattan skyline.  At 4:45 we received a call from the restaurant, Lua.  This is what the hostess said, "I am calling about your reservations. We might be closed tonight.  The street just fell into the Hudson."  I replied with, "WHAT!?!"  She said, "Yeah I've never seen anything like it.  We aren't closed yet, but we might be.  I'll call you back."

We of course had to check out what she was talking about, even if we weren't going to go there for dinner.  We walked down our street to the waterfront and this is what we saw....

The street right in front of the restaurant had sunk into the ground.  The Hudson River is to the right of this picture and the restaurant is to the left.  We decided to walk around to the other side of the building to get a better look and see if we still could eat dinner here!

 

Crazy!  As you can see the hole was huge!  Apparently the restaurant was going to open back up at 7:30.  We decided to cancel our dinner plans and head somewhere else for dinner.  A 7:30 start would have been too late for Mia to eat and get home for bed.  It ended up working out well for us, not so much for Lua. We ate at the City Bistro instead and had a great meal.  Hoboken has excellent restaurants so far.  There is one every 5 feet I feel like.

Carlo's Bake Shop- Hoboken claim to fame

In preparation for the big weekend of visitors Mia and I took a walk to City Hall in downtown Hoboken to get some parking passes for Nana and Papa.  It was a beautiful day!  Blue skies and 70 degrees! 

I carried Mia in the Baby Bjorn.  She had a blast changing it up from her normal mode of transportation, the "Bob" stroller.  She was looking up and down the whole time.  Must not get a good view of the sky/trees or feet/ground in the stroller.

After we finished getting the parking passes we remembered that Carlo's Bake Shop aka "The Cake Boss" on TLC was across the street.  The few times we have walked past the store there has been a line of people waiting down the street just to get in.  Since it was 9am on Friday the Bakery did not have a line outside so we decided to check it out.  

There were lots of yummy treats inside.  We decided to get an assortment of Italian cookies for dessert.  Everyone enjoyed the cookies.  I am sure we will be back to sample many more yummy treats from Carlo's!

Cold Weather... What's that?

Check out Mia's new cold weather gear.  She's not so sure about the boots just yet!

Back to Blogging - AND - Welcome to Hoboken!

We are back to blogging and in a different city!  Over the last two weeks we packed up our four bedroom house and moved into a two bedroom condo in HOBOKEN, NJ!  We promise to blog more and keep everyone updated on our adventures in our new city.  So far so good.  We are tired from all the moving, but more than excited about what's to come.

Here Mia is helping pack the house up

 

Mia also enjoyed helping unpack, crawl, and get into everything dangerous she could find.  We had professional movers take our stuff from NC to Endicott.  Only a portion of that stuff made the move to our condo in Hoboken.  Without the help of Kyle and both Dad's we would not have made it here to Hoboken.  Thank you all!!

 

 

We are slowly unpacking and getting organized.  Even though we left things in NC, donated a ton, sold some furniture, stored some things in Endicott at our parents houses, we have already managed to fill this condo up pretty quickly!  I guess that's what happens when you go from a four bedroom house to a two bedroom condo with a fraction of the closet space.  

Mike and I are actually really excited about the downsizing and becoming more minimalists.  We have already greatly enjoyed our time in our new city.  We cannot wait for visitors!  Check out the view at the end of our street... a short walk just 9 blocks away...

 

Welcome to Hoboken, NJ... I think we are going to like it here!