Trees. I miss my trees. One of the hardest things for me about moving to the middle of the country is losing my trees. Yes, we do have trees here. But, no, it's just not the same. We're landscaping today (aka giving away our plants via craigslist) and it's seriously making me miss our lack of landscaping issues growing up. We had to deal with alot of sandy soil, but our yard was mostly moss, we had thousands of trees and it felt as if our house was nestled into a cozy little nook of trees. Thick trees in front of the house and even thicker trees in back. And we backed up to preserved land, so it was miles of hills for exploring, sledding, digging, climbing...
*Side note- OMG, Jen I think my favorite thing about your house was that cleared out area in the woods where we used to play house! Do you remember that?? It was just raked out dirt, trees and sticks and things but it totally transformed into a playhouse. I don't know why I've been thinking about that so much lately, maybe because I'm sad that Lili doesn't have that and she is just at that awesome age! Out here everyone plops those Step Two plastic playhouses in the middle of their flat, naked backyards. So not the same...*
Scott accepted a transfer from his Philadelphia office to the midwest for alot of reasons- change of pace, try somewhere new, but the biggest of all was the cost of living. We knew it was important for our family that I stay at home when we decided to have children. So we up and moved into a brand new house in a state Scott had been to for about 5 hours and that I'd never stepped foot in. (And in those five hours that Scott was here, he had an interview at a local brewery and saw a woman walking around downtown in a velour blue cowprint pantsuit. That was the extent of his experience in the state.) We had just under 48 hours to find a house and had no idea where anything was, which town was what or how we were going to go through closing, inspections and all that jazz from over 1000 miles away. So after looking at about 50 homes we decided to go with the "young" neighborhood suggested to us, that offered a new build because we thought that would have the least amount of bumps in the road since we had so much to do from a distance.
We've been here for 4 years now, and I still feel the same way that I did when we first moved into our first house- like I'm in a hospital gown with my bare bottom hanging out. The back of our house just feels so
NAKED. I can see our neighbors, they can see us. Our yard is just a big, open, flat space- perfect for a pool (though in a state that spends more than half of the year freezing it's bottom off it's not a great selling point)or swingset or...growing corn. We have trees, but they still seem so far away from me.
Driving down the streets in our old neighborhood it felt as though you could reach out of the car and touch the trees- even on 295 or driving down to the shore the trees are right off of the highway. Here they are mostly in clumps off of the highway, in older neighbors, or planted akwardly in new yards. I actually heard one person complaining about having trees in his yard because of having to rake leaves- he had ONE tree in his 1/4 acre lot! Are you kidding me? I don't think I'll ever get to a point (nor do I want to) where I'll really feel like I'm at home without my trees.
driving home in NJ
the street where I grew up
driving home in NJ
my nursery school!
Lili playing in our old backyard with her Uncle (Christmas 2006)
Our first neighborhood in Iowa
Photo 1: Medford Lakes- taken from the road while my mom was driving home.
Photo 2: Iowa Map- credit: http://o.aolcdn.com/art/ch_travel/iowa
Photo 3: Google Maps- satellite view our street in Iowa
Photo 4: Google Maps- satellite view our street in NJ
All the other pictures (including photo 1) were video stills, thus horrible quality. Sorry.
it really looks like he may be lefty- check out all the mush on his left hand and nothing on his right! Of course, may be jinxing myself just by saying it, but a girl can hope, right? 
and the food was amazing. On Friday we had the BBQ and rehearsal both of which went well despite my having to leave a smidge early to nurse Jax. Thankfully it was less than 5 miles away and he was happy with his sister, Scott and Mee Maw. Overall everything went smoothly on Saturday as well, despite my just about losing it during pictures. 
In my defense though, I did have to run from the 4th floor down to the first floor and across the pool/courtyard area 3 times in heels to help get the kids ready, was way behind on time, and we were trying to convince an extremely reluctant 3 year old to pose nicely for family pictures BEFORE the ceremony (meaning massive time crunch so that guests don't see the bride hanging out outside in her dress). Sooooo, Lili isn't in any of the family pics and I'm mildly guilt ridden. Oh well. Once the family pictures were done the ceremony was beautiful, 
the pics in the desert should be amazing and the reception was a blast. Food was super yummy and overall we had a great time and feel so fortunate to have been included in such an important time for Jen and Calvin. Love you guys!
Lili was a bit apprehensive about sitting on the floor (aka toddler moshpit) with the other kids but had a blast dancing around in the back with me. She also didn't want to pose for pictures with Justin or Liam, but begged that we listen to her new CD on the ride home. We were definitely surprised to have brought the littlest super fan,
though- Jax was IN LOVE when Justin was singing Pop Fly! No joke, he was cracking up, dancing all around and trying to leap out of my arms during that song. We had a great time and love his music, check out his fun videos on youtube. :) 
We've been here for 4 years now, and I still feel the same way that I did when we first moved into our first house- like I'm in a hospital gown with my bare bottom hanging out. The back of our house just feels so NAKED. I can see our neighbors, they can see us. Our yard is just a big, open, flat space- perfect for a pool (though in a state that spends more than half of the year freezing it's bottom off it's not a great selling point)or swingset or...growing corn. We have trees, but they still seem so far away from me. 
Driving down the streets in our old neighborhood it felt as though you could reach out of the car and touch the trees- even on 295 or driving down to the shore the trees are right off of the highway. Here they are mostly in clumps off of the highway, in older neighbors, or planted akwardly in new yards. I actually heard one person complaining about having trees in his yard because of having to rake leaves- he had ONE tree in his 1/4 acre lot! Are you kidding me? I don't think I'll ever get to a point (nor do I want to) where I'll really feel like I'm at home without my trees. 
driving home in NJ
the street where I grew up
driving home in NJ
my nursery school!
Lili playing in our old backyard with her Uncle (Christmas 2006)
Our first neighborhood in Iowa
