New Jersey

This fall my brother and his family moved to New Jersey when he got a job at Princeton. I was very happy about this for a number of reasons - first of all, Princeton! T-*hat's amazing, right?! Second, I finally have some finally within driving distance! I mean, NJ is a bit of a drive from NC, but it's only one hour further than the drive to FL to see my friend Jacque which we have made several times. So that is very exciting as it is definitely cheaper than flying all of us to CA! So, the day after Mia's birthday we loaded up the car (baby stuff takes a lot of space!) and started our trek north. Being still in the midst of the retail holiday fun, Peter was not able to go with us this time so thank goodness my mom came here first so she could make the drive with me to help with the kids. 

We pulled out of the gas station at about 8:45 that morning and didn't pull into their driveway until 10:30 that night! In case you can't do the quick math in your head, that is 13 hours and 45 minutes of driving fun. Both of the kids actually did really well. I made Nate just look out the window for the first leg going there and coming out so he could see some of what was going on outside of the car, but the rest of the time he got to watch the portable DVD player or play with his new iPod or my mom's phone. The good thing about not letting Nate watch a ton of TV, play video games, etc on a regular basis is that when he gets to do it for most of a long trip he actually thinks it's super exciting instead of it just being the norm. (Although I really can't wait until both of my kids are old enough to read so that I can just make them do that instead.) Mia was pretty good as well, but that long in a car when you're facing backwards and can't see anything would cause those of us older than one to have a few meltdowns along the way. I was hoping to make only two stops, but ended up making 3.5: two for food, one for exercise and one for Starbucks!

The day after we got there was the only day we got snow while we were there, so we just stayed close to home. The only reason we left was to pick up and drop off my friend Megan from the train station. (She recently moved from San Diego to Hoboken, NJ, about 45 minutes away, so we took advantage of the nearness and had a short visit.) 

Me and Megan

Nate and Megan's snowball fight

Snow angels

The smart ones?

Lindsay and Nate!

The next day we took a short trek into Philadelphia, about 45 minutes away, to visit The Please Touch Museum. That was a great way to get out of the house on a cold day. After a quick trip to Chipotle for lunch, we headed back to their house. As a quick aside - we do not have a Chipotle in Gastonia. The closest thing we have is a Moe's Southwest Grill. It is very much the same kind of thing but, OMG, Chipotle please come to Gastonia! (I know they never will, but still.) After dinner we celebrated our own little Christmas together.

Look Megan, a Hess station!

This girl could not get enough climbing!

Tea party!

Lindsay had helped Nate open his gift earlier in secret, so he wanted to help her too!

I love my little guy!

We got our mom a bunch of photo gifts for Christmas:
a calendar, mug, iPhone case and what she's checking out
here - a book from our trip to the beach this summer

The next day was New Year's Eve so we wanted to stay close to home, and of course Jarrett wanted to show off his new place of work. Princeton was a lot bigger than I expected it to be and very pretty. After lunch at a local pub, we headed back to my brother's house to celebrate the New Year with Reid Tacos, an 8:30 countdown for the kids, then Tower Heist and a sleepy ringing in of 2013 for (most of) the rest of us.

Me and my future Tiger

Nate's going to Yale (natch), but he'll still cheer for his sister's team... most of the time!

Lunch at a Princeton pub - they had a wall of famous alumni and  Michelle Obama was on it!

Reid Tacos (Mia's first) yummy!

Happy New Year!!!

Cheers!

We were planning to head back to NC on January 2 and didn't want to subject the kids to too much driving two days in a row, not to mention that it was COLD, so we spent the last full day in NJ just enjoying each other's company, watching Little Mermaid, talking, watching the kids play, etc.

Mia was obsessed with these chairs - climbing up, down, over, under,
picking them up, putting them down. She was a pro at the end of the trip

I'll show you how, Maddie

The drive back wasn't quite as bad as the drive there. Other than a little traffic/construction once we made it back to NC it was pretty smooth sailing, but I was very happy to pull into my driveway. I'm sure it won't be as bad once Mia gets a little older, but hopefully the Fisher family will be visiting US very soon!