Our week in NJ

Sorry for the delay in posting, but we’ve been busy!

We arrived in NJ on Sunday, July 1 around midnight. The next 7 days were a blur of activity, seeing friends and relatives before leaving for our big move to Tennessee. We had so much fun!

Tuesday dinner at the Thai restaurant with Aunt Carrie, Uncle Joe, and cousin George.

Relaxing on the love seat at Mema’s house. The jet lag is real!

Daddy’s girl! We really enjoyed sitting on the porch in the shade, with the ocean breeze and salty air.

Fourth of July trip to the boardwalk and playground at the beach.

Friday morning we went to First Friday Mass at St. Martha’s and then headed to the park with friends. Once again, we were so busy having fun that I forgot to take pictures until almost everyone had left. Luckily we got some good pictures with Katie.

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How many hugs can you squeeze into one morning at the park? A lot! They have to hold us over until Christmas!

Friday afternoon and evening Aunt Barbara, Debbie and George came to visit. We had such a nice time together, and a yummy dinner from Federico’s! Mary went in to pick it up and got to see the friends she used to work with.

Saturday morning trip to see the world’s best chiropractor, Dr. Shari! We missed her and boy, did we need our adjustments!

Right after the chiropractor we headed to the park by Belmar Marina to see Thomas and Robert. It was hot, sweaty fun. We will miss them bunches!

Then we headed to the train station to pick up Aunt Jacquie and Marc. We spent the day and evening with them and Uncle Tom and Tanya. Lots of laughs and good food!

On Sunday morning, we were up bright and early. We packed the car, ate breakfast, showered, stripped all the beds and did some laundry, gave Mema lots of goodbye hugs, and left at 9:45 to pick up our packed U-Haul truck.

Thanks for a great week, Mema! Love you so much and we will miss you like crazy!

We got to go to Mass at St. Martha’s one more time, and even got to bring up the gifts. Thanks to our friend, Kim, for this great picture 🙂

Saying goodbye to all of our church friends was so very hard!

Our “last meal” was at our favorite pizza place, Pat’s. We dreamed about their pizza in Ireland (where they put cheddar on pizza…yuck!). It tasted as good as we remembered!

There’s always time for one more picture. Thanks, Aunt Carrie, for coming to Mass and lunch with us. Love you so much!

We headed right from Pat’s to the highway, in a caravan of two cars and one medium sized U-Haul. Bob was driving the rental truck, Thomas, Mary and Sean took turns driving the minivan, and I was at the back with the rest of the kids in my truck. This is a shot of us officially leaving NJ over the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

We hit tons of traffic and didn’t get to our Virginia hotel until almost midnight! We were tired and cranky, but everyone fell right to sleep. We arrived at the rental house outside Chattanooga at about 3 pm the following day.