Road Tripping...pt 2

Ok, so when we arrived in Philadelphia it was a tad bit (underestimation) of a culture shock. We entered through a developing? or perhaps forsaken pt of the city. It was heinous....ok imagine leaving South Orange County and coming to a "neighborhood" that has houses burned down...next to others that have obviously been broken in...windows broken....doors kicked in. So obviously I was a bit shaken up...and wanted to go home...but obviously couldn't. "God Why?" went through my minds and to be honest still does....even though I am open to listening to God now!

Anyhow, we arrived at the Ritz and discovered that we were able to stay there for 16 days, not the week that we were previously told. This was a great relief to us and felt so blessed to be given such an opportunity.



So the day when we were moving our stuff into our storage unit, we were hit by a dump truck on the freeway. We spend 11 1/2 hours in the hospital and didn't even get to bid our road trip buddies (my sis & nephew) adieu. It was so heartbreaking because I didn't know when I would see them again and wanted to thank them for all of their sacrifice and hard work. So the next day Joe started his new job, which happened to be our anniversary and more importantly Hazey's 2nd Bday. After work, we all went out to dinner at this amazing Italian Restaurant called Pietros in the Rittenhouse square area. Here are a few pics of that...

Here is Hazel opening her presents...she got 2 books and two outfits. One of which was a dress which she promptly demanded to be put on her.

Hazel loves books...she read like 10 a day, so she was happy to be given the "gift of knowledge" there's no way she wanted loads of expensive child spoiling commercialized-brainwashing items for her birthday...no way (yeah right--she will enrich her mind! j/K).

Hazel and her dress & Puma "work-out" outfit.







After an awesome dinner we took a stroll through Rittenhouse square....Hazel loves to sit on park benches




Grandma Renee (aka Ney Ney) bought Hazel this yum cake!!!




Strip down for Bday cake!!!!








Party girl!!!






Kicking it in the bed from heaven....reading her new book.

We've had many challenging days following our unfortunate accident and culture shock (more so my culture shock then Joe). It was nice to be at the Ritz because it was sort of a home for us and we had people around us that were so cool and always making suggestions about where to live (referring the housekeepers, concierge, front desk, etc). It's funny because one person would say "Oh, stay away from South Philly...there's no way you wanna live in South Philly!", then the next woulds say, "No way you wanna live in West Philly!", and yet the next would emphatically proclaim, "Don't go to North Philly"...and so on and so forth. So the mind naturally deducts from these statements that pretty much every which corner of Philadelphia is to stay away from. Hummmm....where to live? We knew we wanted to be close to Joe's work because of his crazy hours and all....so we finally found a place in South Philly that was beautiful so we put our money down and set up our moving date. However God for some reason brought this little house in Upper Darby to our attention and it was at the right price...so we let go of our deposit for the other place and decided to move in there. It was interesting, just the whole process of how things went down. I mean the house was dirty when we moved in...not just dirty....but filthy. I mean there were cat hairs in every nook of this house...even in the fridge and tiny black hairs which I have graciously blamed on the cat (but who really know the origin of these "tiny black hairs") We steam cleaned the carpets, they are better but not really clean. I went through 5+ magic erasers and managed to scrub of the black gook from the kitchen counters. Heather & Josh came over to help with the kids while I cleaned and Heath and I found an envelope with human teeth in it...so yeah that was cool. Why would God bring us here? But yet as people have continuously told me..."it will eventually feel like home" it has a tiny bit. We've been here a month and I'm still not done cleaning and the house is still not put together but everyday I make tiny strides of improvement.

Our next door neighbor June has her two grandchildren living with her and they love Hazel and Jade. So everyday when they get home I hear...."Miss Monica....Miss Monica!!" continuously until I make an appearance on our deck. They say, "Bring Jade out so I can hold her...bring Hazel out!" At first I was kind of annoyed because there 2 hours of my day would go (when my house was and is a wreck)...outside I would go to watch Hazel play...handing Jade off to a 3 year old and 5 year old as they would fight over who get's to hold her and Jade would have this really annoyed, pissed look on her face....obviously not loving all the attention. But after I got over the horrible things about this place (the leaks, the dirt, the hair, the cracked windows, and holey screens on the window, ETC) I saw Hazel having fun outside playing with friends and I knew that this was where God had us, and for a reason too!!

I'm not sure how long we will be here...(honestly less is more if you get my drift!) but I'm learning to be content and to know that God is always with us and will protect us wherever we are!! I'm heartbroken to have a summer without the beach or a pool...but I know I'll get over it.

Love,

Mon