It's Official...We have entered Yankee Country!

It is official...we have moved to Horseheads, NY. While both Doug and I feel like we are living in someone else's house, we indeed own a new house in the great state of New York. We are still getting settled, unpacking and such, but we are making it our own. Amazing we have been here a week already!

Here are a few pics of the house. PLEASE! Come visit!

Our neighbors

Our helper

The Playroom (We have WAY too many toys for this kid!)
The Kitchen (my favorite room!)

Welcome Sophia Marie Lohse!

If you could only have seen the shock on my face when they told me I was completed dilated when we got to the hospital....I was only hoping for 5cm!  So, I owe Sophia my first of many apologies as her mother.  I thought she was going to cause lots of pain and agony, but she decided that she was ready after less than 4 hours of labor.  Thank goodness we live so close to the hospital!

Sophia Marie Lohse entered the world last night April 30th @ 10:10PM weighing in at 8lbs 4ozs and 20 inches long.  (We are pretty sure she is going to give Eric a run for his money!)  She is perfect and both her and I are doing really well.  Eric has already been into visit and so far so good. It helps that we have world's largest crane outside my window and a constant flow of trucks, buses, and ambulances.  

We will post more later...but for now, mom is going to take advantage of her last hours of silence before the chaos resumes and grab a quick nap. ;O)

 

Run the Boston Marathon....Check!

Doug and Ike, Doug's Patient Partner, @ mile 25

One more thing that Doug can take off his "Do Before I Die" list. Yesterday, Doug successfully completed the Boston Marathon in 4 hours, 19 min, & 27 seconds. As Doug would tell you, one of the best days of his life. In his words, "I won't lie to you...this is the best feeling in the world. I feel like a rock star!" For those of you that have heard the story, it has even surpassed the day his high school football team won their first game after a 28-game losing streak. So as you can see, quite the day.

Matty also finished in great form and did really, really well. Finished right around the 4 hour and 30 min mark. So, success all around!

Obviously, one of the major highlights of the day was the impact that Doug and his other Children's Hospital team members will have on children all over the world. To date, over 1 million dollars has been raised by his 220 team members, over $6200 by all of our friends & family.

We thank you and the children thank you.

Doug couldn't have done it without everyone's generosity and support.

So, what next? Nike said it best..."Today you may feel like you'll never run a marathon again. See you next year!"

Code of Silence

Sometimes a deal is a deal for a very good reason. After finding over $20k in issues during the inspection and the seller offering to pay $0 (that's right...nothing, nada!), we have decided to back out of the offer. So, on to greener pastures...

In honor of our Charlestown roots, we have decided that we will maintain a code of silence on the blog regarding the house until we have closed on a new one. So sorry...no new updates for a while on the house.

But don't fear...Doug is convinced we will be posting baby pictures as early as the middle of next week. I am SO not ready for that! :O)

Opening Day!

Red Sox - 5
Tampa Bay - 3

And the highlights...Pedroia and Tek both had homeruns!!! Mommy's two favorite players started the season off right!

Under Contract!

After over 3 weeks of negotiations and walking away twice, Doug has worked his magic once again and we are officially under contract on our house in Horseheads, NY. Hopefully all goes well with the inspection so we can close by the end of April.

I guess we are really moving! ;O)

Now Doug is on to negotiating with the furniture store salespeople. Wonder how many times he will walk out of the store before we buy a bed?

Where in the world is Horseheads, NY?

Yes, that is a For Sale sign on our condo in Charlestown. For those of you that don't already know, we are headed West to Horseheads, New York.

"WHY would you ever leave such a great city?" you ask...

Well...Doug has received a very exciting promotion to work in the Epic group within the Life Sciences division of Corning working with technologies that will improve and hopefully speed up the drug discovery process. So, Corning will be moving us to NY where we will start our next chapter.

While it will be very bittersweet for both us (ok...probably more for me as Doug is sick of Boston and alot of the baggage that comes with living here), it is a very exciting move for us. We will finally have a real house with room to spread out and actually entertain more people when they come to visit, a yard (even though trees are hard to come by in Horseheads!) and we will all get to experience a new area of the country. Wine country is right up the road (Reisling, here I come!) and the summers are gorgeous. Winters...well, it is still the North and the snow and cold is abundant, but we will have to work on that aspect of the location with our next move.

Here is some fun info about our new home...You are all welcome to visit anytime! (PLEASE!!!!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseheads_(town),_New_York

So, we have spent the last month or so looking for a house in Horseheads, getting our house ready to put on the market, and now keeping it clean as it has ever been in hopes of wooing someone to buy it. (Please interest rates, keep dropping!)

Did I mention we are having a baby in 5 weeks? ;O)