Meet Me in Saint Louis

We can now officially say that we will be moving to Saint Louis this summer! We are so excited about this move and are so looking forward to an improvement in our quality of life. As the possibility of moving became more and more of a reality, we kept thinking that something would fall through and it wouldn't work out. These past five years have really been an uphill battle for us, and it has sometimes seemed that nothing has really fallen into place as easily as this move (so far...). We hope, and it seems, that the work we have put into our future lives these past five years is now paying off. It's been difficult to stay present while we've been living our life this way - because sometimes the only thing that got us through when we were so sick of the commuting, for example, was focusing on the future - knowing that we were putting in the grunt work now and investing into our future. Therefore, it was difficult to feel that we were really living life to the fullest during that time. But now we have no more excuses, and we have made it a goal to stay present and focused on enjoying our lives and each other.  We are excited about this move for several reasons (in no particular order):

1. Being close to some family. We are so thrilled that Lenny will grow up being close to his cousins who are so much fun. We always love spending time with our family, and we are thrilled we will be getting to see them more often. We are also excited that we will be much closer to an airport than we currently are, which will make flying to see others a lot easier as well!

2. More time together. A major benefit of this move is that we will have much shorter commute times to our jobs, which means we will be able to spend a lot more time together as a family. Most weeks Tim doesn't even get to see Lenny because he leaves before Lenny wakes up and gets home after Lenny is in bed. We can't wait to be done with that.

3. A new home. We are definitely going to find a place to rent that has more light. Currently, it feels like we live in a dungeon because our windows are at ground level. We have also decided that it is time for our futon to go... in part because it is held together with duct tape that we replace every so often. So, we are really excited to get a new couch that will be ideal for family cuddles.

4. Planting roots. We are excited to start living in the place where we plan to be for the rest of our lives. St. Louis has such a great Catholic community and wonderful schools, so we are excited that we will be settling here and becoming part of this community in particular.

Although we are mostly excited about our upcoming move, there are also things that we will be sad to leave. After Lenny was born, I finally found a community in Chesterton, so I will be sad to leave my friends at Kid Zone. Sometimes when I go to the gym, I just end up hanging out in Kid Zone the entire time to talk with the ladies there and play with Lenny using the toys there that are way more fun. I think some of the kids there might think that I actually work there. We will also be sad to leave our friends from Notre Dame and Chicago, but knowing that some of them are also off to new adventures makes parting much easier. Finally, we have always appreciated being so close to Lake Michigan in the summer... so we will be sad to leave the Indiana Dunes State Park. We have spent so much time at the beach and hiking the trails there, so it will be tough to say goodbye to that, but we always have the memories from those experiences, for which we are so grateful!