Soph's Family Circus ^_^: Our Northeastern Adventure in the Philadelphia Suburbs BEGINS!

Ok, so if I don't start blogging soon, I'm going to forget my password to this BLOG! (*_*) Blogging (or the lack thereof).... is very much like exercising (or the lack thereof). The less we do it, the less we feel like doing it....and pretty soon (as you can tell from my last entry).....6 months have passed by!

So here I am, attempting to log in my 1st blog entry of the Spring + Summer 2014....with a puppy giving me an evil look + threatening to "go" on my Nike slipper if I don't play with him right now.

(10 minutes later) I don't even know where to begin, so much has happened that it seems like a dream (or a super long vacation) still! I guess maybe I should start from the day the movers came and moved our house from Ladera Ranch, CA to Chalfont, PA!

The movers loaded up our house in 3 days and we paraded into USAirway check-in like Harry Potter and Friends, with Jubee ~ Kobee ~ Autumn in airline approved carriers....headed into the airplane! The flight was overall uneventful, thanks to the roasted unsalted almonds from the $14 fancy lunchables box we purchased for dinner. The parrots were begging for them so that kept them from singing opera and talking to the passengers during the 5 hour flight. The days following were a big blur, probably because we were not only jetlagged, but we were unpacking a zillion boxes each day, wiping/lining the 50 or so cabinets/pantries/drawers, whatever....and sweating bullets.

Our Neighbors and their kids are so nice! They visited our parrots and
even brought us popsicles!

The heat wave had begun, similar to the dizzying discomfort we felt in CA. The difference is that we have high humidity here (which brought back nostalgic feelings of summer days and nights in my short 7.5 years of childhood in Taiwan)!

The birds love to hang out on the fence together!

It was 95 degrees, but felt like 105 degrees with the humidity (no exaggeration, Accu-Weather actually says it), so I was taking 3 showers a day during that first week. I also had the inconvenience of a non-functioning A/C but couldn't find help because hubby went to Germany for business trip (for many days) immediately after he brought us all here from CA. It wasn't until he returned did he casually mention that you needed to 'press the battery compartment harder' so the batteries would line up and the symbol on the thermostat wouldn't keep saying "Low Bat". Melting.... Soph, Melting....

We visited Sesame Place, home of Elmo and Big Bird!

We descended on the new house with nothing but 3 birds and 1 small luggage each. So we slept in the basement for a couple of weeks until our things arrived, and it was fun to actually have a basement! In CA the houses have no basements, but here everyone has it. Ours is fully furnished, so we don't see Caleb much nowadays except when he surfaces twice daily to ask me what we're having for brunch/dinner, and when he comes by to see what snacks are available in the kitchen. IT's a teenager's Dream Come True! No one is nagging him anymore (especially because there's 2 stories to climb between basement and bedroom upstairs.... SO exhausting!)!!

Caleb at Sesame Place water slide

We unpacked enough items to get us through just one week at a time, and the other 45 boxes will probably wait until ..... hubby's Clinical Trials pass and we know we're actually staying here for more than 9 months....or when Caleb goes to college....whichever comes first. The paintings will stay in their box until our puppy grows up, I reckon...

Caleb loves swimming....in the hotel pool (en route to pick up puppy in Maine)!

Abbie really enjoys her new life in PA. Now she spends most days watching Disney channels, occasionally reading "Little House on the Prairie", and potty training the puppy. The neighbors' kids are very nice and came over to see our parrots as soon as they got off the school bus on the last week of school!

Kobee loves to hang out in the front yard!

The houses here are like 3 houses-distance away by CA standards, so we have to put on our tennis shoes and make an effort to go to the neighbor's house, even if they are just next door or at the end of our cul de sac. It was literally a small uphill hike!

Caleb enjoys his secret hideout! A tree in the yard!

Here in Philly suburbs, there are tons of trees..... I was in awe of how many trees there are ... just in my back and front yard (40!)! There are also wildlife living in these forests.....like hawks and raccoons, foxes and deer, Canadian geese and bunnies, and as we later learned, the predators eat everything, including organic free-range chicken. Unfortunately, we woke up on a Saturday morning 1 month after our arrival and found feathers everywhere in the yard. That was our organic chickens' fate....and after shedding tears and remembering our beloved pets, we vowed to always strengthen/lock the coop doors if we get more chickens in the Spring....and to name them Mocha JR. and Nugget JR. too, in remembrance of our cross-country-by-USPS-$105-shipping-cost- California chickens.

Driving to Maine on July 4th week was very memorable! We ran hand in hand with the Thunderstorms that went over to Boston, Massachusetts, Portsmouth New Hampshire, and Maine! The lobsters in Maine really were delicious....legendary in fact!

We ate them before we picked up Frosty on July 5th, and that day we drove all the way home (with all the potty breaks in between) in 11 hours with puppy in arms (rotating between Caleb, Abbie, and Mine).