Moving Forward

Our family is doing a lot of moving, literally.

The two big moving events in our life are: the Hershey Half Marathon, and moving to Pennsylvania.

Before

After

First things first. This weekend, Beth and I completed our first half-marathon. It was about 3 months in the training, and it was awesome well worth it. We ran through Hershey Park and around the town of Hershey. The weather was great and the scenery was beautiful. In true form, Beth and I talked through pretty much the whole thing. The first 10 miles were great. The last three were torture. I think that is partly b/c the two of the last three looped around the parking lots, so that we actually had to pass the stadium where we would finish, and then run indefinitely to the end. I know it wasn't indefinite, b/c there was a set number of miles, but b/c we were just looping around the parking lot, it seemed extra long. However, the race ended in Hershey Stadium, where family and friends of all the runners (5,000 of us) were cheering us all on. It was so great and emotional that once we hit the stadium, we sprinted the last 1/4 mile or so and wound up finishing with a respectable time of 2:07 (I'm sure there are seconds to add somewhere, but I don't know exactly what they are).
The whole family came up the night before (Mom, Dale, Beth, Krys, Amanda, Me, Tim and the kids). We stopped at PSU for homecoming, and then headed up to Hershey to pick up our race packets and go to chocolate world. Then a delicious pre-race dinner where I indulged in way more carbs than usual. After the race, we walked around Hershey for the day. I had a horrible headache -- not sure if it was race related or not -- but that much time with our family is the perfect cure for all that ails you. We had a great time!
The other type of move on our plate is moving to PA. The high cost of living in NJ has gotten to us, and we are packing up to move closer to my campus in Abington. It is a suburb of Philly (about 1/2 hour or so outside of the city, depending on traffic). We were lucky enough to get a bid on our house after a few weeks, and even though we have some worries about it, we are moving through attorney review. Assuming all goes well, we will be moving in early December. So we have been on a mad hunt to find a house in PA. After spending all of our free time (really -- all of it -- and some that wasn't free) looking for houses, we have pretty much narrowed it down to the town of Springfield. We are going for a second look at our favorite house today, and then checking out a few new while we are there. We are hoping to choose a house to bid on today.
Moving is definitely bittersweet. We will miss our being so close to our families, and I hate taking the kids out of school. But everything is so much cheaper in PA, and best of all, Oli immediately qualifies for Medicaid. That will be a huge help with medical bills! Plus, being close to campus will be a nice change for me. Altogether, it makes a lot of sense, but I still get sad when I think of leaving our house and close proximity to all we love. But move forward we shall, as long as all things mortgage related work out.
Finally, has been moving like a maniac! Something has changed, whether it was his age/maturity level, or mine and Tim's redoubled effort, but Oli walks almost everywhere now. Inside the house, outside the house, all over the place. It is awesome! We still went ahead with the plan to order his wheelchair. He got fitted last week. It is a sporty wheelchair that is very easy to manage. There was no learning curve -- he was wheeling around the hallway at CHOP IMMEDIATELY! We couldn't believe it. He got to choose his color, and he chose glow, which is supposed to glow in the dark. We are going to treat it like the stroller, so he will still walk everywhere except for long distances like Hershey Park or extra long mall trips. But it will be so much better to have the wheelchair for these trips, b/c even if he isn't walking, he will still be able to get around on his own.
So this is definitely a time of forward motion. Hopefully, we will keep on moving!