We left our empty house and began our 2,224 mile journey on March 26 after breakfast at Blazin’ Bagels and loading up the truck (It barely all fit).

We were slightly delayed going door-to-door around our court and up the street looking for the owner of the car who parked in front of our car trailer…. unsuccessfully. Andrew backed the truck in diagonally on a hill to hook up the trailer.

We spent 3 nights in hotels, had some great scenery, listened to audio books, went to bed early, and ate continental breakfasts and diner food. We crossed into Indiana on March 29 and arrived at our new house at about 9pm.

We had an art date with our friend Nina in her garage studio. She is so very talented and we have a few of her paintings. She also teaches kids’ art classes in the summer at Country Village and Aiden was old enough to attend this past summer.

We did our usual roam around Redmond town center, riding escalators and buying snacks.

We were able to coordinate another Team Awesome gathering with almost everyone from our team but Laura who had move to California. This was a great group of people that I started my career with (and became parents together) and we couldn’t have had a better Team Awesome leader.

We never missed an opportunity for bubble tea and milk powder buns (for me it was usually a corn and ham bun or red bean mochi).

We hung out with our neighbor Arshan, and Ishrat made a beautiful and delicious going away dinner for us. She is a wonderful cook and we spent many mornings having tea together on the weekdays.

We spent a lot of free time with Connor and Genevieve who were a few houses up the street from us. Moving away from them was a little easier because they would be moving only a couple months after us to the Chicago area, and we were excited to be within driving distance of each other. Aiden and Connor both love chai tea and are always building train tracks together. Oliver and Genevieve are great little friends who love each other.

We played at the park and slumber partied with Tom and Emily. Several of our other friends came to hangout throughout the day. We had a lazy morning with bagel breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and The Lion King. We had one more dinner with them before the kids left. The picture was full of smiles and then afterwards it was nothing but tears, tears, tears. It hurt my heart to leave these two (three).

I squeezed in several working coffee dates with Hanako when we could find time. We almost never take picture of ourselves but manage to take many pictures of our coffee and snacks. We usually required a work break to run through Ben Franklin for some craft inspriation.

We had a lot of boxes piled up, Andrew and the boys hopped on a plane to leave them in Indiana with our parents where they had a fun-filled week of grandparent and cousin time, and I kept on packing.

We were also lucky enough that the timing meant we were home to meet the newest arrival to the Hampton side of the family.

Our family helped us coordinated getting a few items to our new house and had air mattresses, blankets, and pillows for us so we could slumber party in our new, empty house after we closed. While prepping our house in Washington to sell, we boxed up and shipped a car load of stuff via Amtrak. I don’t remember how much it was, but I remember thinking this is a great deal. The downside is someone has to be at your destination to pick it up from Amtrak (which for us was doable).

We rented a storage unit to get the house emptied out, found a realtor we like, and other than that it’s business as usual.

We all test drove a Tesla…. for fun one weekend.

Waffle brunch with some of our favorites!

The kids love these candy making kits we find at Uwajimaya. I would secretly like to do them myself after they’re in bed.

We visited Andrew at work in Redmond Town Center for coffee and cake pops. Aiden dressed for the occasion. I don’t remember why we painted faces, but they loved it.

Kelly was an amazing officiant and once the stress of the ceremony was passed, it was time to celebrate.

Aiden practiced his fire building skills with Aunt Sarah, we caught frogs

We headed to the farmers’ market and ate all the yummy food. Aiden happily spent most his time being pulled around in the wagon eating strawberries.

We ate and wandered our way through Portland. At Harlow, where we had golden milk and vegan mac and cheese, Aiden practiced using my camera.

I snapped a few of him with my phone (left), and his photo on the right.

We wandered through shops before our next stop at a donut shop where we got a variety of mini donuts and a flight of chai tea. Aiden also picked a book from the “free little library”.

We were going to swim in the river, but it was too flooded this weekend to get to a good access point. Instead we cooked farmers market hot dogs on the grill and Aiden got his hair done and kept it that way for 3 days!

We toured the Eastern State Penitentiary. We did the self-guided audio tour which I’d highly recommend. There was a lot of good info about why it was initially designed a specific way and how the use of the facility evolved. At the end, there’s an installation about the modern prison system which was enlightening.

We reserved a time to visit the Magic Gardens, a 3000 sq ft outdoor, mosaic art installation run as a non-profit by Isaiah and Julia Zagar. I would definitely go here again.

Our self-unplanned walking history tour involved Elfreth’s Alley, Ben Franklin’s Grave, The Betsy Ross House, Christ Church, Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell. We had a list of ideas and places, but didn’t really have an agenda for our days.

We met up with Sarah Sunday evening for dinner and, then Monday morning we wandered the International District for lunch before heading to the airport.

We found and ate very delicious food… and drinks all weekend.

There were murals every where, over 3,600 in fact. This wasn’t even close to one of the best, but I like the perspective. I would have captured more murals, but I was far more occupied with the doors throughout the city.