About 6 months ago, I wrote about our big move in this post.  I listed the things that scared us and the things that excited us.  We have officially been on the East Coast for 6 months so I figured it would be a good time to look back and see if I was just a little paranoid.

Here are the 5 things that scared us the most about moving to the East Coast:

1.  Adjusting to apartment life.  We have been in a house for the last 5 years.  Our dogs are used to a yard and plenty of running space.  


This was one of our biggest fears, but the dogs have adjusted so well.  They love the dog park here and all of their new friends.  We love being in a smaller place.  It’s easy to keep clean and we have no unnecessary clutter.

2.  Living so far away from friends & family.  We are hopeful that people will take advantage of a free place to stay and will come and visit us, but what happens in between those visits?  Making new friends is hard as an adult.  


This is still hard, but we have been lucky enough to have a few visitors so far with a few more on the calendar.  FaceTime has helped us stay in touch as well as good old fashioned mail.  Meeting friends isn’t easy, but it’s happening and probably deserves its own post.

3.  Getting around.  I feel pretty comfortable with public transportation, but the options don’t seem as great in New Jersey. 


The options are great.  We have become pros at our bus system and the ferries.  We can get from our apartment to midtown in 20 minutes with ease.  We’ve learned the fastest ways to get around and how to avoid the tolls as often as possible.  Not a big deal at all.

4.  No familiar places.  We have a few places that we go to weekly or monthly.  We have routines, people that work there know us and are fantastic to us.


It didn’t take us long to master our Target here, the Dunkin is downstairs and we have at least 3 go-to delivery places for food.  We settled into our new neighborhood pretty quickly.  We do still miss our neighborhood bar/grill at home.

5.  New rules.  Who knew that you legally can’t pump your own gas in Jersey?  What other weird rules are there? 


I think I’ve already addressed how much I love this weird law in NJ.  In the middle of the cold winter, I kind of loved not having to get out of the car.  No Sunday shopping in our county has been helpful for my wallet, but that did take some getting used to.

Here are the 5 things we were most excited about:

1.  Our view.  Our apartment building is on the Hudson River and even though our apartment isn’t on the water, we still have a pretty awesome view.  

Yep, still love that.  My Instagram feed is proof.

2.  New England.  We are so close to so many new places.  I’m so excited to explore Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.  Plus, Boston is one of our favorite cities and we will be a 3 hour car ride instead of a 3 hour plane ride.

We have been to Vermont and upstate NY so far with a trip this weekend to the Poconos.  I can’t wait to get back to Boston.

3.  Food.  Living this close to NYC, we will be able to eat our faces off every weekend.  

Thank goodness we walk as much as we do or I would have gained at least 10 lbs by now.  There is such good food here and we try new places each week.

4.  Entertainment.  We can see shows on Broadway, go to new baseball stadiums and see concerts we would have never been able to see before.  


I remember being sad that I had to give up my Fitz & the Tantrums tickets in November, but now we are going to see them in a brand new venue this weekend.  I guess I’m over it now.  I just bought tickets for a show in Central Park in summer.  We have been to a few Broadway shows.  We’ve checked off one new stadium.  So much more to do.

5.  Our biggest adventure yet.  We have taken road trips all over the country and flown a few fun places, but this will be our biggest and scariest adventure yet and we are beyond excited to have this opportunity.

I don’t even think I need to say anything about that last one.  We are so grateful to be where we are right now and are working hard to take advantage of every minute.  I’m so happy to revisit our biggest fears and be able to say that they really weren’t an issue.  I think we are doing just fine adjusting to changes.