Goodbye Hoboken NJ, hello Norwell MA

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We packed up the condo and said goodbye on December 18. Movers left with our boxes that evening, as I understand it everything is now loaded into a 20' container and on a boat somewhere between here and Melbourne, Australia.

We checked into the Doubletree Hotel in Jersey City on Friday evening, spent a fun day in NYC with Cate on that Saturday. Saw Pinkalicious the Musical, based on her favorite book by Elizabeth Kahn, also had lunch at Peanut Butter and Co - great lunch spot with the best PB&J you'll ever have. I had PB&Nutella which is sinfully AMAZING!

On Sunday the 20th we had Cate's 3rd Bday party, a little early as her bday is not until January 11, but it was a good opportunity to say goodbye to some of her friends in Hoboken. We had one last dinner at our favorite Japanese restaurant in Hoboken (Robongi) with our good friend Suzanne. The goodbye was a little tearful and sad. Monday morning bright an early, we headed up to Mom's in Norwell MA.

Had a great Christmas with Mom and Jay, and the extended D'Allessandro family.

Some highlights.....doing some quality Christmas stuff with Cate - decorating the tree, decorating a gingerbread house, making Christmas cookies for Santa. She really enjoyed Christmas - top line of the day was "mommy where are my OTHER presents" and is having a lot of fun playing with her new toys. We are going to need a new suitcase to carry all this stuff!

Mom's bday is the day after Christmas - this year was a big one (70) so we had all the sisters (including Millie, the "other sister", over. Mark and I cooked a gourmet feast of Nobu Black Cod, Fried Rice and Baby Bok Choy w/ Shitake Mushrooms. Grace bought a beautiful cake and it's safe to say that pretty much everyone needs to hit Weightwatchers sometime soon.

Yesterday Mark and I had the day to ourselves as we had my cousin Julia babysit for Cate. We visited the JFK museum/library in Boston, a great tribute to a great man, and then went to Wagamama, our favorite London-based noodle shop now open in the Prudential Center in Boston. Once back in Norwell we picked up Mom and Cate, and went to Providence RI to see the Disney "Nemo on Ice" show. It was fun to watch it through the eyes of a child.

Today (whew, going to need to keep this updated more regularly now) we are headed up to Newburyport to visit our good friends Matt and Betsy Shakespeare. Betsy is a former co-worker from PwC and Matt is an Aussie like Mark. They have two kids - the newest baby Gemma we haven't yet met.

Tomorrow we head to Cape Cod for a quiet New Years, just the three of us.

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