We made it

We made it to New Jersey. 
Oh my freaking holy mother cow. 
My life is a hot mess that I'm still trying to wade my way through, and I could totally go the dramatic rout and say that I'm dragging the men in my life behind me, but they're totally on board. How? Bagels. 
Can I just tell everyone of the world something?
Bagels aren't bagels unless they're hard on the outside and soft and warm on the inside. And they're slathered with chive cream cheese. And completely rock-hard and inedible by morning.  
And as my Instagram has already made overly obvious, the carb-consumption since arrival to the land of Italians and Italian-wannabes has reached a new level of shameful and I'm also coming to the realization that unless I'm either wearing scrubs or something leather and tight I find myself feeling totally out of place. 

But to recap: Our drive across the country was beautiful, inspiring, and suspiciously easy. Jude was a rockstar, I memorized Pitch Perfect in case anyone wants a play-by-play, and Adam drove afar off into the distance ahead of us because we're just not cool enough to be seen driving side-by-side I guess. We also made so many precious memories with family members along the way and wish we could have spent more time together. Soon upon arrival, I started work with 2 weeks of classroom orientation Monday-Friday and after commuting 3 hours a day from the east edge of NJ to good old PA, I was about ready to die--and then we moved into our lovely place in Montclair and things started looking way up. We Stevens' love to hurry making important life decisions--like what areas to live in--because for some reason we love the adrenaline rush year-after-year of wondering whether our last-minute decision just plopped us into a beautiful, towny paradise or welcomed us at gunpoint into a small, polluted ghetto. In this situation, we moved into the first and we have loved making our wallets skinny and our hips fat while getting to know this amazing town. 

In all honestly, we feel so blessed. We have been welcomed with open arms into this area and the blessings have been too great to go unnoticed. We are truly humbled and grateful for the inspiration to move here and to pursue this new adventure and we can't thank all of you who have been so supportive and helpful enough. 
Where would we be without you??
Probably at gunpoint in some polluted ghetto. 

We miss all of our friends and family out west terribly and hope to see you very soon. Come visit! We can guarantee you a couch, warm bagels in the morning, and that at least one of your taillights will be smashed into by morning.
Welcome to New Jersey, the state where driving a Beamer automatically qualifies you to be a terrifying driver.