New York thoughts...

I never posted pictures of our apartments. This is our first one. There were so many good memories the few months we were here.

*This may be long...*

So, as most of you may know, we lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan this time last year, and we're planning on moving there after grad school next August. I had mixed feelings about it, but in retrospect, I'm pretty sure I'm 2/3 pro our experience. We lived right down the street from one of my best friends and her husband (who also worked at PwC), the young mothers in our ward had playgroup almost every week, and the delivery services were great (laundry, groceries, and restaurant). Looking back though, I loved bundling Rachael up, zipping her into her "stroller bag" and just wandering for hours. I didn't take the subway too much, but there were some days I would walk a LOT! We lived on 88th street, and there was one day I walked to 63rd, plus a few avenues. I think back on my experience and think how COOL it was that I was walking down 5th avenue, or through Central Park, or it only took me 20 minutes to get to Times Square. Some people would do anything for that experience. I've been thinking a lot about whether or not I could handle it again. Last year was easy-ish compared to how it would have been this year with Rachael all over the place. Then I think about going back to live next August with her and quite possibly another baby. And we'll be there long enough that we'll have one maybe two more kids. That is a LOT of kids for NYC. A doorman and an elevator would be a MUST. I would just need to wrap my mind around the different lifestyle. We wouldn't be buying, we'd be renting (to buy a 2-3 bedroom apartment, you're looking at a couple million dollar morgtage) for those 4-5 years. Then I think about the schools. Private is too expensive, but I only hear negative about public. Home school? I'm not smart enough for that (even kindergarten...). What about safety? Living on the UES, I only felt scared once (long story, but we were in our apartment so we were actually fairly safe) but the UES is one of the most expensive places to live in the entire country. What about my desire for a house? To decorate? To have a yard to let my kids play in? To have a salon? Am I just being selfish? Should I just suck it up for a few years? Or should we just go to New Jersey? Living in NYC is a once in a lifetime experience. Just on my mind...