Bright Lights, Big City: Take 2!

After an agonizing deliberation process, Christina and I recently made an important, life-changing decision to pack our bags and move to New York City. Again. We realize that our decision may be viewed as impulsive, whimsical--even flaky in some circles--but it was anything but that. Trust me, we spent a lot of time weighing the pros and cons of uprooting and starting over in a new place and agreed that this is the right thing to do for us at this time in our lives. Of course, the decision to move from San Francisco to New York was a painful one to make and, no matter how excited we are to have a second crack at The Big Apple, it requires that we leave behind family, dear friends and many of our possessions (not to mention the place where I was born and raised and which will always hold a special place in my heart). Important decisions in life are never easy to make and this was certainly no exception. But rather than hold a heavy heart and dwell upon what we're giving up, we're focusing on the positives. And there are many. In our eyes, New York City is one of the best places on Earth and, while we've both had stints there in the past, we never had a chance to live it together. And now we will.

Because we'll be living so far away from friends and family, we've created this blog to serve as a means of keeping in touch and sharing our experiences. Although we won't be moving until January, we wanted to get this up and running now so that we can document the moving process and, frankly, just get some practice blogging (this is a first for either of us). Once we arrive in New York City, we'll use these pages to let you know what we're up to and hopefully, by reading our blog, we'll also allow you to discover New York City through our eyes (quite literally in many cases through photographs we share with you). We'll tell you about the neighborhoods we visit, the restaurants we dine at, the stores we shop at, the shows we see, the people we meet and we'll fill you in on the buzz of the city and tell you about local attitudes. Our goal is to offer you a chance to vicariously walk the streets through us. Will anyone read this blog? Honestly, who knows? But the fact that you're reading this right now, well, that's a good start.

Remy graduates!

After 6 weeks of rigorous classes accompanied by grueling training at home, Remy faced the judges last night for a chance to pass his puppy preschool class. It all came down to one simple drill--whether Remy would come to us from across the room. Even with food in hand and us calling him as sweetly could from across the room--with 14 humans and 7 dogs watching intently--we were nervous about the prospects of his success. With baited breath, we watched as Remy started coming directly at us--only to swerve in another direction altogether and start wandering off towards one of the other puppies! We upped our efforts to call him and opened our hands to show him that it was in his best interest to come back our way and, sure enough, he did. Remy came over, collected his treat and basked in the thunderous applause coming from the other owners. Here is a picture of his proud parents just minutes later.