Grosse Pointe _________

I like John Cussak and I like Grosse Pointe Blank. And now I love living in Grosse Pointe, MI. For those unfamiliar with the area, we live in Grosse Pointe City and are surrounded by GP Park, GP Farms, GP Woods, and GP Shores. We're a few blocks from Lake Saint Claire and following a detour off the freeway on my here from NY I almost headed into Canada--our very, very close neighbors.

So, first the house. It's 2 stories--3 including the basement. Three bedrooms, 1.5 baths. We have a basically unused living room since we couch potatos spend most of our time in the TV room which opens onto our deck and backyard. Hands down, my favorite thing about the house is the basement. When we first came inside the boys ran down there since they knew it was designated to be their playroom. Their eyes lit up when the saw how much room they had to run wild. Aside from Keahi's need to inform me of every single spider he sees down there, it's been a boon these last 2 weeks in helping me get us settled in. And now with the new firetruck playhut/bookshelf thing (see vid), Keahi has multiple places in which to do quiet reading time every afternoon. I bet he's gotten some funny looks from passing neighbors who look into our covered porch area to see a little boy sitting on top of a bookshelf reading by himself. That's my climber boy.

I also love that Keahi chose the pink room as the boys bedroom. So metrosexual.

One of the few downsides of our new place is that basically all the doors have issues shutting all the way. Oh and all the floorboards creak. Not a few scattered ones easily avoidable. Every. Single. One. At least we'd hear any potential robbers.

Garage sales have really worked out for us so far since my first time out I got the computer desk I'm sitting at, a picnic table/bench for the kids, and tons of fun new games including the Cat in the Hat one we did on Monday for FHE. I am really glad we got those 2 free couches in Brooklyn right before we left though cause mostly the free furniture I've seen here all come from the 60s or 70s. It's been really nice organizing and figuring out how to best use our new space. It's all the non-house issues that have been killing me: MI license, car registration, (anything to do with gov. branches), registering Keahi for school, and all the large and minute details of moving to a new state. But at least I can relax in my big new house on my comfy "new" couch and veg for a bit when I get frustrated with people telling me what other steps I need to do first before completing the one I was working on.

Now for the neighborhood. This place is fantastic. People smile and say good morning. We've met our neighbors on either side and they seem really nice and helpful. And understanding of our two active boys and all the extra noise involved. The first thing we did after waking up in our new place was go to our city park to get our photo id. Every GP ___ has their own park and pool and facilities and you have to have a resident pass to get in or be a guest of a resident. I'm excited to try out all the places since the playgroup at church rotates through them all. I'm already impressed with ours. Of course, coming from Prospect Park, no other park seems to really deserve the title. But this one has a large grassy area full of picnic benches, a nice playscape with a couple of play structures and fun excavation ride-on things in the sand, and 2 pools--a regular one with diving areas on the side and a large kid pool with tons of water features. Plus after you swim you can take a warm shower and change in the beautiful, completely atypical community center bathroom. High ceilings. Granite countertops. Impeccible floors. Rows of private shower stalls and separate, large changing rooms. W-o-w. BBQing on Independance Day at this park was awesome. I never worried about leaving our things at our picnic area while we swam for hours since only residents can come and judging from the houses--er, mansions--er, estates surrounding the park we are the poorest members there.

Aside from that park, there's a fun Tot Lot 2 blocks from our house with lots of free tennis courts that we'll have to check out after we find some free/cheap rackets. There's free ice rinks in the winter and lots to do in the summer. I can't wait to visit the Henry Ford Museum and I saw that the Detroit Historical Museum is free this month. And while I'm missing out on Shakespeare in the Park back in Brooklyn and all the other awesome free things, we do have a weekly free concert right around the corner in the Village shopping area. Speaking of shopping, we are 3 doors down from the Trader Joes which on the strip of shops including Einstein Bagels, TCBY (with $.99 waffle cone Wednesdays), Krogers, Ace (the nicest and largest one I've ever seen, offering complimentary coffee and popcorn--yeah, the kids love that), and some restaurants and clothings stores. Everything is closeby. And with a vehicle, we can always head to the bigger Krogers 10min away or hit the Chuck E Cheese 15 min away--which we did yesterday and I won the 250ticket super bonus my first time....I may have found my hidden talent.

Let's see, what else......Keahi's school (once I get him registered, anyway) is one street away. You can get a pound of strawberries for one dollar. Keahi and Jarom scampered off to primary and nursery on Sunday, no problem. And I'm finally getting around to updating the blog. Life is sweet.