You’re going to be hearing a little bit more about our upcoming move – we have two weeks left in our beloved neighborhood. The move is the main event these days. I started thinking about our connection to our neighborhood – Roncesvalles Village – and how it’s seemed to creep into the most important nook and crannies of our life together. In fact, this blog started shortly after we moved here last year. Living here has been a big part of reinventing sandyb in so many ways. [note: for our beach wedding, we put this photo on the invites - we wanted to keep it fun and show that we try not to take ourselves too seriously.]

We took these pictures back in 2007, three months before our wedding. Back then, we used to say, “Wouldn’t it be amazing to live here one day?” And then last year, we sold everything, packed up and did. We moved here. We made that little dream our own big reality.

The vibe here is one of community and belonging. It’s a trendy neighborhood, sure, but it’s more than that if you’re willing to look beyond that – it’s a place where creativity thrives and where it’s okay to be a little different. Rob grew up in this neighborhood and so it’s held a special place in his heart his whole life. And because of that I discovered love here, too.

This is the house Rob grew up in, just behind us in this photo. It was in the house that Rob fell in love with music. He’s told me stories about his childhood here and I only wish I could have known him then. He told me how he would walk to church with his family on Sundays, where he was an alter boy. He would accompany his mom to the bakery and butcher shoppe on Saturday mornings to get the weekend’s ingredients for a big family dinner. His favorite memory is playing in the alley ways and school yard until the street lights came on, and then running home with his sisters before dark.

This old theater, now a convenience store, is where Rob used to buy handfuls of sour candy for $.25. Remember those days? Inside, you can still see where the theater seats used to be and there is a grandiose feeling when you walk in. That’s the great thing about living here – even with the arrival of trendy shops and restaurants, you can still see the imprint of the lives gone by.

Roncesvalles Avenue is lined with small fruit stands showing off the best local and organic produce. We actually did some fruit shopping for this picture, because we’ve been buying our fruits and vegetables from this very fruit stand for the last three years, even before we moved here. Our new neighborhood is an upcoming one and maybe someday there will be abundant little fruit stands lining the main street. Until then though, we’ll miss this weekend ritual…

…but we know our new neighborhood will bring a new set of streets, shoppes and hideaways to fall in love with and isn’t that the best feeling anyway – falling in love again?

Here’s to walking towards a new adventure.

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[thank you to Agnes Jeglinska, who we will forever be grateful to for snapping these moments. You can visit her blog here.]