Leprechauns in Syracuse

It began back in St. Louis this past St. Patrick's Day when I hung some cardboard leprechaun decorations. After Isabella admired them and asked a million questions about the history and habits of Leprechauns I happened to change my mind about the location of a leprechaun and I moved it while she was out of the room. So of course she thought the leprechaun moved on its own. All day long, when she wasn't looking, Teddy and I were moving leprechauns and by the end of the day we had convinced her that St. Patrick's Day was the only time leprechauns would reveal themselves to people, thus beginning the Avramov/ Morris leprechaun legends. After our St. Pat's day fun we packed up the leprechauns and put them out of our mind or so we thought.

Upon arriving in our new home Isabella found a small door in our walk-in closet and asked what it was (its the access to our bathtub plumbing). My mom, knowing our leprechaun history tells her its the leprechaun door and since then we have been living with leprechauns. Isabella is obsessed. The leprechaus are always up to something. They've eaten all her cheetos so she has to have more. They pulled her animals and blankets off her bed, disrupting her nap. They move her things all the time. When Grandma and Grandpa were here they kept leaving her money! (I wish they'd leave me some I have to keep buying all these cheetos for them!) She even knocks on the leprechaun door in our closet and on the decorative panels in our dining room(more leprechaun doors), and talks to them. They usually tell her to go away, they are very busy making fairy shoes or so she tells us. She sees them everywhere. Today she saw one in a tree, after all, "they are very good climbers, Mom". It seems Isabella isn't the only one in Central New York to see leprechauns. A very popular local Irish pub, Coleman's, has a special entrance for its leprechaun patrons as well as a special phone booth and taxi stand. All built according to size. So as I'm sure you can imagine Isabella loves to go to Coleman's to see where her leprechaun friends hang out and to eat leprechaun fries cooked up by the leprechaun chefs. For the first time in 2 years my child will now eat fries. Big fat ones with the skin on them at that! Thank you leprechauns!

All my college pals will appreciate this, Coleman's has a 9,000 gallon subterreaen tank of Green beer that they fill up with a tanker truck every St. Pat's Day!. Only in America! This would have been our dream come true!


This past month we've been very busy buying furniture, as you could probably tell from the previous pics. Our house in St. Louis almost seemed crowded, but when we got here it looked like we had nothing! Finally all those years of saving have paid off and we've been able to buy things we've always wanted and never had room for. We even turned our formal living room (a waste of space if you ask me) into a room I've always dreamed of having, a library. Next winter or spring we hope to add a couple of comfy chairs to curl up and read in. Right now it only has my favorite comfy chair and its a bit worn.


We have had quite an exciting summer so far. Isabella has been playing with the kids in the neighborhood and going to Storytime at the library and Lil' Kickers soccer camp (one hour every Saturday morning). She has also seen the Puppet Lady, the Bubbleman and a special Zoo presentation (her favorite) at the mall library. They put on great shows for kids in the summer. We've been constantly running around, shopping, sight-seeing, visiting with our neighbors and establishing ourselves as New Yorkers (licenses and such). At first I was having a hard time establishing a routine, you all know what a routine freak I am, but things have calmed. I finally have my rhythm back and I feel so much more settled in and at home. Best of all, I'm back to my running. I forgot how hard it is to start over, especially at a new altitude. Damn it was hard that first week, but the body has a great memory and I was back before I knew it. Six miles this past Sunday!!! Now I have to get out and work those hills and prepare to set my eight mile goal!



How about that Harry Potter fever?! Has everyone gotten their copy of the final Harry Potter?! We have, of course. Teddy and I picked up our reserve copy Saturday afternoon. He's already more than half way thru. I, on the other hand, have this tradition (you kow how I am about my traditions) of rereading the book before I see the current movie. I just finished rereading Order of The Phoenix (now to find a babysitter!). Being the compulsive freak I am I also feel the need to reread the sixth before I read the seventh and final book. Which means it will probably be at least another week and a half before I get to it. If my husband even hints at what's happened I'll kill him! I keep hoping no one on the news mentions anything and I'm recording the JK Rowling interview to watch after I finish the book, so nothing will be given away. God, I am such a nerd! Maybe I am procrastinating a little too. I'm kind of sad its over, I'll miss Harry and the gang. Thanks to all the kids at Bristol for turning me on to Harry Potter!

So that's it for now, I've rambled for long enough. We are preparing for a busy August. Teddy goes to Vegas for a Walgreens conference and we have practically every birthday coming up, as well as trying to get Isabella enrolled in preschool (hopefully someone will call me back!!!!). We are also hoping to take a weekend trip to Lake Placid, its about 3 hours away. The best part is we will be preparing for Mom and Dad Avramov's first visit to Syracuse in September. So I will try to post in a few of weeks and keep you up to date. Our love to all!!http://www.facebook.com/facebook-widgets/share.php

We've Arrived!

Greetings from Jamesville, New York! It has now been almost 2 months and we are pretty much settled in and loving Central New York! It is absolutely beautiful here. Very New England! Isabella and I arrived May 23 with Mom to help. Teddy and my Dad were soon to follow with the dog, cat and my car. We were so grateful to have Mom and Dad with us to help out. Moving in went pretty smoothly and thanks to the help unpacking wasn't to bad either. The hardest part about the whole move was selling our house in St. Louis. We sure learned a lot.


We live in the village of Jamesville in the Town of Dewitt, a suburb of Syracuse. The gods were definately smiling upon us when we were looking for a home. As most of you know, prior to moving here, I only spent one weekend in Syracuse and about 45 minutes in our new home, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The house is great! The neighborhood is fantastic, full of families with young children, and everyone is so nice. The location could not be better. We have the best of both worlds living the country lifestyle without leaving the city. Talk about good luck or Karma or both!

When leaving our neighborhood, if you go west on the main road about 5 miles you run right into downtown Syracuse. And if you go east about 5 miles you'll find beautiful downtown Jamesville, which consists of one street light. It looks like the quintesstial New England town with gorgeous old homes and churches and great views. The elementary school Isabella will attend is only about 3 miles from us. About a mile down the road from our neighborhood is a State park with a glacial lake and awesome hiking. We sit in the foothills of the Catskills and to the south of us there is nothing but rugged terrain and farmland with breath taking views. In the winter we only will have to travel 20 minutes to do some decent skiing (I think I might have to give it a try). The summer has been so mild (ave. temp. about 80 degrees) ,I feel like I am in heaven and I've hardly had to take any Claritin. Talk about a change of lifestlye.

All of us seem to be adjusting pretty well. Isabella has gone through some rebellion but things are definately getting back to normal. She has made lots of new friends in the neighborhood and can't wait to get out and play everyday. Teddy loves his new position and all its challenges, and is looking forward to getting back to skiing after all these years. Seamus is still having some problems adjusting to the hardwood floors and seeks any rug oasis he can find no matter how small. Picasso has been the biggest surprise. I swear Teddy picked up a new cat while driving up here. She acts happier than I have ever seen her. She hardly ever hides and she hasn't been this active since she was a kitten. She even seems to love Isabella, her main tormentor. I guess this fresh air has been good for all of us (by the way did I mention how clean and fresh smelling the air is here).

I am really enjoying setting up our new home and exploring the area. Isabella and I have already found our new library, it's in the mall of all places. We have also been to the Zoo and the carousel in the Carousel Center Mall. We have also explored some of the lakeside towns in the area.

We love our new house (as you can see I've added pics). We literally doubled our square footage and that has taken some getting used to. Isabella is not longer in ear shot and the first couple of weeks I felt like I was always looking for her or afriad she would sneek out to play. And while some of you might say, "Oh Kari, now you'll have so much more to clean!" I say, I love a challenge!! After all, I couldn't organize our old house anymore than I already had. Now I get to start fresh!! I can't tell you how that makes me tingle!

We have had one Minor problem here, we just got our refridgerator. I think I really pissed someone off (surprise!) and they put a refrigerator curse on us! As some of you may remember, when we bought our first house and our first fridge I spent about 6 months fighting with Best Buy over damage done to our house and to our fridge by their delivery people. That finally resulted in us getting a $700.00 fridge for $350.00. Well you'd think we would learn, but noooooo. On May 5th Teddy ordered a new fridgerator from, yes you guessed it, Best Buy. He was told the fridge would arrive the day after we moved in . Well, it never showed up! So Teddy and my Dad went to Best Buy on the 24th and was told it was on back order. So to compensate us they "loaned" us (we had to pay for it but we can bring it back for a full refund), a dorm size fridge. So I tried patiently (and we all know how hard that can be for me) to feed my family out of this shoe box. After 3 weeks I said no more and I called Best Buy. Well they were very sympathetic and their solution was to have us come pick out any fridge we wanted and we could have it at the employee discount and they would "loan" us a regular size floor model. So that's what we did. And of course since they don't keep anything in stock we had to order the new fridge. All was well until July 5th (3 weeks later) when with no warning Best Buy shows up with my new fridge. Mind you I had the loaner full of food and was completely unprepared. So I emptied the loaner and they installed our new LG french door model (we had ordered a simple GE bottom fridge/top freezer). While I was uppacking the inside I found a broken drawer, no big deal in the grand scheme, or so I thought. So I called and they agreed to send a replacment drawer. About 6 hours later the new fridge was literally hotter than my house. We lost pretty much all our food. And boy was I pissed off! Actually there aren't words to describe my level of anger. I called LG and was told the store would have to exchange it out. So I had Teddy call Best Buy as I was too angry. He was told that they would contact the service department which was closed for the day and they would call us in the morning. Oh, and ironically our orginal fridge had arrived that same day in their warehouse. So by 10am the next I had heard nothing so I called Best Buy. I demanded the situation be resolved with 24hrs or they would be removing this piece of junk from my home and giving us the small fridge so that I could keep our food cold while I ordered a new fridge from Sears or Lowes. I also suggested that they exchange it for the less expensive original fridge we ordered and they would then give the original to us at cost. Well after 10 minutes deliberation, that's what they decided to do. Sometimes it just takes a bitch's touch. So that is now resolved 2 months later and we are completely moved in! The moral is don't buy anything from Best Buy and learn from your mistakes the first time.

My husband did a really cool thng for me for my birthday. He arranged with my parents and brother for them to fly up for a few days so I wouldn't have to be alone on my birthday (he had to be out of town for work). I was very surprised and we had a good time exploring the area a bit. I have such a great husband! Isabella was very glad to see her Grandma and Grandpa, although she was a little disappointed that they did not bring their puppy, Libby.

We have also begun to meet lots of new people. Besides our neighbors, we've even managed to connect with some Bulgarian families. Our realtor coincidentally met a Bulgarian, Nick, the
day after I left from my first visit. She told him about Teddy and I and he gave her hnumber. So Teddy called while he was in Syracuse working and met up with Nick, his wife Gabriella and their children Stephen (5) and Nadine (1). They are wonderful people and have introduced us to several other Bulgarian families. And to think we thought we wouldn't find many Bulgarians in Syracuse.
That's it for now! I'll be posting pretty often this next week or so to update everyone, then I will only update once a month unless we have news. Enjoy the pictures! We love and miss you all and send our best wishes to everyone!

Our guest room awaits visitors!

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