New House!

Moving!

So, our coordinators decided we should move closer to Dolores Mission and Proyecto Pastoral and avoid rising rent costs, so they found a house two blocks from DMS.  Our house is part of a group of affordable housing units in an area that was projects about 5 years ago.  It is interesting to be a part of this community, an area in the heart of urban renewal.  Boyle Heights is directly across the LA River from downtown and Little Tokyo (we are 3 blocks from the bridge), making it the idea area for people looking for cheaper housing close to downtown and for trendy/edgier people to move into.

 I’ve had some very interesting conversations with one of our friends, Joel, who grew up going to Dolores Mission School and studied urban planning at USC and currently works with transportation and urban growth.  We’ve heard that there is a Starbucks that will be moving into the area and there is a newish pizza place called Purgatory Pizza which is also a hipster magnet.  In our immediate neighborhood, we were surprised to realize our neighbors are very diverse, despite the fact that Boyle Heights is 98-ish% Latino; there are whites, Latinos, Asian Americans, and blacks in our two block area.  I’m excited and nervous about seeing the changes in the area over the next two years.

I love being so close to school!  Some of my kids have games at the park next door so I can go and watch them (Colleen and I watched a baseball game after Confirmation Class last night and our kids were on the team that won 6-0!), walk to mass in the morning, walk to school in 5 minutes and be more in tune with the environment of my students.  I think the only drawback to the move is leaving our old neighborhood which was definitely more authentic feeling, but I'm sure we'll discover new things around our new house soon!

We are thinking about doing a MTV Cribs style tour of our casa for JVC's youtube channel.  That would be pretty sweet :)  But for now, here's a mini photo tour:

 

{outside}

 {blurry!  but one of my favorite parts - painted wooden cross and photo of Sr. Ita Ford}

 {living room}

{kitchen - with dishwasher!}

 {map of LA on all between kitchen and dining room.  I love the openness of the house}

{dining room with our sweet new (free!) yellow table and matching placemats}

 {going up the split stairs, window to street with our Heineken vases}

 {top of the stairs, from l-r, Paula's, mine, and Greg's rooms}

 {down hallway into bathroom - we have 3!  Colleen's room on the right}

 {my room!}

 {we have ginormous closets with huge mirrors (a little messy!)}

 {different angle}

{Another shot outside}

 It's weird knowing that I'm leaving in less than 30 days.  I can't figure out if I should unpack or not, so a lot of my stuff is just in boxes in my closet right now.  I love our new house!