Leaving Floral Park, NY- June 2015

We are moving! Like right now. And it's the 9-year anniversary of when we met! I'm not going to talk about where we're moving (because internet) except to say farther east, closer to North Fork (about 45 minutes), and we're going to be a 10-minute drive from the beach! Since I won't talk about our new town, what I did last time we moved is talk about the place I'm leaving, in this case Floral Park.

First, you should know that there are two Floral Parks, one in Queens and one in Nassau County, Long Island. They border each other, but everything is completely different in the two towns- even the driving rules and definitely the taxes. We rented the upstairs of a two-family home in the more suburban Nassau County one.

Tulip Avenue in Floral Park

Floral Park is actually just a tiny village in the town of Hempstead. The village is so small that we routinely walked everywhere. We had a ten-minute walk to the LIRR (with a 30-minute ride into Penn Station or Atlantic Terminal). Some of our favorite places to walk were the Tiny Town playground and the main street, Tulip Avenue, with basically all the stores we needed. (Mani-pedis for $25 at Nail Garden. I will miss you!)

My favorite picture at Tiny Town, July 2015

When it was raining sometimes Kevin brought the kids to the library to hang out in the kids' room. The library also had concerts outside in the summer.

Huge Connect Four at FloPa Library

Our own little Alice in Wonderland

Concert at the Library, August 2014

Another reason we loved Tulip was the bars! Tulip Avenue has 4-5 Irish bars with bartenders straight from Ireland. We had a really fun St. Patrick's Day just five minutes from home one year with Michele and Jon. They also opened a speakeasy last year hidden behind a coffee shop with fancy drinks. It's so Manhattan/Brooklyn!

Bar Crawling on Tulip Avenue, St. Patrick's Day 2012

Every year our town had a festival in honor of the Belmont Stakes- the day after- and even though it wasn't very exciting, we took the kids three out of the five years we lived here.

Floral Park Street Fair, shortly after James was born, June 2011


Floral Park Street Fair, June 2014

We also went to the bird sanctuary a few times, though there seemed to be more flowers there than birds. I think the bird sanctuary was responsible for the whole town being more bird-full than normal.

Living in Floral Park, we were about 30 minutes from Jones Beach (though sometimes the traffic and crowding bummed me out a little). We went there about once or twice a year, sometimes in Spring or Fall just to let James run around in the sand. It nice having the beach just a short drive away, but I expect we're going be there even more now that we'll be 10 minutes from a nice family one.

Jones Beach, July 2013

So we will miss this little tiny village! We moved in here when we were newlyweds and both our kids were born here so we definitely have fond memories of the town, but we're finally ready to settle somewhere for a long while-- we think-- and we think we found the perfect place to do it. On to the next adventure!

Tulip Avenue at night

• Our Floral Park, NY Home 2010-2015
• Leaving Brooklyn 2008-2010
• Our Brooklyn Apartment 2008-2010