I realize that it has been almost a month since my last update. On that note, I'd like to say hello to dear Susan Pauley (and John McCain) who has been sending me several "For the love of Pete!" emails to request (demand) that I get some recent life documented.
In the past 3.5 weeks:
- I turned another year older. I love my birthday and couldn't care less about my age. I am healthy and happy and married to a wonderful man and have two precious children and a wonderful sister and incredible mother. Life is good. I'll celebrate that any day.
Sweetie and the kids baked me a "Main Street USA" cake. Grace's idea from start to finish.
- The kids got settled in a new preschool. The new school has a policy against "show and touch" - sadly, our last church preschool didn't. Grace and Andy LOVE the new school and so do we. To ease the transition, I instituted "lunch bunch" Fridays.
- Scott completed his NIH K award grant application. That is code for "really long and involved research plan sent to the government to request funding for a new investigator." This was a huge thing to pull off as Scott is still a fellow and wrote this application in between clinic duties and while taking call....so basically he gave up sleep for an entire month and worked until 3am each night (technically morning)...and this is why I have no pictures of him working but I'll take advantage of this and insert this keeper I found on an old data card.
Grace went through a big Peter Pan phase when she was three - she is being Tinkerbell and Scott is clearly being Peter. (The Pan phase was also the Wizard of Oz phase, hence the "rubes")
- Scott got a job! This really isn't news, but we've been waiting on the official contract since December and any assurance that the contract was imminent wilted with every read of the newspaper or evening news. Times are tough and we're especially grateful. And since this blog gets printed and bound each year, I thought Grace and Andy might get a laugh in 20 years when they read that Daddy got his very first job at age 35, save a very short stint as the pepperoni guy on the assembly line at Pizza Hut. Praise God he was fired for not being able to keep up!
- We readied our house for the market. And as of today, it is for sale! Our awesome agent, Kay Robinson ("Happy Endings Start with Kay") gave me a punch list and I scrubbed and painted and shined until I couldn't feel my arms. Removing any evidence that two children grew their first years in this home was hard. I had a good cry when I found these height marks on the wall.
- And Sweetie! She came to save the day this week when I hit full "how is this all going to be done by Friday" mode. In my defense, I managed to catch a nasty cold and was not exactly in full steam form. Sweetie stays in full steam form and arrived Wednesday with the calm that I needed. She also finished getting the downstairs rooms together while I worked upstairs, and took us out to dinner to celebrate Scott's contract and then out to lunch just because she's Sweetie.
And two last "just because" pictures. These two crazies are pure joy!
