Seattle here I come!

Just wanted to let you all know that its official, I'm going to Seattle in June and so is Aaron. I got some really good deals on Expedia. $288 roundtrip each. I fly in on Wednesday night (late) and Aaron flies in on Saturday night. Unfortunately he wasn't able to get the Saturday off cause one of his co-workers had already asked off. But he will be in on Saturday night till Monday. We are also traveling down to Portland afterwards to visit one of my friends from Spain.

Anyway... can't wait to see you all there! Approximately 3.5 months, 15 weeks, or 108 days!

sold!

Hey girls! How are you all doing? Things are good here, stressful, but good. We sold our house and will be moving around March 23rd. So now we're doing some final repairs on the house and are starting the daunting task of packing. I hate packing, with a passion. I enjoy unpacking because I think it's fun to be surprised by the contents of each box when you open it. And I also very much enjoy the opportunity to reorganize and clean everything in my house. I am also looking forward to redecorating a new house. But I am dreading having to actually do the work of painting and other home fixer-upper projects. I prefer someone else to do the work. I just like the creative part of it. So we've been house-hunting a little bit online. It's kind of overwhelming. Also, we've been figuring out our budget for residency and I really am going to need to get a job to help make some supplemental income. Like at least part time. The trick is finding something that pays ok and that works with the kids. Because if I have to put them in regular day care, I pretty much lose my income in child care expenses. So I'm pretty stressed about that. I would appreciate prayers while we look for a house, find a new church and friends, and find a job. Miss you all bunches!

2 years = Electronics

Hello all!

Things here have been slow and steady. We have finally had 2 weekends in a row without too much snow. We had a few inches last night, but they were melted by 4pm today. Yeah for that. We decided to do something a little different this year for Valentine's day...I think this is going to be our new "tradition."

We official have been together for 2 years, and that is the Electronic Gift right? We bought ourselves a surround sound system. Which has revitalized our movie watching experiences. We'll need to have you all over soon. ;)

We also finished our taxes today. I do have to say sometimes I view the government like my personal savings account. We had another year where are getting a nice refund and not having to pay. I have realized that God is faithful to those who tithe. :) Those "donations to charity" do help on the tax refund side. :)

School is going well. I'm thinking about applying for the Technology position for next year. We'll see about that.

My tips for the getting healthy club. We did a 21-day fast at church and Nick and I decided to do a "Daniel Fast" for lunch. That is where I ate raw fruit, vegetables and nuts for lunch. At night we ate Zone. (It's similar to South Beach). As I added in Tae-Bo workouts I found that the fat deposits began to shrink. Now sticking with it all...that's the hard part.

I love reading your posts! (Even the 'boring' ones. :)) I'm getting excited about seeing you girls in Seattle. Nick and I are planning on being there!!

Not So Wonderland

In spite of Phil's (the groundhog) prediction that spring would come early this year, winter seams to have finally arrived for the East Coast. I must say, Liz got out just in time. In our first major winter storm of the year, mother nature decided to be very cruel.

Highlights of the "Love Storm":

• We had approximately 36 hours of snow, sleet and freezing rain.
• What would have been 20" of snow has been compacted into 6-8" of snow and ice.
• It took Aaron more than an hour to shovel our 10' driveway (it usually takes him about 10-15 minutes)
• The nicely paved roads that we are used to, have been mutilated into ice roads. It's much like driving on stone/dirt road with multiple pot holes, except that they are much slipperier and dangerous. In some places its like driving an amusement park car on a track cause the tire have worn through the ice to the road, but a 6" thick slab of ice remains between your tires. I found this quite humorous.
• Accidents on the interstate highway 78 caused a 50 mile gridlock that for some lasted for more than 40 hours. Can you imagine being stuck on a highway, in your car for 40 hours. The National Guard took food and supplies to those left stranded.
• Highways are still closed in that area due to horrible road conditions that could not be remedied sooner.

It was a terrible storm and the aftermath is even worse cause of all the ice. I'll be glad when it warms up. Oh did I mention it hasn't been above 20 since like 2 weeks ago. It's very cold!

Anyone else ready for spring?!

We have arrived....

Well, it's official....Nathan and I both now reside in Michigan. As I said before, we're living with my parents until we find a purchase a house. Nathan likes his new job quite a lot, and I'm beginning to job hunt. It was quite a whirlwind getting here. Nathan was here for 2 weeks while I stayed in MA and finished work and packed up the apartment. Then my parents came out to help us move. It was hard to leave...harder than I thought it would be. We had definitely put down a lot of roots, so it was hard to leave the church, and especially our friends. When you hang out with the same people every weekend (several times), it's hard to get used to not being with them all the time. At least we know a few people here, so it's not like we have nothing and no one to hang out with on the weekends. Like I said, the move was a whirlwind, and I don't want to do it again for a very, very long time (except moving into a house soon). We had a 26ft. truck because the place didn't have a 22 footer, and that was an experience! But it's over now, and we're settling in as much as you can in your parents' house:) I'm definitely having more fun with the house hunt than the job hunt. I was thinking today that maybe I should look for a job half as hard as I look for a house:) Fortunately, the cost of living here is sooo much less than New England, so we'll get so much more for our money. So that's about it for us. Good luck Julie, with your own move and house selling/buying issues.

the match

Hey girls! Hope you all are doing well. We're fine. "The Match" came out today for Josh. This is the day we find out for sure where we will be living for the next 5 years. Josh put all of his residency choices into a computer system and all of the residency programs put their top student choices into the system and today all the choices were matched up in the order they were ranked. So we are absolutely for sure moving to Columbus, Ohio now. We still have the house on the market and we did get an offer yesterday. But it was low so we counter-offered... then they counter-offered... then we counter-offered again and said final offer. We're still waiting to hear back from them. I don't really care if they don't buy the house because we came down a lot for them and if they still can't afford our house, then they shouldn't be looking at houses in our price range. As it is, if they accept our last offer, we'll still lose like $200 on the total investment. We would really like to at least come close to breaking even. So anyways, that's that for us. Josh's sister, Vanessa, had her baby on Friday. She was 8 lb. 5 oz. and 20.5 inches long. She has lots of dark wavy hair and is really sturdy and strong. Her name is Victoria Elise. Vanessa had to have a C section, but she's recovering pretty well. Love you all!

They can find you anywhere

The ORU Alumni Association just called me. On the phone. Like, they actually tracked down my cell phone number. And they know I have a husband. What they don't know, though, is that I have no money to give them. So maybe they should do a little more research and figure that little tidbit out.

 

It appears that our dog is having some kind of back and/or liver trouble. We're getting back the full results tomorrow, so we'll know what to do. She may need to have a liver biopsy. She's been acting like she's in pain for a couple days, and is having some trouble getting around. Hopefully, we'll be able to get everything taken care of without having to take out a loan. But it's not looking good.

 

Ok, so some good news…let's see…it's sunny and 60 degrees here. That's pretty good. And…as Steph happily labeled it, it is Grey's Day.

 

So, I guess that's all for now. Much love to you all!

 

the deep south

If you've seen the weather reports for the Midwest lately, you know that it's been severely cold for the last week or so. Snowy weather I can handle just fine. Ice, we manage. But THIS cold is just unbearable. So this weekend, as we visit Kansas City, it feels like the deep south. We arrived yesterday and said "oh, it's like spring-time here!". Granted, it's 19 (feels like 9) degrees here. But when compared to 5 (feels like -11) back home, this is paradise!!!!
So, Chris is in a meeting on securities right now and I'm sitting in the hotel room watching TLC, which I don't get to do at home. Ah, this is the high life! We splurged on this trip and have requested valet service every chance we get :)
GO BEARS!!!!