Update 8-26

Lest anyone think that I'm not really working from home, this is the first (and currently only) room completely set up at our house: My office.

Yes, I finally have the corner office with a view. I do miss having co-workers nearby to pester though. It's not as much fun long-distance.

This past weekend was a busy one. Nathan left for a conference at 6:00 am on Saturday leaving me in a partially unpacked house with two energetic kids. But we had a full day to keep us busy. Now you get a long story to get to what we did.

When Veronica was at Primrose in Pre-Kindergarten, she made lots of good friends and we got to know quite a few parents well too. What a great group of people. There are a few parents that we embraced right away as friends and they happen to have some really great kids too: Susan Hochman, her kids Jonathan and Christian (ok, I'm really embarrassed that I don't know her husbands name!); Chris and Margie LaSalle and their kids Claire and John Mark. Margie is battling breast cancer that has mestacized into her bones, making it difficult to get around. They live in a three-level townhouse and need to be somewhere that Margie can navigate easier. So . . .

I dropped the kids at Susan's house on Saturday morning where a bunch of volunteers watched the kids while the rest of the parents descended on Chris and Margie's to paint. What an event! There were at least 15 - 20 people helping paint the house. I had to leave early - but it was heartwarming to see so many people pitch in to help a great family. And the reason I had to leave was to get Veronica to a Birthday party for a neighbor. She had lots of fun, ate cake, and crashed. I have the proof:


This is the after effects of a very full day on a five-year old. Here is our painted butterfly asleep on the couch.

And lastly, we've had rain. Granted we need lots of rain. But Fay is sitting right on top of us today and I'm soggy. Here is our neighbors waterfall. Oops, I mean backyard . . . it's not supposed to have a waterfall feature.


Just this morning dropping off Alexander, I found out that another Primrose parent from his class (with a 19-month old little girl), lost her battle with breast cancer last week. Her funeral is today. She was only 36.

So to wrap up my update for today I have a few favors:
Pray for my friend Margie LaSalle to kick the cancer out of her body.
Pray for them to sell their townhome fast in today's market.
Pray to find a cure for breast cancer.

Vacation, New School, Moving, New Job - OH MY!!

Most of you already know we've been MIA and most of you know why - but we'll give a quick snapshot of the insanity that has been our lives for the past three weeks:

July 31 | Jen's last official day at PIAG
Aug. 1 | Jen flew to Virginia to officially start back with MFSA, back to GA that night.

Aug. 2 | Veronica's Wet & Wild Birthday Party. Word of advice to parents: Don't ever invite 30 wet and muddy kids into your house.

Aug. 3 | Veronica's actual Birthday. More cake and sugar anyone?
Aug. 4 - 9 | Beach! Vacation! Relaxation! We ended up near Destin, FL at a really nice condo. Eduard foiled our plans to spend much time in the ocean . . . double red flags our first day there. (Yes, Eduard was a hurricane that thankfully didn't do much damage, but still created rough water.) It was really the jellyfish really kept us out of the water after that. But the place we stayed had a great pool - so we still had plenty of water time.
Aug. 10 | Back home . . . the move is looming. Packing? Do we have to start now? Getting final supplies for . . .
Aug. 11 | First day of Cobb County School. Which means the first day of Kindergarten for Veronica. No tears for any of us, but it was still a landmark day. She's such a big girl now.
Aug. 12 | Back up to Virginia for Jen for an all-day meeting, back to Georgia before the kids were in bed.
Aug. 13 | Ok, we really, really need to start packing.
Aug. 14 | What do you mean the movers are here already??
Aug. 15 | Despite 3 broken beds and 2 really exhausted parents, we're in our house. Since Alexander's bed was broken in the move, we decided that now was a good time to upgrade him to a toddler bed. He's doing really well and stays in it all night. Well, except once. And naptime is a joke. We'll be setting up his crib again for naps, once it is fixed.

To celebrate our move we did one big splurge. Something that we've been putting off for over 8 years: We finally got real, grown up bedroom furniture. We've been using a mish-mash of furniture we collected over the years - none of which matched, or was really functional. So we decided that this would be our one big furniture splurge. We got a king bed and real matching furniture! The bed is enormous. . . we didn't expect it to be so high. The dog, the kids and Jennifer can no longer get up on the bed without assistance. Nathan loves his new bed.

We're now just trying to unpack, keep the kids out of the boxes and trying to re-establish a routine. But life is exceptionally good. We are truly blessed.

Love to all.

Happy 5th Birthday Veronica!

It was loads of fun, I think for all. More pictures to come later. :)