Grab a coffee or your cup of choice and get comfortable!
Now it's time to update ya'll from December on:
Since Dylan and I are expecting a little bundle of joy we were weighing out our options. In the last post I mentioned that we were thinking of Moving to Duluth. Well, We are now residents of Duluth, MN. We are happy being Minnesota residents once again.
Dylan has a job at the University of Wisconsin, Superior in the Upward Bound Program as a Counselor/Coordinator. Dylan's position is 60% for the year and it is full-time during the summer. He plans on filling the remainder of open time with substitute teaching. Also, UWS is working with him to find another position within the University that will not conflict with his current position. The process went very quickly due to them needing someone to fill the position asap. Two weeks after filling out the application Dylan and I were finding ourselves making the move to Duluth.
We had no idea what we were geeting ourselves into and relying on soley God's direction. Having faith that he would not let us stray from His plan for us.
One of our options with baby on the way was to move to Duluth to be closer to family. We had in mind both of us having full-time jobs or at least Dylan before making the move. So now, Dylan with a part-time job at UWS and myself having to leave a wonderful full-time job that I love so much we were questioning if we were crazy to up root our life in Fargo. We had a week to think about this. During that time we had been trying to buy a beautiful house. We invisioned raising our kids in that home. We couldn't get anywhere with buying that house. We still had our bid in with other offers and the bank (out of the blue) decided to just take another offer without negotiating. Well, that door was clearly closed.
Then we had a tragic loss. My friend/store manager, Louise past away very unexpectedly/tragicly the day before Christmas. It was a very difficult situation for me. I was put in place as acting store manger for the remainder of the time until I trained in the new store manager. We were just opening up a new Macys location and trying to hire another part-time gal with all of us needing to take a vacation. It was difficult working in the store without Louie as a reminder. It was good to retire from it and made it easier to say goodbye, but I will greatly miss the wonderful ladies that I worked with.
With tons of prayers and our families supporting us with whatever desision we made, we decided to take the plunge to Lake Superior.
That brings us right into the New Year!!!! And what a promising one it brings...
A crazy start to the new year too! After giving notice to our jobs we were surrounded with chaos. We were working on packing and trying to figure out where to put all of our stuff. Not sure how to haul it to Duluth. Finding time to get together with friends before we left was challenging. Dylan was dealing with things at work trying to hire a part-timer and training his replacement. I was doing interviews/hiring/training for a part-time position, Assistant Store Manager, and scouting for a Store Manager. Later, I would then have to return to Fargo and train in the SM after we moved to Duluth. With Dylan working and taking care of me, my 40+ hours a weeks, being pregnant, and another employee on vacation left me pooped. We were both tired and couldn't wait for a little break from the excitement.
I hope this isn't the outlook for the rest of the year?
We did get to spend some fantastic time with friends. We went on a tour of the Christmas lights through the city of Fargo in a limosine and then we ended the evening with a Christmas party at Billiards. We had a great time. Adding to all the chaos and trying to cram everything in, Dylan turned 27 years old the week we left Fargo. We had a birthday party/going away party at Billiards. It was wonderful to be able to spend time just hanging out with everyone!
To end January we cleaned, packed, and said our goodbyes. My parents came to help us move using 2 U-haul trucks. Thanks to Dylan's parents renting one for us and Richard using his own U-haul truck. (which is still full of our junk from the storage unit) It only took the Dylan and Richard a couple of hrs to empty out the storage unit, very impressive. We then had great help from amazing guys when moving out of the house. A BIG Thanks to: Kevin, Grant, Gordon, and Jim (in no particular order.) Hopefully I didn't leave anyone out. The move was uneventful until we were 5 miles from our new Duluth home. Thats when Richard hit a horse/moose (a moorse). Totalling his U-haul. Thankfully Richard was not hurt. We are still unclear what it was. Pretty sure it was a horse but the owners won't claim responsibility. Thankfully everyone was okay. Corky, Suzanne, Mandy, Aaron, and Henry met us in Duluth and helped with unloading and did the cooking. Yum! Thank you to all!
Here comes Feburary!
We flooded my parent's house (that is where we are staying) with over 40 boxes of stuff and tons of furniture. We focused on unpacking and tossing even more stuff. We worked on organizing the upstairs. My room now has officialy become our room. I was able to clear out paraphernalia from my pre-college years. Then we started on Matt's room/guest room. :D Let's just say you would never know that he had ever used the room. Sorry Matt. It is a perfect room for Anna and Josh to play in. We did keep the bed in so when Matt & Katie or for whom ever, they get the privledge of spending quality night time with the new little bundle. ; )
Dylan started his new job and loved it right away. He has his own giant office, working with fewer staff, and the opportunity to work with the high school students is amazing. He works throughout the week tutoring and counseling student and one Saturday a month they do some fun activity. He went up north for a diversity/college conference with his 48 students. He starts subing in March sometime which will help. Dylan has a few projects of his own that he's working on, it all involves the nursery. :D He's been folding paper cranes to make a mobile and he painted the nursery a gray which looks more lavender thanks to not having a Lowes in town and trying to color match. It still looks great. :D Dylan has taken an interest in kiteboarding and I couldnn't be more thrilled that he picked one of the more safer sports. I hope...
I started at Motherhood in the Duluth location. The SM and ASM are fantastic and wonderful to work for. I only work part-time. I am in high hopes of finding a second or full-time job. I have tried looking into some different jobs however less then 9wks out it's hard to be motivated plus the times that I have picked up applications they look down at my belly and give me a weird look. I dont blame them, honestly finding work after Baby is born might be a little easier. Dylan thinks it will be tougher because I wont want to leave the baby.
Since not working as much I'm finding that my domestic side is starting to shine through a little more (at least trying). Now that I'm 'nesting' I am staying pretty busy. I have been putting in about 16 hrs at the Motherhood store and will be picking up 27-38hrs thru the rest of March. It was God perfect timing to leave the Fargo when we did. What a blessing although we do miss our friends and Fargo.
I have attended one of my moms bible studies and try to go on the days that I don't work. The ladies that go are interesting and very sweet. I have joined the Barnes & Noble book club and love the group of ladies. The first book that I read with them was The Help (highly recomend) and this month it's Apoligize Apoligize! I'm behind reading the book and we meet tomrrow so a late night ahead of me. Dylan has also started to read a lot more besides Batman comic books. He is currently reading through the series Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I had my 2nd appointment with Dr. Greenleaf. She is very sweet and very chit chatty compared to my other MD. At my first appointment she stated I was measuring at 27 weeks. We did another ultrasound and the tech said she was textbook perfect and saw some practice breaths. We are still keeping April 30 as the suggested due date. MD said we have a very tiny baby. March 1st brought forth baby prep classes. We started our "Preparing for birth class" - boring- sure it will help as we get closer.
Being with my family has been so nice. It is a little tough not having our own place to do what we want and the privacy. It's like having room mates again. I am looking forward to the extra hands when Baby comes. The pups love it!They get to play with my parents dogs 24/7. We have them set up with the electric fence and they're outside 95% of the time. *spoiled* :) Gabe and Bella love hunting down frozen mice to chew on. Thankfully they leave it outside and have not brought in live ones.
That concludes our lives up to this post (I think). Stay tunned for pictures soon to come.
