Minneapolis, here we come!

I can't stand to blog out of chronological order, so this news may be old to some of you.  But...

David accepted a job offer in Minneapolis, Minnesota!  He'll be working as an instructional designer for Seward, Inc, the educational consulting company he went to Jordan with in January.  David will continue to support the project in Jordan and will also be involved with grant-writing, instructional design and evaluation, and supporting educational projects in developing countries.  Seward is a small company, which means that he'll have opportunities to be highly involved in several aspects of work/projects. David is excited about taking a break from academia, and I'm excited for him to have an 8-5 job (free nights and weekends!) although he will be traveling occasionally. 

We are planning to move to MN by late May or early June.  Everyone we talk to has wonderful things to say about Minneapolis--schools, parks, lakes, culture, people.  There's just that minor problem of having snow on the ground for 1/2 the year.  My grandpa says that Minnesota has two seasons, winter and the 4th of July.  I'm glad we'll be moving after the snow has melted.  We've been staying up late every night viewing homes on the MLS and reading up on school districts in the Minneapolis area.  It's hard to believe that after about 10 moves in 10 years of marriage, we'll actually be settling in one place for awhile. 

So here's our plan for March:

Week 2: David turns in his dissertation, we put our house up for sale.
Week 3: David's parents arrive from UT, and healthy baby girl shows up right on time (right??).
Week 4: David defends his dissertation (and passes, of course!).

Thank goodness we'll have grandparents in town to help with baby, kids, and keeping our house presentable!  Maybe they can even potty-train Claire while they're here.  (Just kidding, grandparents who are reading this!)

The belly at 35 weeks. (Just imagine how I look now at 38 weeks!)

Ethan requested Ratatouille for dinner (after watching the movie, of course).  It's got all my favorite veggies: eggplant, zucchini, onions, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes.  We'll be making this again!  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ratatouille/Detail.aspx

Ethan, what do you think of Ratatouille?

"Plant a tree for your tomorrow..."  3 years ago, David accepted 10 seedlings (and a lifetime's worth of return address labels) from the Arbor Day Foundation.  He initially planted them right behind our house where they'd have some protection from the weather.  Last week, our friend who has helped us a ton with landscaping our yard came over and they moved all the trees to permanent locations around the yard.  How do you like that Georgia February sunshine?! 

 

Ethan never waits to be asked for his help... he jumps in on every house and yard project.

Claire had so much fun playing with our friend's son (aka "that boy")