Oh my, what a busy summer!

Oh, my!

Things have been so busy this summer since we moved!

My work has been wonderful and really exciting!  I'm helping to set up a model birth to three childcare program that floods the babies' days with language and literacy experiences.  We've been hiring teachers and assistants (still interviewing if any of you need a fun job working with infants/toddlers!), creating a two-week institute to train our teachers in language and literacy, organizing class lists, planning orientations, ordering neat materials and books for our classrooms, and just generally doing all that is needed to prepare for opening an ideal infant/toddler program.  It's really exciting work, because our end goal is to prepare our little students to be on a path to "read to learn" by third grade.

Also, we've found a home!  A cute two story "yellow house" as Flannery calls it.  It's walking distance to a park and a few restaurants, and it has a huge fenced yard.    The dogs and Flanna will be thrilled!  We picked out paint colors last weekend and hope to paint the bedrooms this weekend so we can be ready to move in by the first of the month.

We've also had some craziness.  Poor Flanna sprained her left arm on Wednesday and has to wear a sling for about a week.  She's being very brave, but it really hurts her.  I was convinced that it was broken, but the radiologist who read her X-rays said no.  Thank goodness!  Robi really didn't feel well a few weekends ago, too, and we took him to the hospital concerned about a possible heart palpitation or something.  All the tests came back fine, and now we're thinking it might've just been GERD, but it was really scary in the moment.

The thing that has really kept me from blogging, though, is our awful commute each day.  Luckily, Robi and I can carpool, but it's really rough to have to be in the car for at least 3 hours a day going back and forth to work.  I can't wait 'til we move!  I hate to move further from our families, but our commute will be so short once we're in our new home, and those extra two hours a day will make such a difference in our stress level!

Anyway.  Amidst the busy commutes and scary hospital visits, we have gotten to have a bit of fun, and we've really been enjoying being with our extended family so often.  We've gotten to spend time with our friends and family at birthday parties, dinners out, cookouts, and little spontaneous visits here and there.  Flanna has been doing ballet camp (or at least she was before she sprained her arm) with her cousin, and we've had sleepovers every weekend.  My mom has been visiting here and there, and my dad's making the trip with her soon.  This coming weekend, we have a game night planned and a birthday party with some cousins, and it's just so nice for us to feel such a part of the day-to-day life of our extended families.  It's a real blessing, and I'm so thankful to be "home" now.

I'm not sure how often I'll be able to blog before we move, but I promise I'll be back to regular posts as soon as I get settled in at our new home!  (I also promise to post photos of the new place as soon as I can!)




What have you been busy with this summer?

Our friend Finn's birthday party!

The birthday boy!