Battle of the bump

Well, I don’t have a bump yet, but my waistline is definitely changing/growing! This morning, I couldn’t get my 2nd pair of jeans done up. I still managed to wear them with a rubber band through the button hole. So, that leaves me with 1 pair that I can still zip up. I guess I’ll have to start wearing my dress pants more since those are looser to begin with. I may have to break out my maternity pants this weekend! As of today, I am at 8 weeks in my pregnancy. I can’t wait until we get to the end of the 1st trimester and I can start telling people!

First appointment with midwife

We had our first appointment this morning. We have a new primary midwife this time since our primary from last time is no longer at the practice. And our secondary one from last time has holidays booked around our due date, so she can't be our primary one this time either. So, we have someone we have never met before. She seems very nice though. And very knowledgeable - she was an obstetrical nurse for 18 years before she was a midwife and has been a midwife for over 10 years. So, very experienced. We're not sure who our second and third midwives will be at this point, we will find that out later on.

Our next appointment will be in early June (don't have it booked yet since their appointment calendar didn't go that far). By then, I will be at around 14 weeks, so we will be able to hear the heartbeat. After that appointment, it will be time to start telling people! Can't wait! I may tell my work in late May though - I will wait and see. I am already finding that my clothes don't fit as well, so I may have to break out my maternity pants soon - or at least find one of those band things that allow you to extend the waist of your current pants. It's tricky. I am still at least 6 weeks away from telling my workplace, but I may start showing before that! I guess I will just play things by ear. I can always tell HR early since heaven forbid, if I had a miscarriage, I would be telling her anyways since I would want a few days off work.

Awesome weekend!

We had a great time sharing the news with our families on the weekend. Julie wore her 'I'm the big Sister' shirt with pride and told everyone "I'm going to be a big sister!" Everyone is very excited - my dad promptly broke out the schnapps ;)

I got the call this afternoon that we got a spot with the midwives. So, I am very happy about that! Our first appointment is next Monday, so I will be at almost 7 weeks by then.

The Big Egg Hunt on Saturday was a HUGE success! Thousands of people came - it was a great day. Another successful event for our church!

Busy weekend ahead!

It's going to be a busy and exciting weekend! I have no idea how I have been able to keep this secret for the last week, but we are finally sharing the news with our families this weekend! My family tomorrow and hubby's family on Sunday (which also happens to be hubby's birthday). Going to be awesome!

Saturday is our church's second annual Big Egg Hunt. This year, we have twice as many eggs as last time - we have over 20,000! Last year, we had 3,000 people out to the event - who knows how many we will have this time! The event is better advertised this time, so we could have tens of thousands of people, who knows! It is a free event we put on for the people of our City. Just a 'no strings attached' way to give back and show God's love.

It has been confirmed!

I just got back from my appointment. Turns out they don't take blood to confirm the pregnancy, they do a urine test. So, we did that and it came back positive. So, it's official now! YAY! I go back again in a month to have a whole bunch of blood work, etc. As soon as I got home, I called the midwives since I know you have to call very early to get a spot there. So, she took all my information and will call me in about a week to let me know if we got a spot.

I can't wait until Friday when I can share the news with my family!

So it begins

I have been feeling very nauseous over the last few days. I think I have had more queasiness so far than my entire pregnancy with Julie! Or maybe I just don’t remember that from last time ;)

I have an appointment to see my doctor this afternoon to have the necessary tests done to get this confirmed. I am hoping I can get the results within a few days so we can tell our families this weekend. We bought a T-shirt for Julie that says “I’m the Big Sister”, so we’re going to let her make the announcement!

I can’t wait to get confirmation on this; maybe then it will feel more real. I still feel like I am dreaming this whole thing up!

In other news, there has been an interesting development in the lawsuit. The next step is to go through examinations, which could happen as early as 3 weeks from now. This is sort of a turning point since that would cost a lot more money. Our lawyer wrote my uncle's lawyer and basically told him that if he drops the suit now, we won't go after our costs, but if he continues, we will be seeking our costs for the entire time. So, if my uncle stops now, we won't go after him for the money we have already paid the lawyer, but if he keeps going, we'll be going after all our costs, which could be tens of thousands of dollars. My uncle must realize by now that his chances of winning are slim to none (he has seen all our documents).

So, last week, my mom got a call from a mutual friend between my uncle and her. He had been talking to my uncle and my uncle expressed a sense of urgency that we need to talk about things and see if we can come to some sort of settlement. This is the best news we've had since the lawsuit was launched! I think this would be a really good time to talk things over and see if there is some sort of compromise that we can all live with. We believe that we would win if this case went all the way, but we are not keen on going through a few more years of this if we don't have to. So, we are open to talking about things, provided we get the necessary guidance from our lawyer and the discussions take place with the assistance of a professional mediator. So, the friend was going to relay that to my uncle and we'll see what he says. I would be so happy if we could settle this and be done with it! I'm not holding my breath, but maybe my uncle really is starting to realize he doesn't have a chance.

This will have to wait

I just called my doctor's office to see if I could get in today to have this confirmed, and his office is closed this week. They re-open on Monday morning. So, I will call first thing on Monday to see if I can get in on Monday afternoon. I should be able to get the results by Wednesday or so - I really want to tell my family on Good Friday and CT's family on Easter Sunday!

We're expanding!

We are expecting our second child! I took a pregnancy test this morning and it came back positive! I will try to get in to see my doctor to have this confirmed tomorrow. But, I am quite certain I am pregnant since my period is 3 days late and I had a positive result on a home pregnancy test (two actually, I took one yesterday (cheapie) and another one (digital) this morning - both were positive). The digital one even tells you how far along you are - so I am 2-3 weeks after conception, so 4-5 weeks total.

We are excited! Based on an online due date calculator, it appears as though we will be having a holiday baby with the due date in early December. So, baby #2 and J will be almost 4 years apart. Perfect spacing I think since J will be at a good age to 'help' with the baby.

This is still on the DL for now - we are planning to tell our families at Easter since everyone will be together. That gives me a week to see my doctor and get the necessary confirmation on this before we tell our families. So, you ladies are the only ones who know this besides me and hubby! So, this is strictly confidential at this stage; but I had to let you gals in on this!

The end of an era

Yesterday, I said goodbye to Zeke – my 2001 Toyota Rav4 that I have had for 11 years. We decided to upgrade to a larger vehicle; it was time. I sold Zeke to my brother Alex, so at least Zeke gets to stay in the family! Alex and his wife are very excited to have Zeke; I am thrilled they wanted him because I really didn’t want to see him go to a stranger. I sold Zeke to Alex for the same price that the dealership offered me for a trade in value (which was probably half of what I thought he was worth), so Alex gets him for an awesome price and it’s no different to us financially than if we traded him in. So, it’s a win-win for everybody!

Our new vehicle is a 2012 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT. It’s pretty sweet! It has the full Stow n Go seats, which are awesome. It’s got so many cool features – and so much easier to fit Julie’s car seat into. We picked it up last night. It doesn’t have a name yet, but I’m sure we’ll name it soon ;)

*Hopefully* the worst is over

So, things have been going slightly better at work lately. I had an unpleasant meeting with a client earlier this week, but I was able to get through it. I was upset that my boss wasn’t able to be there, so I had to do the meeting by myself. The client is very mad and upset, so that wasn’t fun to deal with. But, it’s over now.

I was talking to one of my friends at church on Sunday and he told me he got a big promotion at his company and they are looking for more people in his group. I told him a little bit about how unhappy I have been here, so he wants to talk to me about possible opportunities there. It’s the same company I did 3 of my co-op terms with in school – the only reason I didn’t apply there earlier is I really don’t like the president of the company – I don’t think he’d be much better than my current boss. But, my friend said he is the ‘shield’ between any employees in his group and the president, so maybe that would work out okay. I will definitely take him up on his offer to talk more – can’t hurt to find out more about it and see if that might be a good ‘change of scenery’. It would be nice to have another option in my back pocket in case things get bad here again. He was horrified when I told him a little bit about what I have been expected to do here with no help or guidance. He told me it has taken him months and months to develop his skills with these software programs. I was expected to learn them and be an expert instantly.

I have been enjoying going to the Y – I think that has been a good way to combat some stress. I enter the pool all stressed and mad and then get out of the pool all relaxed. Maybe next time I’ll try the hot tub too!

Things not much better

So, things got a lot worse since my last post. To the point that I started getting stomach pains over the stress and ALMOST made an appointment with my doctor. I did talk to HR again though and was very clear that I am at my wit’s end and completely burned out and overwhelmed. But, since then, things seem to be getting better. I have one huge project submitted, so that feels really good. My mentor told me that site was only the 2nd most complex site he has seen in his 25+ year career. So, obviously it was a heck of a one for me to work on as a beginner in this field! He said he was going to email my boss and the PM to let them know just how complex it was – I think they may actually listen to him since they don’t seem to be getting it when I tell them how complex it was.

My mentor invited me (and hubby and daughter) over for lunch after church on Sunday. He offered to talk to me about workplace stress since he has dealt with it a few times in his career (once it got so bad he had to take medical leave for a summer!). So, I was completely honest with him about how things are going and that I am concerned for my health at this point.

I also joined the YMCA since physical exercise might be a good way for me to combat the stress. So, I went for the first time on Wednesday and I am going again tomorrow. I’m going to try to go at least twice a week on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. If I can go more often, great, but that will be my minimum.

Also, my mom and I had a meeting with our lawyer on Thursday. Basically, since all the documents have been received, we know that my uncle doesn’t have a case. But, he wants to proceed anyway. I think he is hoping to drag this out so long that we’ll have to give in because we can’t afford to keep paying to fight him. So, we’re thinking at this point about whether there may be opportunity for settlement. We are open to some possibilities and want our lawyer to ask his lawyer if my uncle has any suggestions for a reasonable resolution. If we are going to settle, now would be the time to do it before things get a lot more expensive. If there is no settlement, then we need to go through examinations, which will likely cost us another $5,000.

We had a meeting yesterday with my brothers to talk about how they feel. Surprisingly, we are all on the same page where we would be open to some sort of compromise. We have realized that sharing the cottage with our cousins would not work since we are afraid they would sabotage, etc. We would rather not have to go through all that stress.

So, we’ll see what happens. We are praying that my uncle will be reasonable. I’m hoping we can reach some sort of settlement. He has got to realize that is better for him than continuing since he will only lose in the end. We just can’t afford to keep fighting for much longer – our lawyer costs $350/hour!

Nearing the end of the month

The first couple of weeks of January went quite well (compared to December, which was hell). Then last week, things got very stressful again. But, I managed and there were no tears shed, which is improvement. It meant I had to work a bunch of extra hours, but I did what I needed to. And instead of thanking me for my effort, my boss thanked another guy for staying a couple of hours late one night to get the drawings done for one of the projects I’m working on. I laughed out loud when my boss thanked that guy and not me. He thanks him for putting in an extra 2 hours, but I get no thanks for putting in an extra 9 hours that one week when I have a toddler and child care arrangements to juggle? GRRRRR!

If it weren’t for the mentorship they are providing me, I would be outta here in a heartbeat. But, I am learning a lot from my mentor and am gaining valuable skills, so I want to stick it out here for at least a couple more months so I can learn all I can from my mentor.

In my meeting with my boss last month, he said probably 5 times during the meeting that the mentor is here to mentor the company, not me. So, that was drilled into my head. Then, I found out last week that the mentor said no to mentoring the company and only wanted to mentor me. Ha! Too bad for the company, but awesome for me!

In other news, our basement renovation is in full swing. We were originally planning to wait until spring, but my dad is off work right now and will be busy in the spring, so we decided to make use of his free time while he has it! So, he has been working on our basement for the last week and a half and we’re at the stage now where it is being primed. So, the painting can start early next week, most likely! I am hoping to have it almost done in time for Julie’s 3rd birthday party next weekend so we can show people.

When we bought the house, the basement was unfinished. We are finishing one area of the basement to make it into a home office. It will become my office if I decide to proceed with my own business.

Then eventually (as in sometime in the 5 years) we will finish the rest of the basement. Half of the remaining space will be a laundry and storage room and the other half will be a family/rec room. That’s the plan anyways.

For those who are keeping up with the law suit saga, we finally have a copy of my uncle’s affidavit of documents. I had to submit our documents in early December. The deadline was Dec 11, which is a court ordered deadline, so on Dec 12th, our lawyer phoned my uncle’s lawyer to get a copy of his affidavit. He responded with “oh, we haven’t done that yet, we’ll need some more time”. You’ve had months! Really made me mad that he could miss a deadline like that. But, he got his act together and submitted just before Christmas.

So, we got a copy of the documents last week. All in all, he really doesn’t have anything. He has some statements from one select group of Oma’s friends (whom she was estranged from for awhile) which basically explain Oma’s deterioration with dementia. One even went so far as to suggest elder abuse on the part of my mother because she found rotting food in Oma’s fridge once and Oma smelled sometimes. The truth was Oma refused to shower most of the time and my mom did seek help for that very issue from the Alzheimer’s society. I fail to see how that is my mom’s fault. All the statements are dated within a couple days of each other, so I know my uncle solicited those statements. And they are dated the summer of 2009, when Oma was just beginning to seriously deteriorate, so it did take a little time before my mom clued into things and figured out how to handle things.

They also claim that my mom was isolating Oma from her family and friends, which is a total lie. Oma had a very active social life and never declined an invitation from this group of friends. So, I really have no idea how they can claim that. We can prove otherwise.

He also has a hand written note from Oma to her first lawyer stating she wants her Will reverted back to the previous version (i.e. the one Ken wants). But, that letter is not witnessed, so I’m sure my uncle dictated that to her. So, I’m not worried about that.

So, overall, given the evidence, I really think we have a stronger case. We are going to meet with our lawyer on Feb 16th to discuss things and we’ll see what he says.

A new year, new beginning

Well the situation at work got much worse since my last post. December was an awful month at work with many tears and me wanting to storm out and quit. I felt like I was being blamed for things that weren't my fault and I basically felt completely incompetent, which is not a feeling I am used to!

I decided to talk to one of my coworkers about this in mid-December. He is one of the 4 senior managers, so he has lots of 'pull' in the company and he and I have been friends since I started 8 years ago. So, he is probably the coworker I am most close to. So, I asked him if we could go for lunch and talk. I was completely honest with him about how I was feeling and that I didn't think I was being treated fairly. I also told him I was concerned about being fired over this and he told me that won't happen. So, I was relieved to hear that - I was feeling like I better find another job quickly before they fired me, but knowing that they weren't going to fire me took the pressure off to find something else quickly.

He was very understanding about the whole situation and was completely on my side. He suggested I also talk to the head of HR about my concerns, which I did the following week. She was also very supportive and suggested I meet with the president of the company and another senior PM involved so I could have a chance to voice my concerns because up until that point, I felt like I wasn't being heard. I agreed to the meeting and asked that the head of HR also be present.

So, that meeting happened the Tuesday before the Christmas break. What an awful experience. This was a meeting I called - it started out well, I had notes about what I wanted to say, so I was able to get through all that. Although, I still don't think they really got it. Then the meeting basically turned into a discussion of my weaknesses and resulted in me being demoted - again. I am now in the same position I was 8 months ago before my big promotion last May. I left that meeting feeling completely deflated and like a piece of garbage. I think they need to learn how to manage people better because you don't just beat someone down and then end the meeting. I am willing to accept criticism, but they should have ended the meeting on a high note. Instead, I left feeling completely useless and went to the bathroom and cried.

Over the Christmas break, I decided to just put that all behind me and start fresh in January. I made myself a deadline of the end of January to see if things can turn around a little bit or not. If I am still miserable at the end of the month, I will seriously consider other employment options. As of the end of December, they have hired a mentor for me on a casual, as-needed basis and he is the in town guru in this subject area (and I worked with him for 3 co-op terms and he and his family also go to our church, so I do already know him). So, I am feeling hopeful that things can turn around. If not, I can leave with no regrets or guilt because I don't owe them anything.

I know I can't go on like things were in December - I was crying all the time and completely miserable to the point I dreaded going into work.

Onto happy things - we had a great Christmas. Julie was so excited and everyone spoiled her. I was spoiled too - Carlos bought me a blackberry playbook and then I bought myself a Kobo on Boxing Day since it was an awesome deal. I love both my new gadgets ;)

I can't believe how much Julie is growing up. She will be 3 in less than a month! She amazes me with her vocabulary every day! As much as I hate my job these days, I keep trying to focus on the fact that my most important jobs are being a wife and mother, so Carlos' and Julie's opinion of me is WAY more important than my boss. It's just a job - Carlos and Julie are my life.

A resolution

After 3 weeks of feeling like I didn't matter and no response to my letter, the head of HR (who also has been a friend of mine for over 10 years), asked to speak with me about my letter. So, we had a chat and I told her how I felt. I ended up crying, but it wasn't a big deal since she is a friend. She took my concerns very seriously and said all the stuff my boss should have said about how much they value me, etc.

So, another 10 days went by and finally my boss asked to speak with me. So, this was a full month after our first meeting. He said they may not have been fair to me to put this new role on me at this point when I am not working a full load and am trying to balance my home life and work life. And, it was a huge jump in responsibility.

So, he has offered me a new position - Senior Project Coordinator. It is still a promotion from where I was before, but is a step back from being a full PM. I will still do a lot of the same actual work that I am doing now, but there will be someone else actually managing the projects. This is more of a stepping stone to being a full PM where I can slowly ease into that instead of it all being dropped on me at once.

This new position comes with an 11% raise! YAY! So, as a result of Friday's meeting, I was offered a position that is less responsibility and a lot less stress, for more money. Sounds good to me! I am thrilled with the raise - it comes into effect on Monday!

I am hoping this will make me happy with my job again. I am still considering other options, but I will stay at least until I have another mat leave. Then I'll have a year off to make some decisions about my career path. I'm not closing the door on my current company just because of a few bad months, but I am not sure I want to work outside the home 4 days per week after we have 2 kids.

Feeling lost

So, as you all know, I got a big promotion in May. Well, it came with a tiny little raise which I didn't think even came close to reflecting the increase in responsibility and stress. So, right away, I went to my boss and told him I wasn't happy with the raise and he said we could do an informal mid-year review in October and if I was doing well in my new role, he would "bump me up" at that time.

So, from May until October, I worked my butt off to 'prove myself' in my new position. I took phone calls from clients on my days off, made sales phone calls in the evenings to get more work, worked extra hours, dealt with difficult clients, etc. One client in particular has made me cry at work twice in the last month. Not cool. I obviously need to develop a thicker skin. My new position has been so stressful - the only thing keeping me going in my job was looking forward to my big raise in October.

Well, the big meeting arrived last week. I was so excited for months; I couldn't wait to see what all my hard work had gotten me. Well, my boss gave me a raise in the amount of: big fat ZERO! He said there wasn't a problem with my performance, just that he doesn't think I've had enough time to prove myself yet. I was LIVID! So, naturally, I went into the bathroom at work and cried. So upset. I felt hurt and betrayed. I've been at the company for almost 8 years now; this made me feel so under-appreciated and under-valued.

I took the long weekend to calm down and decided to write my boss a letter explaining that had I been told at the outset that I'd need to work in the new position for a year before getting a substantial raise, I would have considered declining the promotion. In the spirit of compromise, I am willing to wait until January 1st, but I expect to be told now what the anticipated increase in salary will be so I can decide if I want to continue on that path or request to be returned to my former position. I just gave him the letter yesterday, so no response yet.

Honestly, my old job was so much less stress. If I'm not going to get a raise, it's just not worth it to me. Especially since we're probably going to have another baby soon. My number one priority is with my family, not my career.

This whole situation has made me re-evaluate what I want to do with my life though. Maybe project management at an engineering company isn't for me. Too much stress at this point in my life. I want to be in a job that I feel appreciated and that doesn't make me cry. I have been with the company for almost 8 years, and I have cried 4 times in total over my job and all 4 times have been in the last month. A sure sign that things are going downhill for me - fast. I need to get out of there.

Perfect time to have another baby, I think :) Then I'll have a year off to give me some time to think about my options and come up with a plan. We were originally thinking we'd have our kids 3 years apart and our girl is 2 years and 8 months now, so I guess we better get started ;)

Enjoying the summer

I'm having a great summer so far. I went to Las Vegas last week with nej and lj and it was an absolute blast! The Grand Canyon was amazing and Vegas was loads of fun. The shopping down there was pretty fab as well.

Things are moving slowly on the law suit front. An "Order Giving Directions" was filed which is basically an action plan on what is going to happen and by when. Right now, we are in the stage where we have to gather all the documents we have that we would be willing to produce and list them in an Affidavit. This is so that neither party can all of a sudden have a handwritten document from Oma once the case has already started. We have to lay it all on the table so everyone knows what evidence is out there. The lawyers are also gathering all Oma's medical and legal files. So, once all that is gathered, we will need to meet with our lawyer again so he can advise us on how to proceed. So far, all the evidence has been on our side. I can't imagine what evidence my uncle has, but we'll soon find out if he has any.

Julie is 2.5 years old now - crazy! She is so amazing - she's talking in complete sentences and I'm blown away by all she knows. At this rate, it won't be long before she's reading ;) She still hasn't taken much of an interest in potty training. I have a week of holidays at the end of the month, so I'm going to take a few solid days and just concentrate on potty training. We may even try just having her naked in the house and drinking lots of fluid and see what happens. I have a whole stash of stickers for her as rewards. I sure hope this works!

A promotion for me!

We had our annual performance reviews last month and I am being promoted to a full-fledged Project Manager. I was doing some PM work before my mat leave and then when I returned from mat leave, I didn’t do any PM work. I think they were a little hesitant to give me any projects to manage until they saw how my return to work 3 days a week (and now 4 days a week) was going to work. Well, I have obviously proved myself because my boss wants to make me a PM again only this time they are making it official by giving me that title (my job title has never been PM before).

So, naturally, I was expecting a huge raise. Well, turns out my raise is decent, but not nearly what I was expecting. It is higher than the company average raise, but I was honestly expecting maybe twice what I got. Our company does raises once per year each April (our reviews were late this year, but the raises were retroactive to April). So, as soon as I got the letter with my salary adjustment, I went to talk to my boss and told him I was expecting more given my increase in responsibility. The raise I got was more what I would have expected if I was staying in the same job, not with the promotion. He gave me lots of manager-speak and what we negotiated to is that in early October, we’ll do an informal appraisal to see how I’m doing with my projects and I’ll get another raise then if merited. So, I’m okay with that. Better than having to wait a whole other year for another raise! And at least he knows I am being proactive with my career, so it didn’t hurt to ask. And if I get another raise in October and then another one next April, that would be awesome.

On to other things…

For those who are curious, the law suit is still on going. We have come to the realization that it will likely take YEARS before it's over. No fun. The next steps are mandatory mediation and then our lawyer gets to examine my uncle and his lawyer gets to examine my mom and I. Both lawyers also get to examine Oma's 2 lawyers (the one she 'fired' because she thought he was working with my uncle and her most recent lawyer), her medical professionals, and the capacity assessor. All that will be completed within the next 9 months, so that takes us to early 2012. Then, if things are not settled by mediation, it will go to trial before a judge, which could take a very long time depending on the schedule of the Court. So, it's going to be a long and expensive road, but we're not giving up - we have to fight for what Oma wanted.

We’ve been in our house for over a month now and we LOVE it! We are in the planning stages of building a deck, so hopefully we’ll have that installed within the next month or so. Still have more unpacking to do (our garage is maybe half full of boxes still).

This weekend I’m going to a ladies retreat. I went for the first time a year and a half ago and I took Julie with me since she was still nursing. Well, she’s not nursing anymore, so I am going without her this time (they only let you bring your child if they are a nursing baby – which makes sense – the whole point of the retreat is to have a little getaway!). This is my first time being away from Julie for more than 1 night. It’s a little ‘trial run’ for Vegas next month when I’ll be away from her for 5 nights! We’ll see how I do! I will of course miss Carlos too ;)

Loving the new house!

Our new house rocks! I absolutely LOVE it!

We got the keys just after noon last Monday. We moved several loads of stuff over on Monday afternoon and evening. We stayed at our old house for the last time that Monday night since our furniture wasn't being moved until the following day. We hired movers to move our large furniture and appliances and am I ever glad we did. That would have been way too much to do ourselves! The movers were done just after noon on Tuesday, so we spent the whole afternoon and evening moving more stuff. On the Wednesday morning, our phone/TV/internet was installed, so we had to hang around home while that was being done. For the rest of Wednesday through Friday, we moved more stuff and did some shopping for things we needed to get for the house. On Saturday, we took a bunch of stuff to the landfill and also used my dad's truck to take 2 more loads over to the new house. Then on Sunday, Carlos and his dad got the very last load of stuff. So, it took us an entire 7 days to get all our stuff moved over.

Now our garage is packed full of boxes. I have the important ones unpacked, but it will take us a few weeks to get the rest unpacked. At least we have everything moved over now! We had a deadline since the first tenant was moving into our old house on the 7th, so I wanted to have most of our stuff out by then.

Today, I took Julie for a walk to the local zoo. It took us 7 minutes to get from our front door to the zoo - not too bad! I think we're going to be going there a lot this summer! It's a free zoo and they also have great playground equipment and have a splash pad in the summer. It's a great place!

We also bought new bikes for Carlos and I and a bike trailer for Julie. So, now we're all set to go for family bike rides this summer! I sold my triathlon bike and we were able to buy Carlos' new bike, my new bike, and Julie's trailer for less than $2 more (including tax) than I sold my bike for. I thought it was neat how that worked out. We got hybrids, so I could easily use that bike if I ever want to do another triathlon since I used a mountain bike for my first 3 anyway.

The Big Egg Hunt was a success!

Our church put on a free Easter egg hunt for our community on Saturday. It was amazing! We were hoping for a few hundred people and we got a few thousand! We had 10,000 Easter eggs and they weren't nearly enough - next year, we'll need 100,000!!!! It was a wonderful event for the community.

Our moving day is getting closer! In one week from right now, we'll have the keys to our new place. It could be as late as 5pm before we get the keys, so we have the movers coming next Tuesday to move our large furniture and appliances. Everything else we'll move ourselves - I imagine it will take us about 20 trips! Good thing the new house is only 7 minutes away from our current house. I am SOOOOO excited!

A beautiful service for a beautiful woman

The funeral for my grandmother was on Friday, which would have been her 83rd birthday. We went to the cemetery in the morning for the burial, which was very difficult, I cried the whole time. Then we had the memorial service in the afternoon, which was a lovely tribute to Oma. Close to 50 people came and we shared funny stories about Oma and everyone had a chance to say what Oma meant to them. I burst into tears and couldn't quite get through my speech, but I'm sure people understood. It was a very emotional day and I felt I was near tears all weekend.

Turns out my uncle did show up at both the cemetery and the memorial service, which was fine. We weren't going to uninvite him since we thought he should be able to go to his mother's funeral no matter what else is going on. So, he did come, but didn't say a word to us. Which is fine. We're glad it's overwith so now we don't have to worry about it any more.

We're hoping that my uncle saw how many people were there and so many of them expressed how happy Oma was with her living arrangements and they had never seen her more happy than she had been in the last few years. We're hoping that softened his heart a little bit to the law suit, we'll see. I'm not counting on it, but it would be nice!

In happy news - we get the keys to our new house in 2 weeks from today - YAY! We spent the weekend packing. We got a lot done, but there is still so much more to do!