Catching Up.... 2 Years Later

No excuses here.  My optimistic goal of blogging quickly disappeared once I entered a busy full time job as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner in the fall of 2011.  I absolutely loved my job, my coworkers, and my patients over the last few years, but life changes have come along, and for now I am thrilled with my (temporary) new role as a stay at home mom.  I hope to use this new found free time (during naps at least) to restart blogging about day to day life, cooking a new recipe here and there, and working on some fun DIY projects. But mostly, I expect this blog will evolve to keep family and friends updated on our son Benjamin.

To catch up any rogue readers out there (I know, I know, a whole 10 posts later and here I am thinking someone might actual read this stuff - ha!).  

1. Full time PNP since August 2011 until the end of July.  Worked with a phenomenal and unique group of people at a small private practice and I miss working terribly.  I love spending all day every day with Benji, but I am fortunate to love the career I have chosen and I look forward to starting work again, hopefully one day soon.
2. We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary with our annual "honeymoon" vacation, this time to Punta Cana.
3. Benjamin Thomas was born April 7th.  He stole our hearts instantly and thus far we have been blessed with a happy, healthy (after a few frustrating months fighting jaundice), and easy baby.
4. We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary at home.  This is the first year we haven't had the opportunity to take a trip, so we'll have to make up for it next year.
5. Tom accepted a new role that allows us geographic flexibility!  While Skaneateles is beautiful, we unfortunately never came to click with the community here.  There are very very few people our age and we simply don't identify with such a small town.  We have chosen to move to Chicago and we are anxiously awaiting the sale of our current house so that we can start the next chapter of our lives.  Because Tom needs to travel like crazy right now, I left my job to prepare for our move.  I simply was not able to juggle daycare drop off/pick up every day on top of taking care of the house (keeping it in flawless condition for showings), taking care of the dogs, and maintaining the day to day errands and chores.
6. Tom turned 30 years old!  This really just happened and we celebrated with a trip to Niagara Falls.  Figured if we don't see it now while we live so close, we may not have the opportunity to see it for a long time.  Tom had to work in Ohio on a Monday, and Michigan the next Tuesday, so we decided to drive out there together and make a road trip adventure out of it.  We were able to get to Niagara Falls late Tuesday night and explore the area Wednesday morning before finally returning home.

Benji is now nearly 6 months old.  Even reading that sentence back shocks me a little bit.  I can't believe he's getting so big so fast.  He's so amazing and every day does something new (and adorable). He's just days away from being confident about sitting on his own, and is starting to eat rice cereal a few nights a week for "dinner".  I'm just starting to introduce some basic baby sign language, so we'll see how that goes over the next few months.