BIG Changes

Lots of big changes are happening in our family. To say that we've been busy is a huge understatement.

Staying Home Full-time

Friday was my last official day teaching music at the private school. Now, I get to be home full-time with Tanner and my future baby. We decided this a long time ago- even before I got pregnant. It was always in the plan that baby #2 would be the time to call it quits with teaching for a few years. At this particular job, the workload is unbelievably huge and the pay is about 20,000 less than what I would get teaching in public school. So besides the emotional and spiritual benefits of being home with my kids, the financial benefits are huge, too. We wouldn't make much money if I keep working. 

I've definitely learned a lot this year while being a mom of a toddler, being pregnant, and working full-time. It really has been one of the most challenging years of my teaching career. A lot has happened at work this year that has made it very easy for me to be excited to stay home full-time. The only thing I'll miss about teaching is the children. Now I'll get to do more things like this without thinking about work:

(34 weeks prego in this picture)

Jeremy's New Job

So since I decided to stay home full time, Jeremy started looking for job promotions within Hormel. He applied for about 10 different jobs- some here in Orange County and some at the corporate office in Minnesota. He kept getting discouraged when each job was filled by other people. But I told him to just be patient, the timing wasn't right yet. I knew that God would bless him for his efforts. We are trying to live our lives in a way that's pleasing unto Him, so I knew that God wouldn't let us down.

Sure enough, in March he was offered the job of Assistant Brand Manager for Skippy Peanut Butter! This is the best one that he applied for. The job is in marketing with Hormel at the corporate office. He began his first day of work on April 1 (and kept working the old job until May 1). And that's why he's been going out of town so often since then. As soon as our baby is born, and Jeremy graduates, we will move to the small town of Austin, Minnesota!! 

Selling Our Home

So that's why we decided to list and sell our home the first week of April. I basically spent my entire Spring Break keeping the house clean by staying out of the house from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm every day so that people could see the home. This was really challenging to do because finding places to take a toddler all. day. long. is really hard. People asked me if I felt it would even be worth it to work so hard to have our home perfect for viewing. Well, would YOU wanna buy a home that looked like this?

Well, turns out the answer is yes, it was worth it, and yes, lots of people wanted the place. God has really been watching over us! The market in OC right now is a seller's market- literally no one is selling and there are thousands of people buying. If we tried selling even 6 months ago, we would probably lose money on our town home. But we were able to list the house for more than we paid. And we got 15 offers in 5 days that were at and above asking price. We eventually accepted the highest offer, which was $50,000 more than our asking price!! (Now we can pay for Jeremy's grad school tuition!) Now the home is almost finished with escrow. Over the years, we invested about $18,000 into remodeling the place. Plus all the cleaning, dejunking, recleaning and staying out of the home for a week. But it was completely worth it!

Buying a New Home!

We actually already bought a place to live in Austin, Minnesota! Jeremy spent a couple days looking at homes while he was there for business. The market there is a buyer's market- with dozens upon dozens of homes in our price range and hardly any buyers. Once again, God has made the timing perfect! Jeremy videoed about 5 houses that he liked the best and took lots of pictures. Based on the videos, he let me choose the home that I liked the most. (Keep in mind that we lived in Austin one summer, so I know the town/neighborhoods/etc really well. I felt very comfortable choosing a house that I hadn't actually walked in). We put an offer on it with a really sappy cover letter and got it! 

The place was built in 1992, it is 3400 sq feet, 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath, 2 story plus a finished basement, 1/2 acre lot, 2 car garage, separate family room, living room and playroom! It is 3 times the size of our Huntington Beach home, and a fraction of the cost. Funny thing though, it's actually the smallest home in it's neighborhood. But it has everything we want. We're stoked!

Just a few more things to add to the mix!

So in addition to me finishing work, Jeremy getting promoted, selling a home and buying a home, we also will have our baby this week (hopefully before Friday)! And Jeremy will graduate from USC with his MBA on Friday. The moving company will be here two weeks later to pack our house up. We will drive away on May 29. The plan is to take 4 days to get to Minnesota, stopping at a few places including the Grand Canyon, Utah and Colorado. I'm so, so, SO excited about all of this! There are so many things to be grateful for at this time; we are truly being blessed. It's made all the challenges that we've endured this year worth it.

An. Tee!

Auntie Desha came to take care of us from April 25-30.  Tanner had a blast with her. When she first saw him, he reached out to her from his stroller and said "An- tee!" and gave her a big hug. This was surprising to all of us since he hadn't seen her since Thanksgiving and he is generally very reserved when seeing new people.

The two buddies played outside, read lots of books, cooked, ate, watched movies, went to stores, and napped together. Desha came at the perfect time because we had lots of home inspectors and people at our home while Jeremy and I were at work. She helped keep the house clean for all of that, and fed us the yummiest, healthiest food!

On Saturday, we ate at a yummy authentic Mexican restaurant. Then we went to the San Juan Capistrano Mission for the first time. It was beautiful! And we learned some cool things on the self guided audio tour.

Tanner pushed his stroller around the entire time. It was the perfect place for him to be able to go wherever he wanted without bumping into people or things.

I'm 37 weeks pregnant in these pics! It seemed like between 34 and 37 weeks I got really huge. My size hasn't changed much since these pics.

After a few hours at the mission, we went to the tide pools in Carona Del Mar to find Desha a sea slug. Tanner and Jeremy played in the sand while Desha and I explored.

(Here's a good shot of Tanner's hair shortly after I gave it a 1-inch trim. Desha and Jeremy think it's still too long, but I love those curls!)

We saw lots of cool things, but after about an hour, there was still no sight of sea slugs. I was determined to find one, especially since we saw dozens last time. Finally, I saw one in some deeper water. I reached into the tide pool and got my prego belly all wet. Then, as I rushed to show Desha, I stepped on something really sharp (I had just barely taken my sandals off because the slug was in a sandy area and I figured it would be easier to get it without my sandals on). It hurt pretty bad, but I just gritted my teeth and didn't think of it again....until Desha noticed that a big pool of blood was accumulating around my foot! Upon further inspection, we discovered that I had a deep gash in my heel. We used Tanners white blankie (it was all we had) to make a temporary bandage so that sand wouldn't get in it. Unfortunately, I couldn't walk on that foot for about 3 days, which sucked since I had a performance to direct. But since Desha took care of it really well, it has healed nicely. 

Tanner loved having his An. Tee with us. He looked forward to finding her on the blow up mattress every morning. "Oh! An. Tee!" He would choose her over me or Jeremy to hold him. He balled and balled when Desha left at the end of the week. "An. Tee! No bye-bye. An. Teeeeeeee!" I hated watching her leave, too. It was so wonderful having her here to help us and to keep me company. I love you, Desha. Thank you for being such a wonderful auntie to my son. We miss you!

Time with Taryn

 Taryn has become my best friend here in SoCal. Even though we don't teach at the same school anymore, we still keep in touch and get together. During our spring breaks, we had a chance to go to Disneyland one day (for free because her dad has a lifetime silver pass!). It was really crowded, so we actually didn't go on any rides. But we still had a great time. We watched the boats in the New Orleans Harbor, took the choo choo train around the park, got Dole Pineapple floats, went in the Tikki Hut, watched ducks by the Snow White fountain, saw an awesome parade, ate churros and popcorn, and watched Donald duck and the real ducks waddling around the courtyard. Tanner was fascinated by it all.

 In the Tiki Hut, he was afraid of the birds at first. He really didn't like it when the white birds went up into the ceiling. "Oh no!" We were worried about his reaction to the thunder. But he has proved to be an unpredictable kid because when the thunder came, he clapped and shouted, "Yay!"

 He loved the ducks everywhere! We stayed at the Snow White fountain for almost 20 minutes. It was the perfect thing for him- way better than standing in lines for rides.

 Tanner also loved the parade. Each time a new float approached, he would yell "Oh, WOW! What's that?" He yelled "Lion! Lion!" when the Lion King float came by, but it sounded more like "Yion Yion!" He bounced to the music and said "Song, song!"

 Later in the week, we got together with Taryn again!! We met up at her house in West Hollywood and cooked lunch together. Tanner was a really good boy and didn't even touch any of her fancy things. He was mostly concerned about her kitty and wondering every few minutes where it was. He didn't want the kitty to be too close to us!

After lunch, we headed up to the Griffith Observatory. It was such a beautiful day! Tanner was adorable in his Osh Kosh Bigosh overalls.

Can you see the Hollywood sign? It looks much closer in real life.

Tanner walked around most of the observatory instead of riding in his stroller. He is really good about staying right next to us, or wanting to push the stroller in the direction we are going. Taryn pointed out that some kids just run off as fast as they can when you let them walk beside you. I'm so glad that Tanner doesn't do that! (cross your fingers that it will stay that way!)

Being with Taryn is so much fun. I love her tremendously! We have no problem talking for hours and hours about everything from teaching to cooking to politics to religion to travel to everything. We have a joke that we are the two members of the Mutual Appreciation Society because we enjoy each other's company so much. We also rock at teaching music and drama together. I hope someday we get another chance to do that! 

Easter!

Dada and Tanner decorating eggs. Tanner was excited to do this again- 2 times in one week!

 My deviled eggs. When Jeremy saw me dying eggs without the shells on, he was sure they would end up looking gross. Boy, was he wrong!

 We enjoyed Easter dinner at the Corey's house. We had lots of yummy food including Salmon that Jeremy BBQ'd. This was to keep with our young tradition of eating fish with honey glaze sauce in memory of how Jesus ate fish and honeycomb after he was resurrected. I also successfully made tomb rolls for the first time. Yum!

 Family pics at the Corey home.

 The little people at the dinner were so adorable. They played really well together, but hated picture time.

Easter is my favorite holiday (other than 4th of July), and I enjoyed our Sunday dinner so much! But it was hard to fully dive into the Easter season this year because we were in the midst of putting our home on the market. More explanations to come later!

Aquarium of the Pacific

While Grandma Nana was here, we spent Saturday, March 23 at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. It was diver's day, so we all got in for free with our scuba diving passes! The aquarium was super cool. I personally liked it more than Monterey Bay Aquarium because of all the activities that Long Beach had outside. They also had theatres, craft stations, and movies that would play on the walls of the aquarium every 20 minutes. Since it was diver's day, they had a huge expo of diver merchandise, and they had divers go into the tanks and talk to us through walki talkies.

At first, Tanner was a little nervous about the big tanks and not really sure what the hype was all about. He was nervous about the fish swimming by. We showed him that they can't get through the glass. After about 15 minutes, he felt comfortable walking up to the tanks and touching the glass. Soon he was shouting "Whoa! Fishie, fishie!" "Oh, WOOOW!" and "What's this?" Just like at the zoo, he would watch intently at each tank for several minutes and got upset when we ushered him to the next tank. He is quite the observer!

 He liked the lorikeets from a distance, but was very nervous when they came near us to get food.

Tanner's favorite thing was the display of the water sources that lead to the ocean. What a silly kid. He wouldn't touch the water at the petting areas with star fish. But he loved the water tank that was completely fishless!