As much as I would have loved to avoid it, I have realized that starting a blog is probably the easiest way to keep everyone up to date with our rapidly changing lives. I'm feeling a bit guilty about how rare our trips to see family are becoming, and it seems like they will be even fewer and further between in the future. Also, this will be a nice way to post pictures of the baby without filling everyone's inbox, and allowing the non-Facebook family to still see them! So, a quick update to get everyone up to speed:
Pete, Chloe and I live in Alexandria, Virginia. We moved down a year and a half ago, and are very happy. We purchased our first home this spring, which was exciting to do. Chloe is in 4th grade and is in the Advanced Academics program (AKA Gifted and Talented) at her school, which has been wonderful for her socially and academically. She is in a specialized classroom comprised of only Advanced Academic students, and she has made lots of good friends. As long as we stay in the same general area, she will continue to have the same 15 or so kids in her class each year, so it has some similarities to private school, for the public school price :) . She has (re)started playing the violin, and she is enjoying it. She is still doing Kumon, and seems to enjoy that. She is totally horse-crazy, so any suggestions of horse books that are semi-challenging would be appreciated. She is currently slogging through Dick Francis (sheesh)- she reads ANYTHING about horses. Her absolute favorite books are historic fiction that involve horses. Again, any suggestions would be great because two of my great dislikes are history and horses- so I'm at a loss. She is excited about becoming a big sister, although at this point it's all very abstract- we'll see how she feels when it actually happens.
Pete has been working with the same company for about a year. He is finishing up his Bachelor's degree this month, and then starts his Master's program at Johns Hopkins in February. (Who knew he was such an academic?) Because of school and the baby on the way, he's not currently training for any events, but we'll see if he changes his mind and signs up for some triathalons this summer.
I finished up my Master's in August, and am now working as a nurse practitioner at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC taking care of children with brain tumors. It's challenging, but I'm learning new things all the time, so it's very interesting.
Baby #2 is due April 25, 2010, so we're more than 24 weeks along. So far, the pregnancy has progressed smoothly- probably the biggest "bump" we've hit is that we had an uncooperative baby during the ultrasound, and were told that they were "pretty sure" it's a girl. So, until proven otherwise, we're saying we're having a girl!
I'll try and update here regularly, and will be sure to post whenever there are any "big" events. I'll try to remember to take a picture of the baby bump and get that posted too.
Be Well, and Happy New Year!
