Meet Harrison

Does he not have the greatest hair ever?! Congrats to Beth Anne and Doug...he is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

I love my job

I'm going to miss my job. Not necessarily my job, but my place of employment. I have said SO MANY TIMES that we could write a book with the amount of hilarious things we hear. When people get to the age where they move into a retirement community, many of them truly don't care what they say. I wish I would have started writing things down from the beginning because I always forget the good ones. Today's gem: Resident asked the Executive Director if he could grow marijuana in his apartment.

Seems Mr. B. has been in a lot of pain lately.

We have a new home!

Everyone knows by now that we are moving to Orlando. I had all these thoughts in my head that I intended on blogging, but now it's such old news that nobody really will care! To sum it up in one word: Bittersweet. Dane and I will REALLY miss North Carolina. A lot! We have really come to love it here. Bottom line is that we want to start a family asap and want to be close to home when that happens. Orlando isn't exactly as close to home as I was hoping, but we're really excited about it. We will be almost 3 hours from my parents and 5 from Dane's parents. Heck of a lot better than 8-9 hours though! (And did I mention about 30-45 minutes from the beach)? :-)

We went on a house hunting trip down there this past weekend. I was SUPER DUPER stressed on our first day there because we peeped in some windows of houses that we had found (and liked) online. Needless to say they were NOT what I had anticipated seeing. Either the backyard backed up to a busy/noisy street and had a lovely view of several apartment/condo buildings or the living room was so small that our sectional wouldn't have even fit or they were just too outdated. I can handle a little outdated, but not to the extent of some of the places we saw. If we were buying that would have been a completely different story because we could remodel. But we're renting until we decide where it is we belong. Maybe we'll love Orlando and that's where we're meant to be! Time will only tell.

Alright, so about the house...it's not quite as nice as what we are in now, but it's more expensive down there and we have to live off of 1 salary until I find a job. This one was all about location, location, location. It's in Oviedo which borders Orlando to the NE side. Of all the time I have spent down there, I had never been to Oviedo, and I LOVED IT! It was such a homey place. When driving there, literally as soon as you cross over the county line into Oviedo's county there was more green and less concrete. We fell in love with the small town feel and couldn't believe how far removed from "the big city" that it felt. When leaving there (granted it was around 7ish at night, so very little traffic), it took us less than 20 minutes to get to downtown Orlando. It's a 10-15 minute drive to Dane's store. So yes, location, location, location. :-)

So the house: it's a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom with a 2 car garage. We're losing a living room (our current house has a living room and a family room), a 1/2 bath, and about 150 square feet. But it has a great split floorplan with a huge open great room. The kitchen and baths are outdated, but I can deal. And there's no fireplace!!! Where am I going to put up my fall and Christmas garland?! What we loved the most was the backyard. It's smaller than the one we have now (which is FINE with me since I do the mowing), but it feels like a little tropical oasis. :-) The back fense is lined with tropical plants and trees and even has a banana tree. Enough, blah, blah, here are some pics...

Reagan Ivey Turner is here!

Who is Reagan Ivey? Well she is the brand new addition to one of my BFF's family. She is the first for Candice and Joel who are our really really good friends that live in Kentucky. Dane has known Joel since about middle school and the 4 of us were peas in a pod when we all 4 lived in Tallahassee.

Anyhow, Reagan was born this morning weighing in at 6 lbs. 4 oz's and is 20 inches long. Can't wait to meet her. :-)

Some maternity pics

I have been meaning to post a few pics I took out at my parents' house of my SIL (and fam) the day before she had London. So here ya go... :-)

Maybe this will humor you as it did me

I logged onto the Tallahassee Democrat's website for the heck of it this morning, and the arrest log link caught my eye. Check out these gems:

Some of us were pretty happy to have our picture taken:

Some of us were downright p.o.'d:

Some of us were a little gassy:

And ole Keith thinks his domestic battery charge is ridiculous!

But nothing could prepare me for these 2: :-)

London & Gainesville

As y'all know, little Miss London has made her debut. She's sweet and perfect. :-) She definitely has her sister's lips, cheeks, and wacky hairline (no bangs for either of those girls!). Her forehead is completely different than Harmony's as is the shape of her eyes and nose. She also has less hair than Harmony had. So they will resemble each other in some ways for sure. Some day soon I'll post some side-by-side comparison pics. Oh, and my camera...wow! I. Love. It. Before I headed down there I went and splurged on the lens that I knew would take awesome portrait shots. It did not disappoint. And I think I just cost my dad some big bucks because mom is probably going to want one for Christmas. Sorry Dad! :-)

Over the past few months I've started designing some baby invites. I've done some birthday invites for friends over the past couple years and loved doing it. Who knows if I'll actually go through with it, but I'm thinking about getting a little portfolio together of announcements, invites, and Christmas cards and making it a business on-the-side. We shall see. So if any of you (Katie & Hazel excluded...y'all could blow me out of the water ;- ) ) want me to do a birthday invite, birth announcement, or Christmas card, of course I'll do it for free. :-) Here are a couple I did for London before she was ever born. They ended up going with the top one, and printed out it is absolutely adorable. :-)

About Gainesville- I had my interview down there and it went really good! But here's the terrible part...there are 8 (8!) other contenders. And I wasn't the only out-of-state interviewee either. They interviewed someone from Virginia who is also trying to move back to the area to be near family. So unfortunately my situation is not unique. Also good news is that she plans on calling and making an offer by the end of this week or beginning of next week at the very latest. And the lady (Charlotte) is a very considerate person and says she will call regardless of whether I get the job or not. It would be a GREAT job, so I'm kind of nervous now. In other news, even if I don't get this job, I really and truly think that Dane is going to get his job down there. He briefly spoke with his contact person, Lynne, and she said right after Labor Day she is going to get with him about coming down to meet with some other people.

Hopefully my next post will bear good news...

Babies and interviews

Next Friday I will become an auntie again and have an interview all in the same day. :-D I just had a phone interview with UF which went super. So we set up an in-person interview for the day Miss London is scheduled to arrive. I had planned on flying down to FL the weekend after London is born, so everyone will be out of the hospital, but I felt the need to offer to come down next weekend instead since they are eager to get someone into the empty position. Wanna hear something way cool? The building I would be working in......right next door to the bookstore where Dane is interviewing. Do I sense some stars aligning??

In other random news, I made a baby announcement for my co-worker. I personally think it's pretty cute. :-)

A job. For me? Let's hope!

So yesterday I got a voicemail that was left from a 352 number...and I just knew what it had to be. I was correct. It was a lady from none other than UF calling to talk to me about a position I applied for at the beginning of the week. Could this be?? Will Dane and I BOTH get job offers not just in the same city, but the SAME location, at the SAME time? That would be due to what could only be described as divine intervention.

Alrighty, I'm out to do some tax-free shopping!

Job update and some new pics!

Ok, so I FINALLY convinced Dane to call the Gainesville (UF Bookstore) lady on Thursday. He had called the Chicago (phone interview) lady on Tuesday and she said that were supposed to have had a decision made by Wednesday. So when he hadn't heard anything on Wednesday or Thursday, he called the Gainesville lady instead to see if he couldn't get anything out of her.

When she picked up and he said, "Hey Lynne, this is Dane..." she immediately cheerfully said "Hey Dane...don't give up on me yet!" So that was good. She told him that they made the decision to not hire anyone before the fall rush because it would be way too chaotic. So she said they'll be making the final decision as soon as rush was over which will be be right at about a month from now. The not-so-good news is that the other candidate that they are considering for the position already works for the company. So that actually really sucks because they typically try to hire within the company whenever possible. BUT. BUT! She said that if by chance they decide to go with the other guy for this position, she is almost positive something else pretty equivalent will be opening up right at the same time, and she really made it sound as if she really wanted to hire him whether it was this Textbook Manager position or something else. So we shall wait some more...

In other news...I got my camera! I have only played with it a little bit and have a lot to learn, but here are a few shots straight out of the box...

All better

Thursday and Friday were rough, but I think I'm pretty much all better. Most food still freaks me out though, so I've been sticking to soup and bland stuff. In other news:

1) I'm turning down the job in Tallahassee because it isn't going to pay enough. I understand the concept of working your way to the top, but I refuse to take the job if it isn't going to even pay what I'm getting now (which, quite frankly isn't enough!) especially in a city where the cost of living is going to be a little higher.

2) Dane hasn't heard back from the Gainesville job yet. He does know that one of the "hiring people" has been out of town since last Thursday and won't return until tomorrow. But that does nothing to ease my mind. I'm losing hope fast for that job even though he is still a little bit hopeful.

3) We now have a date set for my new niece's arrival. Miss London Grace will be here Friday, August 21st. So if the Gainesville job doesn't work out I'll have to look into a plane ticket for a long weekend shortly thereafter.

Flu??

I am sick! I woke up feeling kinda yucky, so I went ahead and called into work. Then it REALLY hit. Throwing up, the big D, sore achy skin, headache, fever of over 100...you name it, I felt it. So Dane came home from work to make sure I didn't die. So not kidding. Sounds a hair dramatic, but I don't think I've felt that sick since I had mono. Even the raspberry incident didn't compare. I talked to mom early in the day and she gave me the "you need to go to the doctor tomorrow if you're not any better" shpeal. THEN, she called me later in the afternoon and woke me up from my Tylenol PM indused nap to tell me that dad thinks I should go ahead and go to the doctor so they can test me for swine flu. Swine flu! Way to freak me out dad!

So anyway, that's what I did today. :-)

Weekend recap...surprise!

We're back! What a great weekend! For the amount of stuff we squeezed in such a short timeframe, the trip really didn't seem all that rushed. On Thursday we drove down to Lake City and spent the night at my parents' house. Friday morning we woke up fairly early and I drove mom's car over to Tallahassee (hour and a half drive) for my interview. It went really well. The place was really nice and I practically felt at home with all the old folks. :-) I may know by the end of this week if that's going to be my new home. I'll spare all the details until I know more. After the interview I went to lunch with Nicole and Amy at Sonny's (YUM!). Meanwhile, when I left for Tallahassee, Dane took my car to Gainesville (45 minutes south of my parents' house). He had an hour-long phone interview with the Follett recruiting people and then he met with the store manager down at the UF bookstore. I know this is vague, but both of us did really well, and we hope that one of us has gotten a job out of it. We should both know something soon.

We met back in Lake City and set out for Orlando. We got there just in the knick of time before the clouds opened up. It was SO GOOD to see all the Orlando peeps...it always feels like no time has passed. So this is where the engagement party was to take place...

It was a really cool place...brick walls, exposed pipes and beams, great area of town. Well, boy did Hazel and Chuck surprise everyone...it wasn't an engagement party. It was THEIR WEDDING!!! Surprise! Their parents didn't even know! Needless to say, Dane and I are so so glad that we went. I didn't get too many pics, but here are a couple...

A few years back, "all of us" had sit-in-front-of-the-computer-all-day jobs and we would email back and forth by "reply all" ALL day. At the time, Dane worked for Department of Health in Tally, I worked for Department of Law Enforcement in Tally, Hazel & Katie (bride and girl in yellow) worked for a graphic design firm in Orlando, Jennifer (in pink) worked for the government/Army in Orlando, and Ant worked in Tampa. At some point after our jobs all changed, someone dubbed us "the email possee". Great times. So here we all are:

And here we all were last summer at Katie & Ant's wedding:

And here we all were at our wedding 3 years ago!

The next morning Jennifer met us at our hotel and we went back to the Farmers Market where the wedding too place. It was awesome. We grabbed a bagel and lemonade and proceeded to melt a little. We couldn't think of anything we really wanted to do or anywhere we wanted to go, so we decided to head on back to Lake City. We stopped in Gainesville for awhile and I took a drive down memory lane. I went and saw my old apartment...even though about 8 years has passed since I lived there, I remember it like it was yesterday. We drove through the UF campus and I found the spot where a friend and I carved our initials in wet cement. :-)

Then we headed on back to the LC and when we got close to home I decided I wanted to take a few pics. It's so beautiful in its own way. It's just home. I get a serious case of the homesicks just looking at them...

Meet Bucky the burro. She's been our neighbor for as long as I can remember. :-)

And here's another neighbor. My parent's house is just past the trees.

That pretty much concludes the trip. :-)