Welcome back readers! It's been a busy month--so we'll just dive right in! Since Scott had 6 weeks off in between jobs, we decided to take advantage of the downtime by setting off on a road trip: Atlanta to Columbus (where Jay and Angie were wonderful hosts and talented chefs); Columbus to Mobile (where we whipped Paul's place into shape in exchange for loads of fresh shrimp right off the boat); then onto New Orleans!
It was everyone's first time in New Orleans. Jack got to jam with a local street band in the French Quarter ("Who 'dat say dey gonna beat 'dem Saints" - to which Jack responded emphatically "the Chargers!"). From the powdered sugar on his shirt, you can tell that he was quite the fan of the New Orlean beignets. We went to the WWII museum, walked down Bourbon Street, went to the Cathedral and the cemetary, and went to a new Katrina Museum. The Katrina exhibit made quite an impression on Jack as just yesterday in the car he said "Man that was terrible" What was terrible? "That hurricane in New Orleans."
Next we planned on shooting up to NYC for a few days to stay with John and Becky before our closing that Friday--no such luck. Mother nature had a different plan; so instead of attending The Blue Man Show and eating rare delectable cheeses, we were attending the Scott Snowman Show and eating our weight in snow cones. But we still had a great time, and since everyone was snowed in, our aunt Elaine, who was planning on heading
up to North Carolina, ended up being able to spend a lot of time with the kids.
Which brings us to the most exciting news of the month. We closed on our house! We feel SO blessed. We are located just inside the perimeter, between Scott's work and my parent's house, 4 miles from the church, 2 miles from the little league park, and .9 miles from the YMCA! We're on such a fun cul-de-sac with lots of boys that play sports with Jackson all day. The families are super nice, and we've been enjoying dessert every night from their gifts of pumpkin bread, cookie pie, ice cream and this latest bouquet of cookies.
Once we closed, the next step was getting everything squared away before Scott started work. We were able to get all unpacked thanks to mom who worked like a Spartan, and another big thanks to Alyssa and Susan who came over to help - it was so fun to see them!
With me, I found a job working one evening a week at a nearby psychiatric hospital. And with Jack, after a little bit of drama, we finally found a preschool for him. Scott had to wait in line at 7 in the morning to try to get him a spot at the preschool for next fall - he got the very last one; and he's lucky he did, or he would have had a tough time explaining why we didn't get in when he insisted against my urgings that he could wait 15 more minutes before heading over to the preschool. Given that preschool for next fall was so tight, there wasn't even hope for something this semester, so we thought we'd try to get Jack in a preschool group led by some of the moms in our ward. I was told that this was 'not a glorified play group,' that all the women teaching had a master's in something, and that it was taken quite seriously. After all my reassuring them that we'd be positive contributors and that Jack was a delight to teach, we were granted a 'trial period.' A few weeks later, the group reconvened to discuss our fate. Luckily for Jack's preschool situation and for the social awkwardness that could have been felt in the church halls each week, Jackson passed with flying colors, and we were admitted into the group. Preschool is no joke in Georgia!
Here is Jack's favorite room in the house. The basement isn't finished, so we nailed up the extra boxes to the walls and turned it into a batting cage. It comes in handy with all the Georgia rain!Scotty had his first day of work on Monday. So far so good, he's just waiting to get staffed on a project and I am steeling myself for the bleak reality that Scott will shortly be gone a lot.
Oh and Scott and I both received callings at church--Ward Missionaries. The leader takes this role very seriously--we have people to teach, and assignments to complete each week. So we will be flexing our gospel sharing muscles even more than usual here for the next little bit. Our first assignment was to create profiles on www.mormon.org.
Anyway, we hope you all had a great month and a great start to the new year. Lots of love from us to you--TFK
