New Beginnings

As some of you probably know, the past couple of months have been a little on the crazy side for our little family. I guess you could say it all started back in March, when a close friend/colleague of Bruce--we'll call 'J'-- started a new job that moved he and his family from the Mississippi Gulf Coast to the Houston area. After a few weeks of being at his new job, 'J' caught wind of the company needing to add an engineer to their staff. Knowing that Bruce and I have been praying for a job opportunity in Texas to come our way since our engagement, 'J' mentioned Bruce's name to his bosses and told Bruce about the position. After a phone interview, Bruce was flown out to Houston for a face-to-face interview with the company's president and vice-president. By mid-June, Bruce had a job offer, accepted and we had our house on the market. We decided for the sake of our sanity, to not plan on relocating for a good three weeks. That gave Bruce a couple of weeks to tie-up any loose ends at his previous job, us some time to do a few touch-up projects on the house (with help from his parents), as well as time to get our moving arrangements in order. We made the big move on the 22nd of July and Bruce started his new job on the 25th.

Of course, there has been a lot of adjustment going on. Not being familiar with the area, we decided to temporarily rent an apartment instead of buying a home. So, although the apartment itself is fine, we have no yard which is an enormous change for us. Of course we miss our dear friend back in the Mobile area, and Brinley is slowly becoming more acclimated with her new room. Before the move--really since she was an infant--she has been a great sleeper. Now that we've moved, she has a really hard time falling asleep most nights, and some nights she wakes up three or four times upset. As you can imagine, this makes for a tired little one, as well as a tired momma. Things are slowly getting better, though. There were a couple of nights last week that she slept through the night so hopefully it will continue to get better. I've joked to Bruce that she'll probably adjust and start sleeping well around the time the we're ready to move again...geez, I hope that is not the case!

Over the past month, we've gotten most things unpacked, and I'm slowly starting to get things hung on the walls. My main priority after getting things unpacked was to get Brinley's school work together for this fall. Luckily since we're homeschooling, we can start our school year whenever it is best for our family. Now that we're settling in, Brinley and I will start her lessons this week! After a lot of deliberation (mainly on my part), we've decided to keep things a bit simple this first year and use a letter of the week curriculum. For the first week we'll study A, the second week we'll study B and so on. In all of my research and networking, I've come across a few blogs--Confessions of a Homeschooler, 1+1+1=1 and Homeschool Creations--that I've acquired some of our worksheets, crafts ideas and activities from. I'm hoping that during our week, I'll remember to snap a few photos and post them so that you all can get an idea of what we're doing and how much fun we're having! I have to mention, as I've been getting Brinley's lessons together over the past week or two--and it has been strewn all over the living room--she has been super excited about her 'school work'. I keep having to tell her that we'll have to wait 'X' many days until we can do it. She loves doing workbooks that I've picked up here and there, so I think that she's really going to have a blast with our lessons.

I hope each and every one of you were blessed with a wonderful Labor Day weekend. Until next time...