Where have the last 8 months gone?

(written by Lindsay)

There's no excuse for failing to blog for nearly 3/4 of a year, but nevertheless, I will catch you all up on our lives by giving the longest string of excuses you've ever read. Life has been busy! Starting in November....

November Tom's mom came for a visit for Thanksgiving. While she was in town, we discovered small spots on Cavan, and discovered that he had an illness called ITP - a platelet deficiency. It ended up being a temporary thing, but because he was at high risk for bleeding, we had to keep him home from day care for weeks, and monitor his every toddler motion so that he didn't fall and hurt himself.

December brought a series of ear infections for Cavan, and a Christmas-time trip to Sweden to go skiing. We were as far north as either of us had ever been, and during the darkest days of the year - with about a total of 7 hours of daylight a day. Tom and I took turns on the slopes. Cavan developed a new ear infection while we were there, and we went right to after-hours care as soon as we got back from our 12-hour drive home.

January, I started working on my dissertation in earnest, and also continued to go to language courses in the evenings, two days a week. The winter days were terribly gloomy and dark, and we found ourselves staying home most weekends just to stay out of the ickiness.

Mid-March, we took our trip back to the States - three weeks for me and Cavan, and two weeks for Tom. The kiddo and I went through Philly to see my sister Kristie and family, flew to Kansas to visit parents and sister Jenny and family, drove to Texas, through Dallas to see some friends, and ultimately landed in San Antonio for brother Patrick's wedding to Sinath. Tom met us in Texas and we drove back to Kansas together - 17 hours on the road in one day! Then Cavan and I flew back to Denmark and Tom onto Seattle for a week of work and all-expense-paid meals!

In April and May, I dug into my dissertation revisions, and set a deadline for myself to finish in late May. It started getting much nicer, sunnier, and warmer, so we started taking more day trips on the weekend, including a return to Bakken and to the Zoo. Tom and Cavan spent Danish Father's Day in Helsingor at the Technology Museum while I stayed home and plowed through my work.

In June, I flew back to Seattle to defend my dissertation and graduate - all in four days time! Everything went well, and Mom and Dad flew up to attend the ceremonies with me. A week and a half after coming home, we drove to Amsterdam (another long drive!) where we rolled a family vacation and an educational research conference into one.

Now it's July, and things have finally slowed down -sort of. I still had final dissertation changes to make, and I spent my spare time searching for a job. About two weeks ago I found one - at a day care just up the road. Starting Monday, I will be working full time (35 hours a week) with the smallest kids (9 months to 2 1/2 years) and hopefully improving my Danish. I guess all of that work going to classes paid off. I'm excited to be working with kids - just nervous about the daily struggles I know I'm going to have with understanding everything.

So I promise never to do a laundry list blog like this again. I hope to update more frequently, as I have new adventures at my new job and beyond! Also, more pictures to come soon!