midwinter 2018

Each February in Chicago, the Chicago Dental Society hosts a weekend of continuing education courses and an expansive exhibit hall of vendors wheeling and dealing their latest and greatest dental gadgets and products and collectively it's called the Midwinter meeting.

My dad has been going for 30ish years (minus a few here and there) and every couple of years Becky and I join him, usually the year our CE hours are due. So this year Margo got to spend the better part of a week with my mom, while my dad and I took the train to the Windy City from Wednesday through Saturday and Becky met up with us on Thursday.

We ended up with 18 CE hours each(!!), a big bag of free goodies and managed to have a lot of fun along the way. We ate a lot, shopped a little and mostly paid attention in our classes. Thanks for letting us tag along Dad, I'm glad we get to do these classes together.

sledding

We woke up to find an unexpected blanket of snow, so what's better than using our Saturday morning to go sledding?!?

There is a school nearby that has a decently sized hill, so we layered on all of our winter clothes (somehow I managed to find a pair of baby mittens that still fit Margo), grabbed our tote box lids (because who really has a sled laying around 😬) and went sledding! Margo had a great time and Alex giggled every time he went down the hill.

margo says...

With Margo's ever expanding vocabulary, I don't want to forget what and how she says some of her more quirky sayings and words. Here are a few of her latest statements:

"Waples" = pretzels, but waffles = waffles. Try not to get them confused...

She motions with her hands for us to "come here" or "come on".  She also will point to the ground or a seat and tell us to "sit down" and badger us until we comply.

From going to BSF she has learned to pray by folding her hands sweetly and at the end of a prayer she'll say a long, drawn out "AMEN". She has also learned the song "Holy, Holy, Holy" and will happily belt it at the top of her lungs.

Anytime there is an unfamiliar noise and she associates it with me being hurt she gasps and asks (from wherever she is- usually in another room by shouting), "Mama ok?" "I'm ok Margo." "Ok mama". The other day I jumped to reach something and her reaction was sweet, but very concerned.

She's obsessed with puppies and babies so anytime we see one, she gets very excited and won't stop discussing her sighting. The best is when our 7 month old neighbor/best friend Linus comes over to play. We think that she thinks he's her real, live baby doll.

"Snat" (snack) is the first thing she says to me most mornings when I get her out of bed. Somedays she asks for a "snat" before I can fully open her door and turn her sound machine off.

She has so many phrases and ways that she says things that make us laugh every day, it's been really fun to watch her turn into a true toddler. So far, this is my favorite age with Margo, but I've said that at every age and stage so far...

life update

I think I've previously eluded to our big changes in 2017, but now I get to further clarify. In October (right around the time we started the process of selling our house and moving into the blue house) Alex became increasingly aware of how dissatisfied and burnt out he felt at the office. 

While we know that it is a privilege to work for ourselves and to run our own business, there is also a lot of weight and stress that comes along with it.  We had always known there could be a point that we'd want to sell the office, but neither of us had a firm timeframe of when that could be. Cue Alex's extreme burnout. After a lot of prayer, discussion and council, we decided that it was the right time to start looking for a buyer for the office. 

After talking with several different buying prospects, Alex narrowed it down to two different agencies and the one we landed on made the best offer and seemed like the most natural (read: seemingly easy) fit. 

While the sale details and plans emerged very quickly, the actual buyout took longer than expected due to some financing hiccups. But in the mean time, the other agency took over managing our office (in early November), leaving Alex free to work on other projects. 

For the last 3+ years he has had his hand in some type of web development projects and gets the most enjoyment and is most challenged when he's working on a development project. So, that's what he threw himself into November-January. It made for a bit more challenging adjustment to the new house since he was home all day, I had a broken foot and we didn't have a normal, but slowly having him home became our normal. 

In late December he started sending his resume for different developer positions in the area and had several phone interviews and an in person interview at a small firm. But, the general consensus was that he was a little "too green" for the available positions. To say that he was discouraged would be an understatement, so he threw himself into learning and practicing even more. 

Out of the blue he received a phone call in mid January (the office sale was still pending) for a Marketing Technologist position at Concordia Publishing House. He'd forgotten he'd applied for it, but was pleasantly surprised to hear from them and even more so after his in person interview. The job was a blend of what he'd been doing for 5+ years with our business and with his new web development/tech skills. They offered him the job and he accepted with a start date of February 5th. 

I know he's excited for a new challenge and opportunity and we both look forward to seeing if this is the fit and job he's been looking for. God has been good and has provided for us beyond what we could have ever imagined and the office sale was finally complete the Friday before he started the new job on Monday! 🎊