Well this was supposed to be my 200th post, but that didn't happen. It's looking like my 219th post, to be more accurate.
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I'm going to try to make this interesting for you, my readers, but I make no guarantees (as a member of the financial field, I'm not allowed to guarantee anything anyway).
So, let me tell you what I've been up to lately...
- Foster kiddos. About 12 weeks ago Jess and Luke started caring for 3 little boys: E(3), BV(16 mo), and FD(1 weeks old). It goes without saying that Jess and Luke's world was turned upside down, but the rest of the family has been able to help out and pitch in whenever we can. A couple days a week, Jen helped out during the day while Jess worked. She had a couple of basketball players who helped out the other days. I've been able to babysit quite a bit during the evenings and weekends - mostly after they're in bed when Jess went into the office or while they went out on a date or ran errands. I also spent a weekend with Jess when she was single-parenting it while Luke was in Boston at wedding. About 3 weeks ago Jess resigned her hr/accounts payable position at church; she's now a full-time stay-at-home mom and the boys are loving it! At this point we don't know how long they'll be with Jess and Luke, but we're loving on them as much as we can while we have them.
- Fundraising for Metro Women's Center. If you gave money to the annual walk event, I thank you. This past fall MWC was able to purchase a home and many people been working on fixing it up and furnishing it to be ready to be used by those in need. If you were thinking of giving but didn't yet, you can still by going to my FirstGiving fundraising page. For more info about the Amazing Grace Home, I invite you to visit Metro Women's Center blog.
- Work projects - I've mentioned before how I was interviewing for a new hire in my office. Well he's hired and thankfully not my responsibility; my co-worker gets to train him. We call him "Sabrina's* Slave". We're also in the process of changing 160+ investment accounts and ~100 insurance policies to a joint rep # for clients that we are buying out from another advisor. This is just Phase I of the accounts coming to us. Thankfully Phase II is a much smaller list. Something else I've been working on is the planning of our annual client golf event to be held in August. Invites went out the middle of the month and RSVPs are already rolling in. You can check out our website that I help with. The bulk of it is designed and updated by a marketing company, but I'm responsible for content that is firm-specific.
- May Birthdays - My nephew Ethan turned 4 on the 15th and we enjoyed a yummy dinner at Red Robin on that Tuesday evening followed by cake at my sister's. My niece Morgen turned 8 on the 20th and she celebrated at a birthday party with 10 of her closest friends. Mom, Dad, and the rest of the Mpls Gang were all in attendance as well. It was quite the hub-bub-a-loo! 11 screaming 8-year old girls, that's something you've got to experience first hand! Jess's oldest E(3) enjoyed splashing the girls while he was hanging out in the kiddie pool; they enjoyed egging him on as well.
- Baseball and Kindergarten Graduation - not to be left out from all the May activities, my nephew Carsten (6) graduated from Kindergarten and started little league baseball during May. His graduation program included songs and a play from all the seasons while one of his classmates kept asking when he could fly his kite. Each season he would ask, "is it time yet?" and finally, when it was Spring, he was able to fly his kite - and it actually flew! They had rigged up fishing wire for him and made it fly above the stage - pretty cool for kindergartners! :-) The baseball games haven't been the most exciting, but it was fun to see him connect with the ball for the 2nd time.
- Weekends with Mom and Dad - It's been fun to have Mom and Dad so close - they've been able to come over on different occasions and I think they were here 2 times in May and I went to their house over Memorial weekend. Of course, that wasn't so much a fun weekend as Mom was sick. I did enjoy getting to see my aunt and uncle though! Dad's baby sister, Jan and her husband, Dale, drove up from Rockford, IL on Saturday to spend some time with my parents. Unfortunately Mom wasn't feeling so great, so it was up to Dad to entertain them :) Jan did make a yummy strawberry-rhubarb crunch. I was able to have some on Sunday when I got there.
- It's a girl! Probably the biggest news is our latest Flaming addition, my 3rd niece, Ella Taylor. Ella was born to Jake and Meg and big sister is Lily Bug who will be 2 in a week! You can read about Ella's arrival and see some pictures on their blog. There's also some cute comparison pics of Lily and Ella. Ella was born on Thursday and came home on Friday. Here's what they've been up to since she came home.
I'm pretty sure their are many other things I've missed here, but I think I'll stop for now.
And I wasn't going for a
7Things post, but it appears that's what this turned out to be! For many weeks in a row I've missed writing my
7Things posts. Back in March, I think it was, I scheduled about 2 months worth
"A Year Ago on Not the Last to Know" posts. Next year I think they'll be a little bit more exciting since I had been blogging a bit more regularly this year (...until about mid-April...).
Hopefully I'll be able to get back into the blogging habit again, but don't hold me to it. June and July are looking to be busy months too! I think I'll work on some picture posts. I downloaded 430 pictures from my phone tonight. I need to go through them and see if any are blog-worthy :)
*named change to protect the innocent
