Midyear Update

So, I figure it's time for a midyear update...

I am 12 days away from my due date and am SO ready to be done being pregnant! These past few months have been full of getting everything ready for Claire...from finishing the nursery, to pretty much "nesting" every room in our house. There are a few updates to include on top of preparing for baby Claire...

Our application for the program that Grant wanted to do for school was denied by the state agency as they will not pay for him to complete a Bachelor's degree, only for him to get another Associate's. Which I suppose makes some sense, but to us, it seems like it would be a waste of time to get another AAS, only to know that eventually he will need to finish his Bachelor's. SO...we've made the BIG decision to simply have Grant go back to school whether they help with it monetarily at all. He has two semesters worth of classes at ACC that he needs to take, which is pretty cheap, then he'll be able to transfer. Our hope is that he'll be able to finish either Summer 2012 or Fall 2012. It's kind of crazy when I think about the fact that that is 2 1/2 years away...but I think it will be worth it in the end. So - along with him being back in school, that also means that he will be the one primarily taking care of Claire during the day. In the fall, we only have a couple of afternoons a week that we have to figure out babysitting for, which will also help financially and will be great because then Claire won't have to be in daycare full-time for quite a while.

Work is still going well for me and I am very blessed to have a flexible set of managers. Right now, the plan for maternity leave is that I will be out for 6 weeks full-time and then work from home part-time for 6 weeks. This will give me 3 months at home with Claire before returning to work full-time, which I am VERY grateful for!

Other big news, extended family wise, is that my brother and his wife welcomed their second little boy - named William Joel on May 12, and Grant's sister and her husband welcomed their second little boy - Joseph Glenn on May 7. Needless to say, Claire is going to be surrounded by boys to protect her!!

Anyway - this is a rather boring blog - but hopefully in a few days we'll be able to post all sorts of fun stuff about Claire and some beautiful pictures!!

Until she arrives...