Hello everyone! Sorry if it seems like we have fallen off the face of the earth, but I assure you that we are all here and doing well. We have been incredibly busy the last month or so; hence, my delinquency in updating the blog.
Work is going well for both me and Duane. I did take my regulatory affairs certification exam at the beginning of November. Despite the months of studying, it was still an insanely difficult exam, and I feel as though nothing I studied actually showed up on the exam. So that was frustrating and a bit scary as well. It will be 8-10 weeks before I get the results back, so I am just trying to put it out of my mind for the time being...I can't change the outcome at this point, so there is no need to be stressed. Please keep your fingers crossed that I passed...I don't know if I have it in me to retake the exam, and it is a certification that I really do need for my new career. Now that the exam is over, I have had lots of time to do "real" work, and let me assure you, I have been busy, busy, busy! Duane continues to impress everyone at his job. He has gotten a lot accomplished in a short time, and as a result, he gets roped into giving a presentation about once a week. But he is really enjoying what he is doing, so that makes the presentations seem not so bad (most of the time).
In other news, we are making progress on our pursuit for a house here in Cary. We continue to be in love with one neighborhood and particular floorplan in that neighborhood, and we keep coming back to it no matter how much we look elsewhere. So a couple of weekends ago we took the plunge and put down a deposit to reserve a lot in the neighborhood. We selected our lot and paid our deposit...now all we have to do is wait until the city releases the lots to the builders, and we will be all set to officially go under contract and begin construction. They anticipated that the lots would be released before Thanksgiving, but it doesn't look like that is going to be the case. Which works out fine for us, since we have our lease at the townhouse until the end of July. We would love to close on the new house in early June, take our time moving in and unpacking as much as we can on our own, and then have the movers come at the end to move all the big furniture. While we wait for the lots to be released, we have been busy with several banks and mortgage companies, "shopping" for the company that is going to work with us the most and give us the best interest rate and incentives. I am sure once construction starts, we will get more anxious and impatient. But for now we are just happy knowing that the end is in sight, and it makes it so much easier to face spending the winter months in this townhouse.
So, in case you are curious about the details of the house, here's a quick summary: It's 3300 square feet on 0.24 acres (which is a pretty large lot for the Raleigh area). Downstairs is the formal dining room, the office, a large family room, an eat-in kitchen, the laundry room, a full bathroom and the master suite. Upstairs is the bonus room, 3 bedrooms, and 2 full bathrooms. So it's PLENTY of space for the 3 of us, Mr. Winston, and any subsequent Little Lehtinens that may one day be added to our family (no plans for that anytime in the immediate future). Here are a couple of pics:
This is a cut-off picture of the model home. We will be building this same house.
This is a picture of our lot of dirt. It's a nice flat lot (the mound at the back will be leveled).
As for Sarah, which is really why everyone reads this blog anyway, she is doing great! She talks all the time, and we can carry on complete conversations with her now. It is so nice to be able to understand everything she says, and for her to be able to communicate things with us rather than having to guess what's going on all the time like you do when they are infants. She's a real little person now! She has been extremely healthy since we have moved here...she has her first little cold now, but nothing that gets her down. So we are so fortunate in that respect. We are still battling with the whole potty training issue. She can basically change her diaper on her own, but she refuses to do anything on the potty. Today she spent the morning in "big girl panties", and sitting on the potty, but no progress. She just peed all over herself and the floor each time, and Duane and I ran ourselves ragged wiping it all up. So we are on a break for now, as she is clearly not quite ready to do this. We will keep trying, but we are not forcing the issue...no point in all 3 of us getting frustrated and still not accomplishing our goal! As a quick re-cap, in October we did take her to a pumpkin farm for the day one Saturday and she had a blast. And she really got the hang of trick-or-treating at Halloween as well. Since we don't really live in a neighborhood, we took her to trick-or-treat at the mall. The stores were giving out candy and stickers, and there was a kid's music group there and a magician there for entertainment. So it was a good time. We re-used the bumblebee costume from last year since it still fit her...it was funny to see how much more grown-up she looked this year compared to last year. We do have pictures from the pumpkin patch and Halloween that we have not downloaded yet (slack, I know). I'll update this post with the pictures once we get them downloaded on the computer.
We are looking forward to a little break from the norm next week. We will be visiting all the family and enjoying lots of yummy food! We will be headed to SC on Wednesday morning to visit Mimi and Papa and Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Marisa. Mimi and I will do our usual Black Friday shopping, and then Friday afternoon we will head to Charlotte to visit with Grammy and Paka, Aunt Kristin, Uncle Mike, Madison and Brady. Hopefully our friends Jennie and Julia will be able to fit in a visit with us as well! We'll be heading back to Cary Sunday morning so we can get ready for a week back at work and school!
Hard to believe that the Holidays are already here. Hope you are all doing well and are taking time to enjoy the season. I won't promise to update soon, as I would just be setting myself up for failure with that promise. But I will TRY to squeeze in another post before Christmas!
0 comments:
Post a Comment