Sorry it's been a while...

WOW! I think this is a personal record for the longest lapse in posting. I don't even know where to begin with the updates.

1- The house. We closed on July 10th, and the rest is history (and rather uneventful). We did most of the moving ourselves over the following week, and the movers came after that to take care of moving the last few pieces of big furniture that we couldn't handle ourselves. All of the boxes are unpacked, and for the most part everything is in its place. We are all loving our new home, and Sarah has particularly enjoyed the community pool and the playground.

2- Sarah updates. Since my last post, a lot has happened. First and foremost, I would like to proudly announce that SARAH IS POTTY TRAINED!!! This amazing feat happened virtually overnight, and she has not really had any accidents since then. It was truly amazing to see her figure this out in a single day with no real learning curve. In other news, she has learned how to ride her tricycle really well. She can pedal like a pro, and she enjoys riding around the neighborhood on the flat sidewalks. Upon successful completion of the potty training, she got to pick out a cool bike helmet so that she can ride uninhibited on the sidewalks. She chose a Dora helmet that came complete with matching knee pads. Swimming lessons continue to go really well! Sarah is in her 3rd set of lessons, and can now float on her back (almost) unassisted and can swim underwater for short distances. She has enjoyed spending time at our neighborhood pool, and has recently become fearless and goes down the water slide all by herself. As we approach her 3rd birthday (YIKES!), we continue to be amazed at her developing personality and independence. She LOVES to talk, and sometimes when we are all in conversation together it is hard to remember that she is only 3. Some of her sayings are so adult, such as:

"I just wasn't thinking, mom!" or

"Turn the radio up, mom. I LOVE this song!" or

"Don't be ridiculous." or

"I'm NOT two, mommy. I'm two and a half!" or

"My hairbow doesn't match my shirt."

Of course, the antithesis of this is some of her very "two and a half" attitude, such as:

"I just don't wanna!!!" or

"Because why, mommy?" or

"Yes!!! I WANT to!" or

"Mommy, Winston's looking at me. Make him stop!"

3- Allison and Duane. On the job front, things are going well. Last week, Duane's company, Athenix, was purchased by Bayer CropScience. If you're interested in reading the press release, click here. Not a lot is expected to change immediately, so it doesn't really affect his day-to-day work at this time. The immediate advantage to this acquisition is the fact that Duane gets to cash in his Athenix stock options, which will be some nice extra cash for us. There is not much new to report from my work...I am scheduled for my final fellow's evaluation the day after Labor Day, which means that if all goes well I should get an official scientist offer and a coinciding pay increase.

Duane and I celebrated our 5th anniversary at the beginning of August. We celebrated by taking a trip to New York City while Sarah spent some time with Mimi. We had a fabulous time doing some sightseeing that we had not done before, the weather was perfect, we saw "Wicked" on Broadway (FANTASTIC show!!!), and tried to weasel our way as extras onto the set of a movie being filmed in Central Park. We were unsuccessful, of course, but we did stick around long enough to find out that the movie being filmed was "Going the Distance" starring Drew Barrymore. We watched several scenes being filmed, and we got lots of close-up shots of Drew as she made her way back to the Paramount trailers. All in all, a very fun and eventful trip!

Guess that's a very condensed version of our life updates. Now that things have settled down for us, I'll make an effort to update more regularly. Hope you are all doing well and are enjoying your summer!