Brian's Grad Ceremony

   
Brian walked across the stage and was hooded as a Doctorate of Philosophy in Chemical Engineering in May.  His parents came for the celebration, bearing many, MANY gifts.  We are so spoiled.  It was so nice to celebrate Brian's accomplishments, even though he's still got the big one to go: his Dissertation.  As of now he's planning to defend at the end of July.

 We sent out these two adorable pictures with his Graduation announcements.  I'm one proud wife.

The girls were very unimpressed with the Graduation Ceremony and they let it be known.  Alice quite publicly. I was happy when I was relieved of child shushing duties and Scarlett was happy she could finally go to preschool.

 Here's the boys.  Most of them started the program the same year we did.  They've been some seriously sweet friends to Brian and all of us.

 Alice just fell on the pavement right before this.  Can you tell?

 Maureen requested a kissing picture. This was us after.  I guess we're not used to PDA so we have to be extra expressive as to not make it to awkward.  For everyone.

We get asked "Where and When are you moving?" anytime we have a conversation with someone who knows us.  At church, we have to give a weekly update. The excitement of the job hunt has worn off a bit since his first interview with Dupont in NJ in March.  He's also interviewed with Kodak in MN  and IGM in North Carolina.  Still haven't heard back from any of them, yes or no. He also has an interview getting set up with a company in LA California, and with Johnson & Johnson in Jacksonville, FL.  So we're looking at a nice spread of the country right now. 

I often forget to mention that we turned down a job at Intel in Portland, OR in February.  Brian had a pretty strong feeling when he interviewed that the work life balance would not work for our family.  They required a lot of extra hours on call, overnights, overtime...not what our family is used to.  Once we saw the offer, we did have a harder time turning it down. It was VERY tempting, with some great moving benefits-- cha ching, cha ching. But after listening to the warnings that definitely came from a divine source, we felt peace with our decision. Money isn't everything, right?

So right now we basically have no clue WHEN and WHERE we will end up.  Which makes it really hard to plan and hope for anywhere.  So I've stopped with the expectations/ timelines/ stress and I'm  just going with the flow baby. In the mean time I'm saving homes like mad on Zillow and thinking about all the new furniture I will one day get to pick out.  I also would REALLY love to get this house sale behind me, but Brian's so calm about that part of our future tasks that its starting to rub off on me. Thank goodness.