Wednesday, May 25, 2011

And we're back.

I'm back from my blogging hiatus. I have been dreading my next blog post. Not at all because I have something bad to write about, but because there is SO much going on that it is going to require a good chunk of my sweet time that could be better spent sleeping or taking a nap. My last post was well over a month ago, and in that time, here are a few of the most important things that have happened. As hard as it may be, please try to make it to the end of the this post.

1. Aaron graduated from law school. Aaron graduated from law school. Repeat: Aaron graduated from law school. Did you hear me? He GRADUATED. With honors. It was a wonderful day with lots of family and friends celebrating one of the most important moments of his professional life. I am so proud of him I don't even know what to do about it. It's time for a cliche: the past three years have gone by on wings. It's so hard to believe its over. We made friends that we will keep for a lifetime. We belonged to an amazing church family. Somewhere in those three years, we morphed into adults, I think. We had a little kiddo that is now a young man. Aaron pulled way too many all nighters studying and writing 100+ page papers about boring jargon and it felt like we were never going step out of the student lifestyle. But stick Aaron in the oven because HE IS DONE. Yeehaw.

2. Aaron got a job. This is another one of those sentences that needs to be repeated six times, but I won't do that to you again. He will be working at a wonderful firm in Jackson called Daniel Coker Horton and Bell, and I can't even begin to describe how blessed we feel that he got a position there. If there ever was a time we felt God's hand working in the depths of our lives, it was in the last 2-3 months of our lives. We are beyond confident that God placed Aaron at this particular firm. I might have to dedicate an entire blog post to what went down between February and May of 2011. It would blow you away.

3. We moved to Jackson. We are renting a house in the Flowood area and get this: we are less than half a mile from anything we could ever need. Target, grocery stores, any kind of shopping you can imagine, parks, spraygrounds, and the list goes on. This is very different from our Oxford situation and I love it. The best part of living here is that we now live close to my entire family and much, much closer to Aaron's family in Hattiesburg. For the past 10 years we have lived two or more hours away, which isn't too terribly far, but we had to miss a lot of birthday parties and family get togethers. Another benefit of living here is that Liz and Amy, my two best friends from Oxford, also moved here and get this: Aaron and Amy's husband, Stephen, will be working together at the same firm. It would have been devastating not living in the same town as these two girls. I am happy. And perhaps the biggest benefit for me is the simple fact that I now live in the same town as NIKKI! YAY! This hasn't been the case in a really long time and we have certainly taken advantage of our close proximity so far. I have missed the stew out of her. She's my homie.

4. Aaron is studying for the bar. If I'm being honest, it sucks. He had approximately one week off after he graduated until he had to start taking classes to prepare for the Mississippi Bar Exam. He will take it July 25-27 and will find out if he passed in September. In case you are not familiar, it is not just a test. It is fair game to expect any aspect of the law to be on this hand written exam, and if you aren't aware, the law is a pretty big sucker. There will be questions on areas of the law that Aaron didn't even touch on in law school, which means he has to teach himself that entire area of law himself and be ready to write a huge essay on it. It takes three days to take it and he will spend no less than 15 hours per day until then studying and preparing for it. So even though he is a law school graduate, he won't around very much. Actually, I'll see him much less now than I ever did in law school, including his first year. Yuck. But I guess it's the name of the game and I'm supporting him.

5. Last but certainly not least, Clark is going to be a big brother! We purposefully decided to wait a while before telling anybody but now that I am into my second trimester, we are finally ready to make the announcement. We are beyond excited and even though we were somewhat shocked, we are definitely ready to grow our little family. I can't even imagine what it will be like starting over with another little tot. I have forgotten almost everything about newborns and it will feel like I am starting from scratch, but hopefully it will all come back to me and I don't completely freak out on everyone. The nausea hasn't been terrible but notably worse than with Clark, which makes me think its a girl. But supposedly that is an old wives' tale with zero scientific backup, so who knows? More than anything I'm just having a hard time keeping my eyes open. Fatigue is my worst enemy these days. It doesn't help that I'm chasing around a VERY mobile toddler all day. The new little baby is due to make his or her appearance on or around December 21, which is four days before Christmas and two weeks before Clark's second birthday. Lord help us all around the Christmas holidays!

Clark is now 17 months old and I'm looking forward to posting his next update, which will be my next priority. He is definitely a dark shark tank these days and more than ever, I am so grateful to be able to stay home with him so I can watch him grow. He is such a little ham. My apologies that it has been over a month since I've visited the blog, and even though I say this way too often, I'm going to do better. There is too much going on in our lives right now I'm going to want to remember one day. And also I have about seventeen bajillion pictures that I feel the entire world needs to see. So until next time...hope everybody enjoys this ridiculous weather and has a grand week!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

YAY! Everything about this post makes me smile! Especially the part about living in the same town as ME and the fact that I will get to spend lots of time with baby Rice #2 before I move (:

The Trobough's said...

CONGRATS!!!! I will be coming to Jackson in August (I think) I would love to see you and Nikki---let our little ones play. It would be so much fun :) And we can compare one-legged husbands! ha! Thanks for posting....it's been nice to know what you've been up to!

Annalee said...

i was wondering when y'all would get started on the 2nd one. that is so exciting! i had a girl (obviously) and never once got sick, so it definitely depends. hope the rest of your pregnancy goes well! :)