Waiting, hoping and experiences

So Joe graduated in December and the plan is to get a job, move, buy a house, a dog, and order a sibling for Kyra.  Well January came and went, then February came and went and now we are nearing the end of March with no job offers and only a handful of interviews with a lot of silence from most companies.  The good news is that Joe still has work at school because his professor hired him on temporarily to do research and because we don't have a real job with a real schedule, we have been able to do things we may not have had the chance.

January
We were able to celebrate the birthdays of our friends Jenny and Quinn Linford and Joe was able to practice his cake making and decorating skills (he got a new cake baking book and tools for his birthday/Christmas). He made a Chocolate cake with white Chocolate cream cheese frosting for Jennys birthday.  It was pretty tastey but really dense (apparently their is a typo in the recipe and didnt have enough leavening).  He also practiced and perfected a vanilla cake recipe in January and we played alot of Dominion with friends and forced them to eat cake.

February

We got to see Joe's parent the weekend before Valentines day and had lots of fun with them.  We finally made it to the Dinosaur Museum up at Thanksgiving Point with a groupon deal.  Kyra was mostly sleepy but perked up for the end of the Museum.

Later that night we got a babysitter for Kyra and headed off to a Valentines dance with Joe's parents.  It was fun, Joe and I attempted to learn how to dance foxtrot and waltz...mostly foxtrot and Joe's parents we a great help.

 On Sat we went skiing at the canyons.  It was fun but super icy.




The next weekend I hosted a baby shower for my friend Jenny and Joe made an awesome block cake for it.  (Joe accidentally took all the pictures of the full cake in Black and White)

March
At the end of February Joe got a call from the Organ building company that he worked for and they asked if he would be interested in flying to Jacksonville FL for a week to help install an Organ in a personal home.  Joe checked with his research to make sure he could go (and with me), and booked his flight.  With this news (of the possibility of leaving me for over a week) I called my parents and asked if they wanted to fly Kyra and I down to South West Florida for that same week.  My parents were ecstatic and we booked a flight.  So from March 12th-20th we left on separate flights to go to different parts of Florida.  Joe was able to learn a lot about installing an Organ in a personal home (he wants to build one for our home someday) and I took my mind off of Joe by spending lots of time with family.

My trip was laid back and I spent some time with my grandma and some time with my parents.  I tried to take Kyra swimming but there were other kids in the pool and she wanted none of that.  But we did go on a little dingy ride and spent a lot of time playing outside.  My parents moved to a different part of Florida that has more of an old school Florida feel.  Kyra enjoyed being pulled around in a red wagon, eating the Loquats, and just loved being outside all the time.  I went to a Red Sox training game against the Twins and to a Blues Festival with my dad.  After those 2 excursions without Kyra, she made sure I was near her most of the time, very cuddly.  I did get sick with a cold and stomach flu (stomach flu kinda sucked and took me out for 2 of the 8 days), but overall I had a great trip and enjoyed spending time with the family.

The day I left we made a trip up to Homasassa to visit my great aunt Doris and her daughter Bobby.  She has faded since the last time I saw her, but it was great to see her and have her meet Kyra.  It was cute when we tried to leave and Kyra said bye to me and reached out to sit in Aunt Doris's lap to cuddle.  It was a little out of the way and made my travel day longer, but was worth the visit.

Now that we have the Florida trip over and done, Joe has some interviews on location and hopefully it won't take too much longer to find a job in a situation that is good for our family.