An early Christmas present

Remember when I said I wanted a job soon? Santa heard, and delivered early! On Friday of last week I received a call from Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC) regarding my application. While I didn't meet the criteria for the job I had applied for, there was another position they were interested in interviewing me for. Was I interested? For my Catholic friends, does the Pope wear a funny hat? Yes!

On Monday I went in for my interview. I had decided not to get too worked up about it, because if it worked out that was great and if it didn't there wasn't anything I could do about it. I went in knowing the right thing would come along, even if I had to wait for it. Lucky for me, the wait was short! After my interview she offered me the position! I will be working in the Financial Aid office at GTCC as an extra set of hands of sorts. The mixed blessing is that it's a contract until June 30th. To me, I see it as an amazing opportunity to try out a new side of two jobs I've already done before. If I love it, I'm certain I can find a permanent opportunity within the office; if it's not for me, I found a job to keep me afloat while I look for something else. It's one step closer to some stability for all of us and to looking for a house!

In the words of my friend Jordan, that's a gift you can't wrap! Hooray for employment! I start on the 10th and am so looking forward to learning new things, meeting new people and being back at work.

Back tracking a bit

In my haste to keep you all up with our lives via the blog, I left out our Welcome Home Party!! Monique threw us a welcome home party the first weekend in December. This was a chance for us to see a lot of old friends all in one place, and enjoy the hospitality of one of my favorite hostesses. She had invited friends from Salem, people we worked with and of course, Uncle Ben. We had a great time catching up with everyone, and Hayden had a blast going up and down her stairs and watching "How to Train Your Dragon" on the big tv upstairs. There was tons of food, lots of sangria and great efforts at keeping Lucy from eating our food. I can't wait for Lucy to meet Oscar. We just can't tell Emma...

We also got our first taste of NC snow! It snowed for almost the whole day without being a dreadful mess. Just enough to blanket the ground and trees with the white stuff, but not enough to make the roads too dangerous. My favorite kind of snow! We are now waiting for the next round so we can take Hayden out sledding in it. Last year we didn't do too much out in the stuff because Hayden was still pretty unsure of it and dad wasn't home to do all the fun things. But this year we are armed with snowsuit and gear (and new tires!) and can't wait to get out and play in it. Most likely we'll get a few flakes here and there and maybe a good snow or two, but you can't expect this old NC gal to get too excited about winter weather. We left Germany, right?

A weekend of fun!

Last weekend we managed to cram a whole lot of fun stuff into just one weekend! After taking a trip to see Santa (and the necessary nap that followed) we headed west to see the Festival of Lights at Tanglewood Park. I haven't been in years and of course, Hayden has never been! He really likes the Christmas lights as we drive around at night so we figured that would be a hit for him. A quick stop to get some munchkins from Dunkin Donuts and we were ready to brave the line!

Surprisingly for a Friday night we didn't have to wait that long and boy was Hayden excited! He kept pointing out the things he had words for (tree, Santa, lights) and asked us what everything else was. My favorite part is the snowflakes, and the guy hitting the golfball near the club. What a fun experience! We drove slowly through the roads and ate our munchkins listening to Christmas music. Hayden passed out on the way home from all the excitement.

On Saturday we spent a little time with my brother and his family before dropping Hayden off with my mom and grandmother so we could go to the Coliseum. My very own Carolina Tarheels were playing Texas in Greensboro and our family had gotten us tickets to see them! We braved the last-Saturday-before-Christmas and Coliseum traffic to get there but made it in the arena just a minute or two after the tip. We grabbed some snacks and headed to our seats to watch the game.

It was a good game and a close one, but in the end Carolina lost. We picked up a mini Carolina basketball for Hayden before we left. I can't wait to take him to a basketball game when he's a little older and can get as excited as I do!

On Sunday we did a little running around and then headed back to Winston for Katie's Christmas Drop-In. I got to see some of my friends that I hadn't seen since at least 2008 and some of Katie's family I hadn't seen in even longer. Hayden busied himself with Katie's books, trying to break things and attempts at sticking his fingers in the dip. There were so many people and he was pretty shy at first but then commenced his usual Hurricane Hayden status. We had food and drinks and fun with friends before heading back home. I love the holidays!

A visit to see some friends

On Christmas Eve-eve, as people are fond of calling it, I headed up the road to Charlotte to visit some friends. My college friend Stephanie gave birth to a premature baby girl in October, and she is still in the NICU. I left Hayden at home with Jay so I could go visit her in the hospital! But her sister had a fever, which kept her mom at home so I went to visit Stephanie and Lily at home instead. Lily is so fun to be around because she is so different from Hayden. She's a girl and younger than Hayden, so she's small and still more of a baby than a toddler, and sometimes you forget what that age is like! We had a good time hanging out and catching up before I had to get on the road again.

My good friend Liz from college lives in Washington state, but was on the east coast for a visit. Her family is in Clover, SC so I drove down to see her. Two hours is nothing when the other option is a four hour flight to see her! I had a great afternoon spending time with her and her family and eating a ton of great food. The thing that sucks about growing up is that we're all so far apart. But every once in awhile, the planets align and we get to be in the (relatively) same place and time.

Merry Christmas!

Hayden was uninterested in a conversation with the big guy OR in sitting on his lap, but we waited an hour and a half so Mom stepped in to help.

So here we are. What next?

So. We are finally getting settled in Greensboro. We luckily have some great family that is letting us stay with them while we are looking for a house. The looking can't really start until we're settled, budgeted and employed, so it's nice to have somewhere to sit still and put away all our stuff. Our unaccompanied baggage arrived this week, which meant the arrival of Hayden's crib and toys. We are having the hardest time getting him back on a schedule. It only makes sense, with all the travel and given that every day is different and he's not back in daycare yet. We have found one we like, but it doesn't make sense to start him until January when the holidays and our last bit of travel before we settle down.

Hayden's newest obsession is Toy Story 3. And when I say obsession, I mean he demands to watch it at least three times a day, sometimes twice back to back when he wakes up at 530am. While I'm not a big fan of him watching that much television, I kind of feel like he's a CHAMP with all the running around we do so he wins that battle a lot.

Jay is all registered for school and we're getting the rest of the ducks in a row. Changing over car and health insurance, getting bits and pieces figured out and applying for jobs (me). I've done a little applying but most of the positions don't close until the end of this month or the beginning of the next so there's not a lot I can be doing right now. Except more applying, which is what I'm going to keep doing. I want a job soon!

Hayden is having a great time with all his family and really likes the new dogs we get to play with!

The joys of the DMV

We found out shortly after we returned from DC that our car had been delivered to port and was ready for us to pick up. We were so excited to have it on American soil and to be a two-car family again! We headed to Portsmouth, VA after packing up all our Black Friday, NYC and assorted other purchases. We promised Hayden and Oscar this was the last time they'd be squished for awhile.

After about two hours we arrived and soon heard our names over the loudspeaker. We would soon learn that it meant nothing, and we waited about an hour and a half before we were able to pick it up. Since our car was shipped from overseas, of course it had no plates! So once we had our papers, we had to go to the DMV to acquire a travel permit that allowed us to drive without plates. Soon we were gassed up, split up and back on the road to North Carolina.

The next day we went to the License Plate section of the DMV to title and register our car. Since it had never been registered nor titles in the states, we read online about all the required documents and showed up with about every identifying document we had for our car and ourselves. Wouldn't you know it, we didn't have a customs inspection that no one told us about. Further, they only do said inspection M-F from 8-10 am. It was noon, and Friday. So we called to see if they would do it for us but no dice. Unfortunately, the trip pass we had from VA only allowed us to drive the car through Saturday, which meant 30 minutes on the phone with our insurance company to get the documents we needed to acquire yet another permit. At this point, it was 4pm on Friday, and the LAST place I wanted to be was the DMV, which was a different one than we had been to earlier. Lucky for me, the guy inside found out I was a military spouse and that Jay was in the Army, and waived me through saying "I served for 8 years, give her anything she wants." So we finally had the trip permit and plans to get the inspection done on Monday.

Monday morning came and we showed up nice and early at the DMV for the inspection. It literally took 2 minutes in the freezing cold, and we had what we needed to go BACK to the OTHER DMV. Ugh. But this time we had everything we needed and saw the same guy we had seen on Friday. We waited while he processed all the paperwork and were so close to our plates when he told us what we owed. We were expecting under $100 with the registration and plates. NOPE. We bought our car from a military dealership in Germany, which means it was sold to us tax-free. When I read about it on the website, it mentioned a tax bill that would come later. No no, that's the county tax bill. We now had to pay the sales tax on the vehicle, which brought our bill to SEVEN HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS.  Definitely not expecting that. Alas, we paid it and had plates and registration. Only to be changed a week later, when the Purple Heart plates and new registration came in.

Guess who's excited to go back to the license plate DMV to re-title Jay's new truck? Yeah, not this girl.