Whole New Year

There have been a few things keeping us busy since the new year started, and I'm finding it difficult to get to the computer often enough to post regular blogs. It's one of my new year's resolutions, so hopefully I can keep up on it all. :)

My maternity leave ended in the beginning of January, and I was going to return to work on the 18th. The week of the 11th I went to an elementary school to observe the speech pathologists there. I took Canon to a couple of the babysitters that we had lined up for when I returned to work. However, one of them realized that it was much more difficult than she expected it to be. She informed me that she wouldn't really be able to handle watching Canon like she anticipated. That actually meant that I was down to only 2 babysitters that could each watch him only once per week. I couldn't honestly expect that Mark would be able to watch Canon 3 whole days each week as a full-time law student, no matter how optimistic Mark was about his workload. So I resigned from my position at HIG Capital. I love being a stay-at-home mom, but I find that I don't get the same Internet time as I did when I sat at a computer all day at work. We will miss the income and the insurance benefits, but I think it will be worth it to stay at home with my son. I'm currently applying for government aid to help with what Mark's loans won't cover.

Mark has returned to school, and he only has classes on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. So far he seems to be on top of all his schoolwork, and he's still trying to figure out where to apply for jobs for after graduation. He has been offered an in-person interview with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). They called and conducted a phone interview before Christmas, but now they are paying to fly him to D.C. Working for the DHS would be really good for us, but it's only for a 2-year fellowship program, so there's no guarantee that he'll actually get a job with them. However, it sounds like the majority of the fellowships get offered full-time positions. As of right now, we're just hoping that he will be able to find something that will be a paid position, like this one...so keep those fingers crossed.

He's also applying for the Navy, Army, and maybe even the Air Force JAG Corps. Any one of those would be good, but the idea of certain deployment is not so appealing. Hopefully something will turn up soon. All we know is that he's planning on taking the Utah Bar Exam this summer, and it looks like it will be pretty difficult for him to attend the Bar Prep Classes that begin a week before graduation IN UTAH!!

I just finished applying for the University of Utah's Speech-Language Pathology Master's Program. Now that we're thinking we could end up in DC, I'm half wishing that I applied to schools there too. Oh well! We can't afford schools in the DC area right now. We'll just have to wait and see how things turn out.

As of right now, we both have high hopes for 2010, and we look forward to what the Lord has in store for us... we have no idea what that really is right now, but this is bound to be one interesting year!