My handsome little man went to school today!

I was so nervous. I thought I would cry when I dropped him off, and then I remembered he would only be there for 2 1/2 hours! He had a lot of fun. The teachers said he followed instructions and behaved. There is another William in the class. I figured I would label his coat etc. with “William S.”, but the other boy has the same initials! They became friends over matchbox cars. It will be confusing if they ever have a playdate!

I am so glad everything went well!

William is enrolled in preschool! I found a brochure on my way out of the library for a program with Christian-based teaching. It was affordable, and they had one opening left! We went there today and filled out his paperwork. He starts on Monday! He is so excited!

My babies are in second grade. How is this possible? William was sad to see them get on the bus, but he’s fine now. He will be with them next year when he goes to kindergarten!

Meet Barney. His story is… wait for it… legendary (in case you had any doubt about the inspiration behind his name).

We went for a drive after breakfast. I thought we had seen every inch of the county, until I took a sharp right turn in Onondaga. We spotted a huge park, so the kids played at the playground for a while. We were the only ones there! A few miles away, I had a feeling I knew where we were.

I once read a story about Cedarvale Road, also known as “13 Curves”. It is a long, winding road alongside a creek and dense woods. It stands out from most areas in Syracuse. The legend is that in the month of August, in the 1940s, a newly married couple was driving at night down Cedarvale Road. The groom lost control of the car and crashed, killing them both. Many websites boast tales of “ghost sightings” on the road, particularly on Halloween Night, when the bride can be seen wandering in her wedding gown.

We continued on for a few miles, and then Micah spotted a sign:

I don’t know what compelled me to turn around. Micah rang the doorbell, and they directed him to the back yard. I followed behind with the kids, not sure what to expect. There had been 9 puppies, and 3 were left. The puppies were half rottweiler and half black lab. Micah had a dog of the same mix when he was young, and she was awesome. That was the deciding factor. We picked up the last male, who was super cuddly, and decided to take him home!

It’s an interesting experience when you bring a dog into a large household. No one has the strong reaction you’d expect. Lily and Tinsel were apathetic. Snuggle just wanted to play. The twins were in shock, and Will went into a weird fit of jealousy. Still, it was unanimous: The puppy had found his forever home. He’s 7 weeks old, so it will be a while before he’s eager to play and fully house trained. He cries when I leave the room! I never thought I’d be a “dog person”, but Barney is special. We have bonded!

Micah has been on the phone all afternoon, getting training advice from his family. They are experts!

Barney: Kid tested, Snuggle approved:

In business, you can be a spider or a rabbit. We weren’t sure which we were dealing with until today.

Micah received an urgent call from his boss last month, while we were still in Massachusetts. A promotion had opened up, and he was the only person in the district who met all of the qualifications to be eligible for an interview. To make a long story short, he went through the entire process: An interview with the district manager, and then the regional manager. The regional manager shook his hand and said, “You’re the guy.” I had never seen Micah so proud. It looked like all of his hard work over the years would finally be rewarded.

I can’t tell you how many times he went to work on his day off because someone else called out. We were startled by phone calls in the middle of the night from the alarm company, and he had to drive to work to check everything. He also went to other locations to train new employees and turn things around before an annual audit or inventory. His boss took a sudden (and lengthy) leave of absence last year, and he was put in charge (minus the compensation). You get the point. My husband is very dedicated to his job, and I am so proud of him.

Micah waited to get the salary offer letter from the corporate office’s compensation department. We had worked the numbers and knew how much he needed to make. He would need to work 60 hours a week (sometimes more), and he would be 60 miles from home. It had to be worthwhile, beyond just the status symbol. Then, the call came. The offer was not too far from what he wanted, but it was disappointing. Micah’s boss advised him to remind the DM of what he wanted, and then wait it out. They would make a counter offer.

I thought it would go something like this:

Instead…

The DM translated Micah’s response as “I don’t want the job” and started interviewing candidates outside of the company. By the time the recommended “waiting period” was over, he had lost his chance. It was so disappointing. I could tell Micah was kicking himself, but there was nothing he could do about it.

The DM called Micah, and said he would be offered the position again if it didn’t work out with the other candidate. In the meantime, he would make sure he would be compensated for all of his hard work. Micah brushed off those words.

Micah’s annual review was submitted today, and his pay letter outlined his raise based on the score. He received the highest score possible, along with a merit raise. This is nearly unheard of in this company! It’s a 22% increase, to be precise. He may still end up getting the promotion, but in the meantime, this is huge for us! I had been praying about this situation for so long. Apparently, God really doesn’t close a door without opening a window (a picture window, in this case).

As it turns out, they aren’t all scurvy little spiders. Some are more like this guy:

Seriously, I’m surprised they haven’t tried to climb in through a window or something (the rabbits, not the corporate guys. That would be scary).

Our baby girl is one year old!

We had a party earlier this month, but decided to wait until we were home to have the (very messy) first cake experience. I made it myself! Everyone loved it.

She devoured her slice of cake! It was so cute.

I am so grateful for Lily. I can’t imagine life without her! She is the sweetest baby I have ever seen. She stops playing and crawls over to us every few minutes, looking for a hug (she loves to cuddle). I love watching her grow and learn new things every day. She has started to play with her siblings more, and Will has learned to be a wonderful big brother. Our family is complete!

I finished Lily’s video just in time! We keep photos and videos private, but the “first year video” has always been a special exception (you can also watch the videos for Molly and Mia and William).

We saw Lily’s birthday greeting on TV this morning:

Happy first birthday Lily!

I have been working on a video for our tenth anniversary, which is in September. I imported most (about 80%, I’d say) of the footage we’ve accumulated since we got married. Some of the mini DVDs from our old camcorder were never “finalized”, so I need to do that (worst type of camcorder ever, by the way). I ran out of hard drive space! I am down to only 6GB. I bought a 2TB NAS drive. Transfer is slower than I expected, but that will be fine once I am done with the initial backup. I was afraid to delete anything from my computer until I was sure I had reliable backup, so this is supplemental to my portable hard drive. (Ten Years Later, I still can’t keep all of my videos in one place.) Hours of editing and a few crashes later, it rendered successfully. I was working with an old version of Sony Vegas that I borrowed from a friend. I still don’t want to spend the money on some good video editing software!

Anyway, while I was trying to put this together, Micah told me that he was done with our song. He had mentioned a while ago that he wanted to write a song for our anniversary. I didn’t know he had actually finished it. He wrote a song for me when we were dating, but that was twelve years ago! I was really excited to hear the new one. I adjusted my video to match the song. We both love the way it turned out, and the kids keep singing the song. It’s so cute. I was going to wait until September to post it, but I can’t! This is uberversary, after all.

I feel so loved. Seriously. People may think this is the corniest thing ever, but this is us. I married my best friend. ♥