Some Updates

Natalie wearing my sweater from when I was her age.  Also notice her huge shoes!

The month of February is interview season in Taylor's program (The Institute of Advanced Analytics at NC State).  He doesn't have any classes and instead will spend most of his time applying and interviewing for jobs.  Roughly 50 companies will come to the university to interview the 78 students in the program.  Taylor will likely have roughly 20 interviews, based on the companies he has selected to interview with and which companies will want to interview him.  Taylor is also applying to companies and positions beyond what the Institute is sponsoring.  He currently is hoping to integrate his knowledge of natural resource economics in to his next job, and as such, has created an LLC called Resource Informatics.  This enables him to do consulting work right now while also protecting him legally.

*Oh yes, and I did forget to mention the winner of the best "party favor" from a company...That would be the strawberry-scented pen from Smuckers.  Nothing better than smelling strawberries while you're writing the grocery list!

You can pray for us as we enter yet another season of decision-making.  We are looking forward to having options on the table instead of unknowns.  While we don't yet know where we will live or what Taylor might be doing, we are hopeful that we will know by the middle of March.

Life in Raleigh has been good.  We are so thankful that we have found a church that we are excited about, called Church of the Apostles (http://apostles-raleigh.org).  This church is the same denomination as the church we attended while at Wheaton, although the feel of it is quite different!  We are still getting used to church being such a formal affair, which is how many of the churches we have visited have been.  We are planning on becoming more involved, but it is a little hard to dive in when we may (or may not) leave Raleigh in five months.



Back to Taylor...he is working so hard, and he is really impressing the socks off the staff in the program.  I'm so proud of his ability to work so hard and stay so focused.  He is also being a fantastic dad at the same time...I really don't know how he does it.  That said, I am really looking forward to us being able to spend more time together in May!!

Natalie continues to be such a joy.  She is hard to keep up with and seems to have much more energy than her peers, but she is also very smart and loves her books and learning new words.  Some days she has a serious momma attachment, and I love it...unless I'm trying to make dinner!



This is a video of Natalie enjoying her new toy from Nana.  It's long, but the first minute is really what's most adorable.