Catching Up

Well, as most of you know, we recently moved from our home in Morgantown, WV to Baltimore, MD. It has taken us a great deal to complete the move and begin to get settled. I stress the word begin, because we are far from being settled. We are just now getting to the point of being caught up. The move has turned our lives upside down, but we are managing. We thought this would be a good time to update everyone on how we are doing and what we are doing.

The Family - The move has been extremely disruptful to our "normal" routine. We started out in our new home without phone and internet, but luckily those have been installed. We are still living without cable and hopefully will have that installed before Thanksgiving. Verizon is currently wiring for FIOS in our community as we write this. The installation of FIOS is suppose to be completed by the end of next week.

One of the great thing to come out of the move has been the elimination of the Risk family's debt. With exception of student loans (Lori's are paid off this month) and about six months of car payments on the Honda, we have been able to pay off all of our debt.

We are planning a weekend get away this coming weekend since we did not get a real vacation this year. Holiday plans are up in the air because Lori will not have accumulated enough time off to be away for long.

Jim - I have started graduate school at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) in pursuit of my Master's degree in History. As many of you know, the path to graduate school was very stressful and at times seemed hopeless. After applying to 10 different schools, I ended up enrolling in the 11th as a non-degree seeking student. I have applied to the formal progrma for a Spring 2010 admission and I am currently taking two classes which will apply to my degree. This was the best option for me without "losing time" considering the course that transpired. I have some how managed an A in both classes to this point, but the one class has not had any real assignments yet. In January, I will take on a full course load and over the summer hope to complete an internship and take a class at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut that will transfer back to UMBC for credit towards my degree.

Lori - Lori has started her new job as an Occupational Therapist at Harbor Hospital on the southside. The commute is a little longer than we expected, but the hours are good. The job is still too new to know whether she will truly like it our not. It will take four to six months to really get to know how she feels about it. Lori's job is less stressful, but more physically challenging.

James - James has had a rougher time with the move than we expected. When we first moved, James was constantly asking to "go home". He has accepted that Baltimore is his new home, but he misses his friend Morgan a great deal. This evening when we were looking at desks at Office Depot, James saw a Christmas teddy bear and said it looked like Morgan.

A big part of the transition was that the daycares here would not take James before he turned two years old. James had almost four weeks from the time we moved until he was able to start daycare again. One of those weeks was spent with Grandma and Grandpa in Pittsburgh, and the other three with Daddy at home. James is definitely a child of structure, and the lack of structure really made it rough for him. Since starting daycare, James has become more settled both at school and at home. He enjoys being near Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathy and he enjoys his new school.

James has begun speaking in sentences, and can now recite "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" word for word. He is fascinated by the moon and the stars and seeks them out every night after dark. James also is fascinated by the sirens of firetrucks and ambulances. James' daycare had a visit from the fire department (no, not for a fire) and he really enjoyed seeing the firetruck up close.

James' class has also gone on a field trip to a local farm and pumpkin patch. He had so much fun, he fell sleep on his teacher on the hayride. One of the worse things about starting daycare has been the germs. As to be expected, James has become sick over the last two days. He has a horrible cough, and starting running a slight fever last night, but is otherwise doing fine.

James has taken to drawing a great deal and is constantly asking for a pen to "write" with. He believes that everything belongs to him and has become very possessive of things. On a recent trip for ice cream, we bought James soft serve vanilla because we thought he would do better with it. Daddy got a scoop of blueberry and Mommy got a scoop of chocolate carmel. James tasted Daddy's ice cream and then took it from Daddy. When James was told that it was Daddy's ice cream, James said, "No! James' ice cream", prompting Daddy to let James have the ice cream and go get another scoop for himself.

Socks & Shadow - Socks and Shadow have shown the greatest amount of adaptation to their new environment. They seem to have had no ill effects from the move and have made themselves at home.

Our Home - Our home has been downsized by at least 150 square feet. While that may not sound like much, it has been rather difficult to find space for all of our stuff. In fact, we had to get rid of a lot of stuff prior to moving and had let a few things go since we moved. (In addition, our computer died in the move prompting us to convert from the PC to the MAC.) The real problem is not the square footage as much as it is that we lost two full rooms, a basement and the garage. We have had to combine our den with our bedroom and the guest bedroom with James' nursery. Our living room is about 80% complete, but our dining room has become our storage room. We are still "unpacking", and hope to have that complete by the holidays.

We apologize for how long it has taken us to update this blog. Please bear with us as we continue the adjustment to our new home. Hopefully we will be able to keep up to date better now that we are starting to get settled.