Saturday, April 27, 2013

Chairman's Award 2012

0 comments
This year A.R. was rewarded for all the hours and hard work he's put in at the office. It came completely unexpected and just at the right time to solidify he's made the right decisions with his career. He is now a recipient of a 2012 Chairman's Award from the company we work for. It's the highest award our company has. Words can't describe how proud of him and his teammates I am.

The gala was held at the Pequet Museum and we got to stay overnight at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods. It was a wonderful evening and nice to get away for a night to be spoiled and treated like red carpet guests (literally- there was a red carpet and cameras and video everywhere!). It was our first night away from E, but he did great and it wasn't as hard on me as it was to leave M for the first time.

I got a high five and a hug from our CEO's wife and we got to meet a lot of executives in the company including our CEO, some Presidents of various areas within the company, and the chief actuary (who sat at our table). We got to even see some of them break it down on the dance floor! It was a great night and we felt totally spoiled complete with a gift basket in our room and night time chocolates, too. Congratulations to all the winners!!



















Tuesday, April 16, 2013

And Then There Was Life...

0 comments
I can't believe I haven't posted on here since December.  I think about writing posts often, but just never quite get here to do it.  I even have pictures saved on my phone to make it easier to upload (via the Blogger app) that I want to share here and just haven't yet.  I'm not even sure if I have any readers left, but alas this also serves as a diary for me so I'm going to make an attempt to get better at posting again.  It won't be everyday, but hopefully once or twice a week is a feasible goal.

Contemplating
What has happened that's kept me from my sharing?  Not in any particular order: the boy child became mobile, I started a new job, M turned THREE, and I got surprised with 1st trimester fatigue.  YES!  3.0 is on the way...more about that to come in another post if I keep my promise to post regularly.  Alas, I'm now settled into my new job role, E is a boy on the go not to be deterred from his mission of movement, M's birthday party was a success, and the 1st trimester fatigue is finally fading.

Valentine's day love- 2013
I'll try to start at the beginning- on December 3rd, I left my comfort zone in a role in Reinsurance Accounting that I had for 6 years and joined our Reinsurance IT team as a Business Analyst.  I'm still in Reinsurance with the same company and I still work with a lot of my old teammates, but it's a whole new spin on things for me.  I'm no longer doing accounting production work and have entered the field of IT.  I am part of the IT team that supports the Reinsurance accounting system that our company uses, so I still use my accounting knowledge and my background as a business (production) user of the system for the past 6 years has been invaluable in my new role so far.
Not the best shot I have, but he sleeps with his butt in the air.

My new role has been very eye opening as to how company budget, contracts with vendors, time constraints, and a whole slew of other aspects effect what I used to see as a front-end user.  I think this role will help turn me into the ultimate Reinsurance guru for our company.  I'm hopeful for my future in this new role and what is to come.  I'm also very fortunate that my new boss allowed me to keep my 80% flex schedule.  Part of why I stayed in my old role so long was because I feared losing my 4-day work week.  I'm so relieved that wasn't the case for me.  The only down fall of my new role has been a change in office location for me.  I am no longer located in the same building as A.R., so we can't commute together and while I am closer to home, I'm farther from daycare.  It's been an adjustment to say the least.  A month or so ago we did learn that our company is actually closing and selling the location I am currently in, so I might just end up back where I started or at our other CT location that is even closer to home and would make the daycare juggle so much easier.  Of course the whole move could take up to two years, but at least I know my current work location is just temporary.

They love each other. <3>

I think the next event in my little time line was the introduction of 1st trimester fatigue.  I won't go into the details in this post, but it hit me like a mac track, a ton of bricks, and a bolt of lightening all at once.  I'm just now coming out of it and it's a huge relief.  The nausea didn't help, either.  In the middle of the fatigue, E started crawling on March 10th!  He quickly (like in less than 24 hours) went from tentative first crawling movements to full on "youputhimdownandheisalreadyintheotherroom" speeds.  A few weeks after he mastered his crawling, he started pulling up on furniture and cruising.  M is none to pleased at times with her brother's newfound mobility and ever expanding arm's reach, but at other moments I think she LOVES that she can play with him more now and seeing the two of them bent over their latest toy obsession together melts my heart every.single.time.

Baby 3.0
Shortly after our boy child became mobile, our beautiful girl had something called a birthday?!?  This (of course) entailed a princess party and being the smart, exhausted woman I am- I convinced A.R. to have it out of our home this year.  We had enrolled M in MyGym classes back in January and she LOVES it there, so we decided to have her party there.  Bonus: our five nephews would also love the gym and party play time.  The party was a huge success and a hit with all her cousins and young friends.  It was SO much easier having the party outside of our home and almost makes us wonder if we should consider it for E's 1st birthday. (Yes!  It's actually already in the works...he's 10 1/2 months old now ::sniff:: and we have to plan for out-of-state visistors for it.)

So, that's a basic recap of us since December.  I did omit some things like the stomach bug we all got (except E) on Christmas day that left us scarred for life and both 5-10 lbs lighter.  Thank heavens for my brother who was staying with us that week or we would've surely been up sh*t creek (lol, get it?!).  Okay, enough chatter...time to add some photos and post. I apologize they aren't the latest as I'm almost out of room on Photobucket and haven't decided what to do about that yet.