Transition

Part of the reason I've fallen so behind on blogging lately is that aside from the fact that we've just had a lot going on, I've also been working through a significant personal transition.  After 13 years at Aramark, and a lot of accomplishments I'm really proud of, I decided to make a change.

I have been thinking about looking at other jobs for a while now--I'm commuting 80 miles round trip each day, which is sometimes up to 3 hours of my day.  It means Em has to get up at 5:45 in the morning so I can drop her off at school and sit in traffic to get to the office.  In the afternoons, I'd sometimes leave at 4:30 and call Mick almost 2 hours later because I wasn't going to make it to pick Em up by 6:30 when Rainbow Station closed.  He adjusted his schedule so he was picking her up most days, but it meant he had to drive home, switch trucks (his work van doesn't have a back seat for her car seat), and go back to the school.  I knew I wanted to find something else by the time Em started kindergarten in a year and a half.

Honestly though, I was kind of used to the commute, and that obviously wouldn't have been reason enough to leave somewhere after so long.  The organization was going through a number of changes, and after our HRVP's position was eliminated in October, I didn't feel like my team was going to receive the support or resources we needed to be successful.  I could go into a lot more detail, but that's not the point of this blog.

In early December, I decided to look at MetLife.  There had been recent announcements locally that they were relocating their Retail Headquarters to the Ballantyne area of Charlotte, and I started researching the company.  The more I read, the more I liked, so I looked at their job postings.  I applied for a position, and got a call from the hiring HRVP the Friday before Christmas.  We had a good conversation, and he asked me about coming in for interviews in January.  Long story short--after six interviews, I got the offer (while at a Leadership Summit with Aramark in Vegas, of all places!).  Mick and I had talked about it, and I already had requirements in mind that they'd have to meet in order for me to leave Aramark.  Surprisingly, we didn't even negotiate on the offer--they met my requirements, and I accepted the job.

My last day at Aramark was February 24, and it was really emotional!  Last Friday night, a group of us went out for drinks after work to celebrate together--and that's what made it a tough decision.  We've worked hard to build a great team, and I know that's not something you find easily.

So this week, after leaving on Monday, I took a few days to myself to clear my head and get ready to move on--it was nice to have that time, and I wish I could have taken more!

Friday afternoon, I picked Em up early from school and we went to have frozen yogurt.  I showed her where my "new work" will be, and she said it was so close, that she could see me any time she wanted!  It's literally about a mile from Em's school, and shortens my commute from 80 miles a day to about 12.

We're hoping this will be a significant improvement in quality of life for us!

We also signed Em up for a new gymnastics class at The Little Gym, which opened recently in Ballantyne. She had a free introductory class, and loved it so much that we enrolled that night.  It's more than just tumbling and running around--they actually practice on the balance beam, uneven parallel bars, rings, and all kinds of stuff.  The class is once weekly on Tuesday nights, so she's already looking forward to it! 

One wall of the gym is a huge window, so parents can sit and watch the class.  We're looking forward to having this extra time together each day to do things like this--or to just get home earlier!

Zoo Day

The weather was beautiful on Saturday, so we decided to make a trip to Columbia to the zoo.  It started out a little chilly, even when we got there around lunch time, but we ended up in short sleeves before we left late that afternoon.

I'm not sure how I ended up with no pictures of the animals--believe it or not, I actually forgot my camera, and ended up only taking pictures on my phone.  I still need to have my good camera repaired, and haven't fallen in love with the smaller stand-in yet, so it's easier to forget.

Em had a great time on the train, and made some new friends easily--she decided she was grown up enough to ride by herself when she found out she wouldn't have to wait as long in line for a spot on the train!

She's a huge fan of horses and pony rides, and always asks if we can have a horse after she rides.

I remember wanting a horse when I was younger, so I think it's neat that she's so crazy about them.

There are a lot of statues and sculptures, and these are a huge hit with her.

She loved the lions!

Okay, so we did get one picture of animals, but you can barely see these giraffes!

I think this is a cool picture--it looks like they're having a conversation :).

She loves all of the big cats--it's a good thing she can't get close to the real ones, or she'd probably try to climb on them too.

And as always, the carousel is a must-ride attraction!

She wasted no time at all falling asleep as soon as we got in the car to head home.  With all the winter weather we've had, it felt great to get outside in the sun, but all the walking around wears her out!

Back to a normal weekend

Last weekend was our first normal weekend since coming back from Disney--it's really hard to follow a trip like that with expectations of grocery shopping, household chores, and hanging around the house, but Em managed just fine.  Or I guess I should say, Princess Jasmine helped with folding clothes as they came out of the dryer :).  Em is really getting great at folding, and she loves to help.  Her specialties are socks and washcloths.

I saw online that Frozen--the singalong version--was still playing in theaters, so we decided to go see it.  If you can't tell, Em is wearing her Rapunzel dress and performing right along with Elsa.

It was a great time--the words to all of the songs were on the screen, but the funny thing was that most of the kids singing weren't even old enough to read (nor do they need to see the words at this point)!

The best stuff about snow days...

The week of Valentine's Day, we had more snow--and this time, it was a pretty big deal.  On Tuesday, the weather forecasters predicted things would start, so I left work early and picked up Em around 3pm.  It started snowing lightly that evening, and by Wednesday it was coming down nonstop, so we all three stayed home.

So we took advantage of the best things about snow days--making brownies in our pjs, 

and sampling the batter, of course...

making projects like these cool masks for each other,

and playing in the snow (but even better than that--drinking hot chocolate with plenty of marshmallows).

Mick decided he thought his lawn mower would double as a four-wheeler, so he got it out of the driveway,

but not much further.  Em and I were laughing, and when I told him what I was doing, Em of course repeated me in her own way by saying "Daddy, you're stuck and we're putting you on Facebook!"

Em finally got her snowman!  This one also had a smaller friend that I didn't get a picture of--it was so cold for several days in a row that they survived a while!

By Friday, temperatures warmed up quite a bit, and we were all planning on getting back to our routines, but Em's school was closed still, so Mick went to work and Em and I stayed home.  I can at least work from home if I'm here, but Mick can't do everything he needs to from home, so it's a pretty easy decision for us.

That afternoon, we checked out our melting snowman, and this is Em trying to reattach his carrot nose!

Friday of course was Valentine's Day, and we hadn't been able to get out of the house to get what we wanted for Daddy, so we ventured out that afternoon to get a monster chocolate chip cookie and some cake mix to make cupcakes. The roads were still really icy in some places, so I was glad we stayed home.  Em also picked out some flowers for herself, and Mick brought some home for both of us, so our house was pretty festive for a few days :)!

The End of Our Disney Vacation

On Friday, we had a late breakfast reservation at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian.  We checked out of our hotel, got the car packed up and drove over to the hotel.  It was another chilly morning!

The lobby was beautiful, and Em felt like a princess at the piano under the huge chandelier.

Honestly, this was probably the only time all week when we were slightly disappointed (Mick and me, but not Em).  The food was just okay, and the restaurant was older and felt a little run-down.  Granted, it's 1900 Park Fare, so we didn't expect anything state of the art, but it didn't quite compare to Chef Mickey's the day before.  We weren't sure which characters we'd see, but I read that Cinderella's wicked stepmother might be there, and Em was really hoping to see her.

We didn't see the stepmother, but Em was excited about Mary Poppins!

And Alice, who showed her the proper way to hold a cup of tea,

and she checked out Em's curtsy.

The Mad Hatter was there too, and he and Em had quite the conversation!

We also saw Pooh and Tigger again!

I think after such a fabulous week, our expectations were just high--if we had started with this, it would have been even better.

Plus, we were all a little sad that we had to leave.  After breakfast, we went over to Downtown Disney for a little shopping, and Em first wanted to go in the Lego store.

It was such a cold, rainy day that she enjoyed playing inside for a while.

And at another store, she got to play with Mr. Potato Head dolls.

We didn't stay too long when it started to rain harder--we headed to Brunswick to Mick's parents' house. Our original plan was to spend the night with them and go home Saturday morning, but we ended up resting for a couple of hours, eating dinner, and getting back on the road around 8:00.  That made for a late night, but we got home around 1:00 AM and went straight to bed.  We knew we'd be glad to be at home on Saturday morning after a long week, and Em said she missed her doggies :).

It should go without saying that our week was an incredible vacation!  Em is already asking when we can go back--and we're trying to help her understand this isn't something we can do every other month :).

Disney Vacation - Day 5

On Thursday morning, we had 7:45 reservations at Chef Mickey's in our hotel.  Em was happy to just be able to roll out of bed, pull her hair back, and wear her Cinderella night gown to breakfast.  I can't get over what a big girl she looks like in this picture.

It was particularly exciting for Em, because this was the view when we walked out of our room every morning--she got so excited to look over the rail and see what characters we could spot!  All week, we talked about being able to eat at Chef Mickey's on Thursday, so she had really been looking forward to it.

One of the nice things about the character dining we did was that every time we arrived early, they were able to seat us early with almost no wait. 

There's a huge buffet of food, including Mickey waffles and a dessert bar.  Em could totally get used to a breakfast like this...then again, I guess we all could!  Luckily, they also had a great fruit spread, which she loved too.

 

The characters made their way around the dining area and spent time with each child individually--it made it tough for Em to focus on eating for long.  Mickey came first!

 Followed by Goofy,

then Pluto.  I'm disappointed that the pictures from Chef Mickey's were the only ones we had with Pluto--we met him at Epcot and had pictures taken by a Disney photographer, but they didn't show up with our pictures online for some reason.  For next time, I'll remember to always let the photographer take pictures with my camera too!  I did that almost everywhere else.

Minnie was a favorite because she loved Em's dress!

There's a part during each breakfast where they sing to all of the kids celebrating birthdays and bring them special desserts--during the song, they have everyone wave their napkins in the air.

Em loved that part!

Then Donald came around, and even though she'd been saying he was her favorite all morning, she told him they were ALL her favorite.  She had a tough time choosing favorites of anything all week, which was totally understandable--the whole trip was a favorite :).

It was our last day in the Magic Kingdom, but we still had things to do and characters to meet!  The weather took a cold turn, and luckily, I had packed jeans for Em and me, but we both bought long sleeved shirts. It was cloudy all day and didn't get above 60 degrees!  Much, much different than the 80+ days we had the beginning of the week.

We stopped by Princess Fairytale Hall to spend a few minutes with Cinderella, where she told Em something very surprising about her mouse friends.

Em was so interested in talking to every princess, and they seemed happy to chat about their stories and answer all of her questions.

After her turn with Cinderella and before her turn with Princess Aurora, she checked out this Snow White book.

Again, they were all either genuinely interested in all of her conversation, or they did a great job acting--maybe a little of both.  She does come up with some pretty interesting stuff sometimes.

I honestly don't remember what Sleeping Beauty asked Em to pinky swear to, but she spent most of the time with her still talking about Cinderella's mice.

We stopped for a snack and silly faces--Em kept her Jasmine gloves on most of the morning :).

We stood in a fairly short line to meet Buzz Lightyear, who was very cool.

He had a stamp for his autograph, and while we didn't get autographs from anyone else, Em decided she wanted one of his stamps.  It didn't print great, but it didn't matter that much to us, and Em thanked him and waved as we walked away.  We heard something running behind us, and turned around and Buzz had chased us down to give Em a perfect autograph stamp!

We left there and headed over to meet Merida from Brave.  Em has never even seen that movie, but knows who Merida (or Princess Brave, as Em calls her) is.  There was a pretty long line for her, but there was a place for the kids to color and play while they waited.

Em's connection with Merida was kind of remarkable since she's the princess she doesn't know well, but they were just in love with each other!

They hugged and hugged, and Merida gave Em several kisses on the forehead.  They talked about how they both had curly hair, and Em told her all about her bow and arrow.

It was really sweet to see them together--and once again, we were thoroughly impressed by the characters. Even her accent was spot on!

Last hugs before it was someone else's turn.

After pictures with Merida, each of the kids got to go down and try her bow and arrow. 

Em did a great job!

She met Chip and Dale right before we went to see the Country Bear Jamboree.  That was always one of the things I remembered from Disney, but it has been significantly downsized, and isn't quite what I remembered.  Em still liked the show since there are singing bears, but in comparison to all of the new shows they have, this one doesn't quite measure up anymore.

It rained on us a little while we waited in line to meet Woody and Jessie from Toy Story.  Em met a friend dressed as Ariel, and later couldn't even remember her name--only that she was Ariel.

They had a great time in line together, and Ariel luckily had an umbrella she shared with Em.

Em wasn't quite as excited about Woody and Jessie after she saw them, but that's also not one of her favorite movies, so we weren't surprised.

Yes, every time we passed the carousel, she took a ride!  LOVES IT!

We ate lunch and timed it just right to meet Princess Tiana.  She and Em talked all about the movie characters.

We headed back to the castle for another "Dream Along with Mickey" show, but because of the impending rain, they came out and did an abbreviated version of the show.

Em still was just as impressed when she saw all the characters come out :).

She had wanted one of these balloons all week, so we finally broke down and bought one.

And we took a picture with Minnie and Walt Disney.

It rained a little, on and off, as it started to get darker and everything lit up.

We were waiting for the parade!  We found a good spot under an awning and close to the park exit to watch.

Em met a friend beside us who gave her this light-up twirly, and Mick put her up on his shoulders for a great view.

The parade was really beautiful!  Tinker Bell started it out.

Even in the light rain, it was packed with people watching.

Peter Pan and Captain Hook!

Pete's Dragon, and there were lots more!  The parade was great, and it was a nice way to end our week. Just as it ended though, the sky opened up and it began to POUR down rain!  We were heading for the exit as soon as the last parade float passed us, but we still got caught in it.  Luckily, we put Em in the stroller and covered it with a plastic bag, so she stayed pretty dry and it allowed us to move faster.  We made it back to the monorail, soaked, and were pretty happy to get back to our room and out of the weather.