...whirlwind...part 1

That's what it has been. It's kinda difficult to sum-up the last month or so...perhaps a bulleted outline would better serve to effectively track all the changes and traveling we've done...but that's not very personal or creative is it?

We left for New York, with just Ethan, while Michael's parents took Noah for a couple days. It was fabulous getting to spend a few days with Matthew and Kerry at their place in Brooklyn. We did some exploring around their neighborhood in Ditmas Park, but one of the highlights of our time there was getting to see "In the Heights," a new(er) Broadway musical about the Latino neighborhood of Washington Heights, in upper Manhattan. See it if you can!! It was a welcome-home gift from them, accompanied by free babysitting for Ethan. Uncle Matt had some good bonding with his namesake while we had a night on the town - what a gift!!

Michael returned by red-eye train to Arlington, where he had two interviews for music teaching positions in both DC and Arlington. I stayed with Ethan and drove out to the Hamptons with Matthew and Kerry to be joined the following day by Michael, Noah, and his parents. It turned out that both interviews resulted in job offers, and Arlington (the district where he worked before Peru) gave him only an hour to decide whether or not to take it! So, we talked a lot by phone and decided, for various reasons, to take the job with a charter school in DC.

We were celebrating that weekend, grateful that a decision had been made, and excited to begin the adventure of living in the city. Then on Monday, while we were coming home from the beach, Michael got two messages within just a few minutes of each other. The first was from the charter school, notifying him that they couldn't officially offer him the job yet. The second was from Charlottesville City schools, who had initially turned him down, offering him a position at the elementary school level. As we were still driving, DC called again to officially offer him the Charter school job too.

SO, there we were, back to deciding again. Mom and Dad watched the boys while we went for a walk to talk things over. For many reasons, we decided to move to Charlottesville, Virginia although, we have not put moving back to DC (at some point) totally out of our minds.