Launch to summer

Well, we're busy again.  But in a different way, I guess.  Mike started a full-time job in April, teaching in a charter school in Pittsburgh whose mission is 100% college acceptance for its kids (who otherwise may not usually be college-bound).  I don't think he originally saw himself in such an urban environment, but so far he seems to really like it.  And it's been good for him, post-school, to be back in the full-time job world.  It has also changed our routines again.  Now he drops Eytan and Li'el off at daycare early, and I stay home with Oren, doing meals and laundry and goat grazing, and then try to get some work done whenever Oren naps (and again at night).  In the early afternoon, Oren and I go pick the other kids up at daycare, and Mike gets home either before dinner (3 days a week) or after dinner but before bedtime (2 days a week).  We'll see how it all goes when my semester starts in fall and I get busier again (but presumably will have time to work without a baby in tow).... meanwhile, with current daycare no longer near Mike's work, we're doing a bit too much daycare-driving, so we're searching for places either closer to work or closer to home.  We'll see how it all evolves.

Meanwhile, the longer term goal is to try and keep, inasmuch as possible, my work more balanced than it was last fall (so far I have not been terribly successful, but I'll try again), and to appreciate the really interesting parts of it without going nuts; and for Mike to get some more teaching experience under his belt... and then maybe, if we can, make an escape back to somewhere more like our old canyon, with perhaps less exciting job (at least for me) but hopefully greater quality of life, in a more "off the beaten track" sort of way.

April and May saw visits from Grandma and Grandpa and from Safta, Great-George, Unc, and Rafi.  Here are a bunch of pictures from their visits (including Lieli's second birthday!)

 

 

 

And looking ahead, we've made some, well, very incremental progress towards a less crazy summer than the last few... We did not succeed in our original goal of staying put all summer, but at least instead of leaving for the entire summer, we'll just come and go -- to Minnesota for a week in May (for a wedding), to upstate New York for a long weekend in June (for a wedding), to Washington state for two weeks in July (for my research grant), and to Costa Rica for two weeks in August (I'm teaching a class there).  Updates to come, I'm sure.