Did you miss me?

No, I have not fallen off the face of the planet. No, the birthday cake did not eat me. I am still here, fear not. Barely moving, but still here. I have been going non-stop for over a week now and I'm finally ready to enjoy the next two weeks relaxing and having fun with my family. Before I head back to the real world.

Yep, you read right: I am headed back to work, kids. I am very excited about the future and am excited to see where it takes our family. For those of you who didn't know, I interviewed for two completely different positions for a few weeks: one was the assistant director at a new daycare opening up by our house and the other was a marketing coordinator/copywriter position at a fast growing software company. After many prayers, discussion and sleepless nights going back and forth, I decided to go with the software company. The idea of being in the same building as my daughter during the day seemed nice, but when you factored in the extremely low pay, long 12-hour days and not really being able to be with Dakota, it didn't look so pretty anymore. I start my new job Oct. 13 and the company seems very successful and very fun. I get my own office, incredible benefits for my entire family, 3 weeks of vacation and not to mention, beer stocked in the fridge, catered lunch and breakfast, games and fun people who a lot of kids of their own. We have been looking for a daycare (WHOOPS - scratch that - we are calling it "school") for a few weeks now and have toured a few places. We have it narrowed down to three schools where we feel very comfortable leaving Dakota for the day. The interaction with other children will be great for her and so will the stimulation. The schools we are looking at offer a curriculum based program in which the children learn as well as play to stimulate their little minds! We are very excited about that. The great thing about my new job is my boss is very flexible with my hours. He is pretty much leaving them up to me, so I'm hoping I can get in there fairly early in the morning so I can leave early in the afternoon to pick her up.

Although this was not the original plan when Dakota was born, I am happy with the way things are going and nothing is permanent. I hope that this will be great for everyone - we can have a little money to be able to go to the zoo with Dakota, I can get back into my career field and Dakota can make some new friends and learn new things in a safe, fun environment.

I will be posting pictures from the big party soon!