The Annual Luncheon

We had our annual Employee Appreciation Lunch today, where they served us yummy chicken parmesan, steamed green beans almondine, pasta and snicker cheesecake.   This is the luncheon where we get a gift from the company (a nice automatic umbrella) and someone is appointed “Employee of the Year”.

My friend was appointed.  I was quite excited for her.  She’s been with the company for 30 years.

I was gone from work for 4 hours between setting up and having lunch.  It made the day go really fast.

Not a bad day, really.  :D

Plus I got to come home to my amazing husband and little kid.   It doesn’t get better than that.  :D

A Year Ago Tomorrow

.. was when I was leaving the UK to come home and file our fiance visa. Somehow, 1/2 an Ambien and knowing Ian was coming to America to stay made leaving a bit easier.

April 1 is the anniversary of our filing of the fiance visa. Gathering all the information together was a nightmare, especially while we were 6 hours apart. It really helped that Ian and I were together last March.. filling out forms, digging up supporting evidence of various things and photocopying what we needed. It would have been a long, drawn-out nightmare otherwise.

And here we are… married, legal residents, just filed our taxes and able to do stuff together after a long 7-month separation.

It’s happy and symbiotic.

Swimming Gone Swimmingly

TLK started swimming lessons again this morning after around a year hiatus.  She’s in level 4, where she has to swim required strokes the whole length of the pool.

I was worried at first.   I mean, she IS a fish, but all those summer days in the sparkling pools didn’t actually require too much work on her strokes… just a lot of  jumping in the pool and diving to the bottom of the pool for various things.

Some of her classmates struggled with the first stroke: the crawl stroke.   They stopped 1/4 of the way down the lane for help with the stroke, but they were doing what I would expect a person to do after being off lessons for 6 months.

TLK’s turn came up and she was down the lane in a matter of seconds.  We were so excited.  I was so pleased, I cried a bit.  I’m soppy that way.

She can’t wait to use the diving boards.   I have a suspicion she may actually have to dive off one instead of jumping off.   That will be exciting, too.  :)

Morning conversations

On the way to be dropped off this morning, TLK said, “Mom? What are your plans for my life?” I snickered a bit, thinking, “She doesn’t know she’ll be in charge of her life entirely, eventually.”

My response: “What are MY plans? What are YOUR plans for your life?”

Where she started talking about various things she’d like to do, including owning her own pet shop.

We talked about university and business degrees that would teach her how to manage people and money. (I’m required to mention university, right?)

Very cool 10 minute conversation. :)