Saturday, May 19, 2012

Josh's big news

We've been slacking on the blog...it's so hard to find the time!

The big news of this post is that Josh got a new job! He's going to be the Operations Manager at The Marketing Department , a marketing firm here in Houghton. In fact, its offices are downtown, just a few blocks from our house. He had applied for a different job there a year or two ago, and that didn't pan out. But a couple weeks ago on a random Wednesday night, the owner of the company called him and said they wanted to hire him for this manager job! He hadn't even applied for it or anything. So of course we are super excited. Although Josh appreciated his job at Halonen Lawn and Landscaping, it was definitely time to move on from the manual labor - and actually use his marketing degree, to boot! He starts mid-June.

The other good news of the post is that we think Willow's GI issues have been improving, just a little. I hate to even put it down on the blog in case I jinx it, but over the past month or so, her poop has become a little more normal, most of the time. Still not 100% normal, but better. So we've been dragging our feet on starting this new diet her doctor recommended, in hopes that maybe we won't have to do it. I don't know...there's obviously something not right in her gut, and I am sure the diet would help her, but it's so daunting. We may just implement parts of this diet...we'll see. In the meantime, I've been excited to get texts like the one Linda sent me yesterday at work: "It's a perfect poop day!"

We've had a lot of spring fun lately. Last weekend we went canoeing, for the first time since we've had Willow! She even went swimming in Lake Perrault. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos. But here are some other photos.

Two weekends ago, we went to Hastings to celebrate Josh's Grandma Eva's 90th birthday.For some reason we didn't get any photos of Willow and Eva. But we did get some of Willow and her other Great-Grandmma, Lois (or as she prefers to be called, "GG".

















We went out to brunch at a nice restaurant with a bunch of the Ethen relatives. We had our own separate room away from the rest of the diners, which was great because the kids could play without disturbing anyone. Here's Willow with her second-cousins, Afton and Natalie.

















And playing hopscotch with Natalie in Grandma Eva's back yard.

















With auntie Janna:























And here she is in our yard last week.

In our hammock:


















Helping with the yardwork. Great-Grandpa Zip made this wheelbarrow.


















Enjoying some real ice cream. We stopped the dairy-free diet; can't remember if I mentioned that before.





















Happy 10th birthday to Scouty!