Family, Celebrations, and New Jobs
Both my husband and I took last Friday off from work. We each had different reasons though. I took off to help my mom finish up the last minute stuff for my sister's graduation party. He took off to go on a second interview with an insurance broker in NYC. Well, they offered him a position with a huge salary increase. He accepted and will be starting on the 19th. I'm so happy for him...and for us. Because of his increase, it will be a lot less stressful when the baby is born. I don't get paid maternity leave, so we were kind of stressing on how we were going to make the 12 weeks on one salary. Now, it won't be such a big issue. Plus, this a huge career step for him. He's been looking for a new job for more than 2 years. I can't even count how many interviews he's been on, but this was the first opportunity that was worth taking. The good thing about his new job is that his office is about 10 blocks from mine. I'll have a commuting partner! No more sitting next to smelly people on the train, just my husband...and I'm used to him.
Friday was a good day for other reasons as well. It was our 5th wedding anniversary. We went to a great restaurant in New Brunswick called Nova Terra. Our friends had their wedding reception there a couple years ago and the food was very good. We always said we wanted to go back for their regular menu, but it's a bit pricey and we just never seemed to get around to it. But, since we had a lot to celebrate that night, we decided to go for it. We had a great dinner and a really nice night. I still can't believe it's been 5 years. I can't say it's always been easy or it's been all good times. We've been through a lot, but it has always been stuff around us or things out of our control. No matter what, we've always been good. I honestly think that some of the hard times we dealt with over the last few years really made us stronger. Not to be too sappy or anything.
Anyway, Sunday was my sister's graduation party. I was expecting a fiasco, but was pleasantly surprised that everything went better than planned. There are always issues when dealing with family, especially trying to get them all together at the same place at the same time and making them all pretend they like each other. Some of the relatives we haven't seen in probably 20 years because of one family feud or another. But, it all worked out and everyone seemed to have a good time. I was also concerned about the traveling. Since my grandma was throwing the party, it was held at a country club near her house at the Jersey Shore. I thought for sure that the traffic would be horrible...a Sunday night in June trying to go north on the Garden State Parkway usually isn't a lot of fun. But, the weather hasn't been fantastic with lots of thunderstorms, so I think a lot of people decided to stay home. Fine by me, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in hours of traffic to get home.
Friday was a good day for other reasons as well. It was our 5th wedding anniversary. We went to a great restaurant in New Brunswick called Nova Terra. Our friends had their wedding reception there a couple years ago and the food was very good. We always said we wanted to go back for their regular menu, but it's a bit pricey and we just never seemed to get around to it. But, since we had a lot to celebrate that night, we decided to go for it. We had a great dinner and a really nice night. I still can't believe it's been 5 years. I can't say it's always been easy or it's been all good times. We've been through a lot, but it has always been stuff around us or things out of our control. No matter what, we've always been good. I honestly think that some of the hard times we dealt with over the last few years really made us stronger. Not to be too sappy or anything.
Anyway, Sunday was my sister's graduation party. I was expecting a fiasco, but was pleasantly surprised that everything went better than planned. There are always issues when dealing with family, especially trying to get them all together at the same place at the same time and making them all pretend they like each other. Some of the relatives we haven't seen in probably 20 years because of one family feud or another. But, it all worked out and everyone seemed to have a good time. I was also concerned about the traveling. Since my grandma was throwing the party, it was held at a country club near her house at the Jersey Shore. I thought for sure that the traffic would be horrible...a Sunday night in June trying to go north on the Garden State Parkway usually isn't a lot of fun. But, the weather hasn't been fantastic with lots of thunderstorms, so I think a lot of people decided to stay home. Fine by me, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in hours of traffic to get home.