Missing Month (Part Two)

Okay, I must finish writing about the month of JUNE before we head into AUGUST! I know, can you believe it?! Where is the summer going?!
For starters, the end of June was a bit happier than the first. Why, you ask? JEFF COMPLETED HIS FIVE-YEAR UROLOGIC SURGERY RESIDENCY AT UNC! Quite an accomplishment, if you can't tell :-) I really can't put into words how proud I am of him. With great success, he completed a grueling year as a surgery intern, then four years of all things urology...responsible for hundreds of patients (and several residents during his chief year!) and maybe just as many surgeries. And on top of that we traveled the road of infertility (aka, a very difficult time in our marriage), then traveled the road of international adoption (successfully!), and were even forced to live apart for brief intervals during years four and five, due to work positions and other circumstances. Whoa. Although difficult at times, God has been gracious and merciful to us during the past five years of residency. Our marriage is stronger, and our love for one another is greater. And Jeff, well~he's simply amazing. After long hours at the hospital (and sometimes from home!) almost every day for the past five years, he has been an incredible husband to me and father to Judah. On days when I didn't think any human being could possibly stand on their feet and work any longer, he still managed to come home and help with household chores, spend quality time with me, give Judah a bath and rock him "night-night"~all after a hard day's work. This is truly worth celebrating, and that we did in June!

The Man of the Hour

Guess I should mention that we didn't get all fancy just for ourselves. There was a formal dinner/roast the evening of his "graduation." We had so much fun celebrating with everyone in the Urology Department! The next morning, we enjoyed a smaller, more casual brunch with Jeff's family.

Standing in one of our favorite spots in Chapel Hill (in front of the Carolina Inn :-)

Continuing the celebration and wrapping up the weekend was Father's Day. It was awesome to have Jeff's father with us that weekend, too, as we got to celebrate together. However, if I'm being totally honest it was sort of a stressful day, as we found out with less than 48 hours notice that our moving company would be meeting us at our storage sheds the following Monday morning to load up our things and head to DC. Yes, did I mention that on that Sunday NOTHING in our storage sheds (you are reading that correctly, we had multiple sheds) was ready to load on a truck the following day?! (i.e., not sorted or in appropriate boxes, labeled correctly, no decisions made on what furniture needed to be sold vs. stored vs. moved to DC, etc). Fun times. You could tell the day was stressful, as evidenced by the ONE photo I took of Judah and his amazing father. At least it's a good one :-)

Dear Jeff and Pop: We would like to publicly apologize for the crazy stressfulness that was Father's Day 2011. We will certainly make it up to you in 2012 :-)
Love, Judah and Ginger

And wrapping up the month in full force was a move across states and up north to Washington, DC. Ahhh! Almost too much for one family to handle in one month! All things considered, it went pretty well. The actual day we moved (and about 3 days following) were some of the hardest days we've encountered. Word to the wise: never move with a toddler! Baby, okay. Preschooler, somewhat better. Older child, definitely better. But never a toddler! Judah was great, but just assumed everything (the boxes, tape, clutter, trash) was just one big playground...not to mention the fact that he had an altered eating and sleep schedule for a few days...in a new environment, none the less!  We could not have done it without the help of Grandma and Pop, so a HUGE thanks to Judah's grandparents for helping to make it happen!

Well, that's all folks. I've now caught you up to July, where we have one happy DC baby!!!