December

December was by far the biggest month of change the Mills family had seen in our two years of existence...

During the first couple of weeks, I worked hard to make sure I had everything packed up in my classrooms and that everything was prepared for whoever my principals chose to fill my spot. I quickly realized how attached I had become to my students after having many of them for multiple years.

Finally, it was almost moving day and I was lucky enough to have Daniel come home to help me with the final details and supervising the movers. It was so nice to not have to pack up anything and just watch someone else do it. If you know me, you know I'm not good at packing. I get very overwhelmed and tend to shut down. So, having someone else do it for me, was soooooooo nice!

Here's a picture of us in front of the moving truck.

As you can tell, Andy was more than a little confused as to what was going on!

The next day, we started our journey north with a quick trip to Nashville to see my parents and meet Daniel's dad to pass off Andy. Since we would be living with another family (and their three cats) until we found a place to call our own, Andy had an extended vacation with his Evansville grandparents. To say he was spoiled when he returned to us might be an understatement, but we were/are so grateful that they were willing to take care of him.

A week later, we celebrated our first Virginia Christmas! How do you celebrate Christmas when your closest family is still 13 hours away? Skype of course. Christmas morning we woke up early to unwrap presents with my family over the computer. Although kind of bizarre, it was definitely nice to see everyone's face.

Just a picture to capture a memory.

A week after Christmas, the change kept on coming when we got 2 belated Christmas surprises. First, what we thought had just been a simple kidney infection turned out to be Baby Mills! To say we were shocked would be an understatement, but we were excited all the same.

Second, I got a job as a long term substitute. Turns out I was right, if I really wanted things to happen, I just needed to take the plunge and make the move to D.C.!

Like I said, December was definitely a month of change!