the short version - we now are living and working in ohio.

 the slightly longer version...

mike and i had always thought that "someday" we might return to the columbus area. we both grew up here, our families were still here, and many of our good friends lived here. when we found out we were pregnant with wesley, we decided to give st louis a few more years, and figure out how to do this whole parent thing before trying to change cities, jobs, houses, and everything else. we found a fantastic daycare, we had friends with young kids in st louis, and we were able to host many out of town guests. things were good. 

except... there was my job. i didn't talk about my job much on here, mostly because there wasn't much to say. it was fine. not great, but fine. my career has always been a big part of who i am, and i had lost a lot of my passion for the profession. last june i passed my final exam and became a registered architect, and i had hoped that the new position might give me new opportunities with my company. not so much. not wanting to deal with changing firms for only a few years, i decided to just wait and see what we decided to do about a move. i thought that i would have a difficult time finding a job that got me excited again, so i decided that in the meantime, i would start making connections with firms that i was interested in that were located in ohio. i thought it might help to have a few relationships in place if/when we did decided to move in the future. 

meanwhile, we experienced our first christmas with wesley, having to travel from st louis to columbus to be with our friends and family. on our (long) drive home, we discussed how difficult it was to travel for every big holiday, and how it would just get worse when wesley got older. we wanted santa to come to our house. we wanted to be able to enjoy leisurely visits with our friends and family instead of always having to cram it all in to a few days. we wanted to be able to save our vacation time for actual vacations and not just for the holidays. we also were realizing how difficult it was to find babysitter options, and we hadn't done much without wesley. having to basically rely on times when our family came to visit us before being able to leave wesley for a few hours was not ideal. we were doing fine on our own, but having other people around and available to help sometimes sounded really good.

a few weeks later, in early january, i can across a firm that was looking for an architect in the columbus area. i didn't think that i was really qualified for the open position, but when i ended up stuck at home for a few days because of the snow, i decided that i might as well update my resume and portfolio and send it to them. less than 24 hours after i sent my initial email, i had a phone interview set up. in the few weeks that followed, i had several more video interviews, and all conversations were leading towards potential employment... starting immediately... in columbus. i also began talking to a few other firms, just to make sure i was exploring all of my options. on valentines day i had my final interview with the first firm, and was offered the position. 

mike, realizing where all of this was headed before i even acknowledged that this could actually happen, decided to update his resume as well and started looking for a job in columbus. he had some interest, but was a few weeks behind me in the job search. we knew that realistically, we needed 2 of 3 things to fall into place before we could make a move. we each needed a job, and we needed to sell the house. we started having a serious conversation about how long we could live apart (since mike could keep his job in st louis until finding something new), and we also started talking about what we needed to do to sell the house. 

(selling the house - that's a long long story that i will write about in another post)

so we took a leap of faith and i accepted the position in columbus. luckily for me, the firm's "immediate" time frame was not as immediate as i had feared, and they allowed me to wait until the end of march before starting. 5 weeks sounds like a decent amount of time for a transition, until you start to realize how much you need to do to your house to prepare it to be listed, how much time it takes to pack all of your belongings, and your husband needs to find a job. and oh yeah, you have a 7 month old.

in the last few weeks before our big move, mike suddenly had multiple interview requests. he talked to a few companies, and things were going so well with his conversations that we both felt comfortable with him quitting his job in st louis even before things were finalized with a position in columbus. this allowed him to move back to columbus with me and wesley, and i was so grateful that we were able to come back here together. he finished up his interviews and accepted a position at an accounting firm, which he started about 1.5 weeks ago.

as for our house - the house in st louis was listed towards the end of march and (spoiler) we are currently in contract on the sale of the house. we are living with my parents until we get things finalized with the house(s). (spoiler #2, we also are in contract on a house in columbus)...

so that's what has been going on, and the reason why i have not posted anything for a few months. it's been a crazy ride, but we are so grateful with how everything has worked out, and we are looking forward to getting completely settled here in ohio.