My wife can blog, and so can I.

For any of you who don't know, my wife blogs.  And she is really good at it.  Her talent for crafting has helped her do wonderful work cataloging our life together for the past... many years.  Anyone who wants to follow her can, and should at:

Mandi's Musings

Me on the other hand?  I struggle.  I would love to chock it up to the ADHD, and maybe that plays a part, but really I just lack the discipline and dedication.  I work a lot as well, so that doesn't help.  Still, I need a journal, and a forum to express my joys, my concerns, my love, and my faith as much as the next fella.  So I'll try to do a better job.  If not for me, then for my kids to have something to look back on, besides their mother's blog. 

I'll start with an update.  When we left off, I was paradigm shifting.  It was 2012, Mandi and I were moving to Monticello IL after finishing residency.  Mandi was carrying Forrest, and I was making a lot of transitions.  

Monticello was a wonderful place for us.  We accomplished a lot, and I'll summarize in bullet point :D

• August 2012:  Forrest came into our lives.  We love you buddy.  You were tough at first, you were not the happiest baby, made worse I am sure by our new parent anxiety.  But we made it through and you sure are a ton of fun now!
• September 2012: I reunite with an old friend, Josh, who is an instructor in Choy Li Fut Kung Fu - I begin my study of the martial art.
• October 2012:  I was made President of the Medical Staff at the local hospital.  I learned a lot about administrative medicine, and myself as a physician
• November 2012:  Our 5 year anniversary!  Fun!
• November 2012:  I pass my ABFM board exams, and become Board Certified in Family Medicine!
• February 2013: I traveled to Phoenix for an administrative medicine conference - what an awesome time!  The Hilton Pointe Tapatillo was a great place to stay, I made some great friends and learned a lot.
• July 2013:  My college friend and fellow physician Mark Keplinger and I decided to go into business together, founding The Gaming Goat - Champaign.  A specialty game store.  We operated as a franchise of The Gaming Goat out of the Chicagoland area.
• September 2013:  I went on a CME trip to San Diego, where I learned a lot, and spent time with my friends Brent, Nate, and Brian (Brent's Brother).

• September 2013:  Forrest and Mandi enroll in a local Montessori Toddler program, Mandi meets a great friend in Heather Foran.
• November 2013:  Mandi and I celebrate our 6th :)  
• Christmas 2013:  Forrest, having developed an obsession with KitchenAid Mixers (which he refers to as "Ddittz") receives his very own Blue (boo) Mixer (Ditz).  Video shown below:

• August 2014:  Mark and I strike out on our own, dropping our Gaming Goat Franchise, and convert our store to Titan Games - Champaign
• November 2014:  Many changes over the past year push me and my employer further apart.  For reasons I won't elaborate on, we decide to part ways.  I begin my search for a new job, planning on finishing up in March of 2015.
• November 2014:  Mandi I celebrate our 7th anniversary, and beating the odds.  I love my wife more and more everyday, she lights up my life and grounds me in all the right ways.
• January-February 2015:  The job search continues, with interviews all over IA, IL, and WI.  Eventually we decide that we will return Peoria, our home during residency. I take up employment with UnityPoint Health as a Flex provider.
• April 2015:  I finish up at Kirby and begin the next Chapter.  For the time being I commute to Peoria as we try to sell our Monticello home.
• May 2015:  Our house sells!
• May 2015:  Mandi and I find out she is expecting our second :D
• June 2015:  So long Monticello (or Mommicello as Forrest calls it).  We bid farewell to our happy home, and one of our favorite towns and make our way back to Peoria.  I am loving my new position.
• July 2015:  During our annual trip to WI, we find our dream retirement home, and we pull the trigger.  Me make an offer, and the offer is accepted.  Whitefish Lake here we come!
• July 2015:  We join Mandi's family on a trip to the west coast of Michigan, what a lovely trip (see Mandi's Musings for more detail)
• September 2015:  We close on our new house in Gordon!

• October 2015:  We finally find a house we like in Peoria, after renting for a few months in our old neighborhood.  (see Mandi's Musings for more detail)

So that was a lot, in very little time.  I didn't cover nearly everything, but I don't know that I could in one blog post.  Heck, Mandi has done a lot more than that to cover those three years.  But it serves as a fair summary.  I hope to be back at this regularly, now that I am living and loving my time in Peoria.  I'll end this with a verse I read today:

"They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God;, he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this way we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error."

1 John 4:5-6