Graduation! (MBA and Master Mover)

It's been an insane couple of weeks for the McLaughlin clan and we're all feeling a little topsy-turvy. Before leaving for the Outer Banks, we thought we had our move pretty well under control. In the four days we had to finish up after returning home, we realized just how much more we had to do and in so little time. Mark was truly amazing! Not only did he execute an incredibly organized move, scrub the walls from ceiling to floor, patch up the nail holes in the wall, and do so many other moving-related tasks, but he also graduated with his MBA! I am so proud of all that he's done, learned, and contributed during his time at Darden and was so proud to see him walk the stage with Jane (our Darden baby) and get his diploma. We were so happy that my mom, dad, and brother Dave could come down from Northern Virginia to support us.

The happy graduate in front of Darden. We'll miss the beautiful grounds!

A picture of UVA graduates waiting by the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of the Rotunda on UVA's main grounds for the processional to begin.

More Farewell Pics of Charlottesville

It's hard to believe that we are gone from Charlottesville! We've had such a wonderful two years there and are so grateful for all of the experiences we've had and the amazing people that we've met. These past two years will always be a treasured time in our memories.

Millie has loved her year of Kindergarten at Red Hill Elementary and her teacher Mrs. Reed.
I especially loved the views from the playground at Millie's school. As we move to a totally suburban lifestyle, I feel grateful for the experiences Millie's had here. I'm not sure that she will be able to experience the excitement of cows wandering onto the playground in the future.

Dear Woody! When we moved into our rental house in Charlottesville, Woody came with the house. He has lived under the back deck for 16 years (he's a completely outside cat, thankfully, because Mark is so allergic). Our landlord offered to take him off of our hands if we didn't want to have him around, but Millie was attached at first sight. She loved playing with Woody (and later Oliver, Woody's long lost brother who had found his way back home) and he loved following her around. What a lucky cat he was to be lugged around the property by his little friend. He got to experience the joys of sliding down the slide, swinging on the front porch swing, and even made it onto the trampoline. Even though he was pretty mangy, often mewed at the back door and rattled the doorknob late into the night, and occasionally snuck into the house, we'll miss our Woody!

Abby's last day of preschool with her amazing teachers Patty and Erin. She has loved her school this year!

OBX

Millie and Mae enjoying the beach even though it was cold and rainy. They are such good friends and had so much fun together!

During their weekly playdates for the past few months Abby and Lucy have looked forward to going to the beach together for a huge long playdate. Abby was so excited that we got to stay for seven days, but at the end of the week said, "I don't want to stay only seven days! I want to stay a thousand days!" She is also very into giving everything a name these days (stuffed animals, dolls, etc.) and said, while we were crossing a bridge on our way to the beach, "We can name the ocean 'Water' because it has a lot of water." Oh the profundity!

Such a typical Jane pose! She's pretty spunky. Quite a fireball at times. Hard to believe she was such a mild-mannered baby!
And a totally typical Millie picture. She was at one with the sea and the sand.

One of my highlights of the trip was a visit to some immense sand dunes nearby (wish I had thought to get the name of the site). It was terribly windy, but exhilarating to run in the sand with a view of the ocean on one side and the sound on the other and the clear, bright blue sky above. Afterward, Rich and Em were nice enough to treat everyone to Dairy Queen.


Collecting sand crabs.

We had such a great time, despite the rainy weather and tornado warnings during the first part of the week, in North Carolina's Outer Banks a few weeks ago. We've been wanting to visit ever since we moved to Virginia and it certainly lived up to its reputation. We rented a house on the beach with three other families and it was pretty magical. In fact, I'd have to say it was the most relaxing vacation I've ever had with my kids -- good friends for them and us to play with, a huge house so that everyone had their own space, and a beautiful beach right out the back door. Millie revelled in the surf and swimming pool and loved digging for sand crabs. Abby loved playing it safe in the sand as far as possible from the sea (although Mark and I were able to coax her into the water to jump over the edge of the water while she laughed nervously), Jane was thrilled to have the freedom to wander all over the beach to her heart's content and loved saying "Baby" over and over again whenever she saw one of the three babies who were there. Most of all we loved spending time with good friends.

Pictures . . .

Our friend, and amazing photographer, Mandy Carroll took pictures of the girls this week and posted a sneek peek on her blog. She did such a wonderful job -- even with the elusive, ever-on-the-move Miss Jane! If you're interested in taking a look, you can view them at mandycarroll.blogspot.com.

Some Favorite Spots

We have now reached the point where we are starting to experience some of our "lasts" in Charlottesville -- Mark's last day of class and last final at Darden, our last day attending church in the Rivanna Ward, etc. While Mark was not at all sad to take his last final, we were all sad about saying goodbye to the great people in our ward whom we love so much. And in an effort to chronicle our time in Charlottesville for posterity (in what little time we have left), I'm trying to take and post some pictures of some of our favorite/most visited spots.

Home sweet home! While just a rental, this house has truly seemed like home to us. We've loved sitting on the front porch swing in the late afternoon and twilight, the girls have loved riding their bikes back and forth on the verandahs in the front and back, we love the trees (except during an intense storm when they knock the power lines down), we love the deer that tiptoe through the woods or sometimes feed 7 or 8 at a time on the front lawn. It often feels like a bit of heaven (outside, that is, since it is often a disaster inside).

One of the reasons we initially loved the house was the built-in play set and the trampoline that the landlord had here for his grandchildren.


The Charlottesville area is so picturesque! We took this picture at the Darden Days BBQ with the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background. It was all I could do to hold onto squirmy, wormy Jane for the picture!
I know it's blurry, but I just love this picture of Millie in motion. She loves it here and is constantly collecting things/exploring in the woods (although you can't really see it, she is holding a golden, sequined purse in her hand into which she was collecting wildflowers).


Mark has been enjoying the golf course a lot lately now that his school schedule has lightened up a bit. His tan makes me look like the White Witch from the Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

The Monticello Trail is one of my favorite places. I just wish I had gotten a picture a few weeks ago when the blossoms were in full force. The trail winds up the mountain and ends at the parking lot for Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello. In the Fall, Abby, Jane and I would walk it about three times a week. Now that the weather has gotten better, we've started doing it again. Last weekend, we had a fun picnic there with our friends the Evans and the Capells.
The McLaughlin and Evans girls on the trail.

Jane a little wary of Josh Capell's advances. He's such a cutie! We're so glad the Capells came down from D.C. to visit!

House Hunting Update . . .

It seems that we have found ourselves a house and it is actually a pretty amazing story.

We arrived for our house-hunting trip and spent two days pounding the pavement with our realtor. We saw many, many homes, but nothing really clicked. At the end of the second day, we ended up making an offer on a home in an area we really liked, but one which would require some significant updates. There were a lot of positives about it, but we had a few reservations. The home owners counter-offered and we were ambivalent about raising our offer. Therefore, before making a decision, we decided to drive through the areas we most liked before it was time to meet up with our realtor.

It was a sunny Saturday morning and few people were out and about, but as we drove down one street, we noticed a man out on his lawn talking with some yard workers. Mark recognized him as one of the two people he knew in the area because he was one of the people Mark interviewed with during his interviews at the bank. It just so happened that he was also a stake president in the area. We stopped to talk with him and he graciously offered to drive us around the area to get us a little more acquainted with it. We then met up with our realtor and went through another day of fruitless searching.

That night, as we were talking through options, we received a call from this stake president. He mentioned that he had been offered a job with the bank in another office and that he was fairly certain that he and his wife would be moving. He said that if we were interested, we would be welcome to take a look at their house to see if it would be something that we might be interested in. He mentioned that they really wanted to bless someone's life and would be selling it for a reasonable price. We went through it the next day and thought that it would be a great situation for our family for now. Anyway, bottom line is, we now have a house and will be moving at the end of June! We feel very blessed and grateful that it has worked out the way it has -- that we just happened to bump into one of the two people Mark knows in the area, that he just happened to be the only person on the street out in his yard as we were driving by, that he would just happen to be selling his house . . . We just can't quite believe it!

Book Quotes

I am currently reading Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale -- the jury is still out on whether or not I really like the book as I'm not very far into it -- and I came across several passages about books/reading that really resonated with me so I thought I'd share them:

"I read old novels. The reason is simple: I prefer proper endings. Marriages and deaths, noble sacrifices and miraculous restorations, tragic separations and unhoped-for reunions, great falls and dreams fulfilled; these, in my view, constitute an ending worth the wait. They should come after adventures, perils, dangers and dilemmas, and wind everything up nice and neatly. Endings like this are to be found more commonly in old novels than new ones, so I read old novels."

"I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything."