Thursday, December 25, 2008

Maria's 2nd Christmas

I hadn't noticed how long it's been since I've posted. It's been a very crazy month in the Oppelt/Sundin household. Work has been very busy. I was in DC earlier in the month for our company meeting. It was great getting to see all my coworkers face-to-face. They're so much fun - I wish that I could see them more often! I also have a new supervisor who is amazing:)

Chad recently spent a week in the cities training for his new job. He also got to meet a ton of people and learn a little more about what he's doing at Ecolab. He also recently got his territory assignment. He'll be covering towns from Ashland, WI to Fargo, ND and Big Lake to Int'l Falls. Needless to say, I got him a satellite radio for Christmas. He'll be doing a lot of driving!

Now that we're settled in to our new house, we've had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with friends. We love entertaining in our new home and hope to continue to host some great events at our house!

December has also brought two surgeries to our family. My grandma had a hip replacement in early December. She is living in a rehabilitation center now where she gets PT every day. She got to come home for the day today, and we hope that she may be home for good next week! Her center has a lot of fun events for her and we even celebrated Christmas Mass there, so she'll probably actually miss it when she leaves!
My dad also had back surgery last week. The procedure went well, but recovery took a little longer than expected. He had some kidney trouble and had to stay for a few extra days, but he was in good spirits because one of his best friends was recovering from surgery in the room next to him. Very ironic situation! He is home now, though, and seems to be doing well. His full recovery is supposed to last 6 weeks.

Christmas has been a very exciting time for us, especially now that Maria somewhat knows what is happening. She loved opening all of her presents (and lots of ours) and had a good time meeting Santa. She left milk and cookies for him and even woke up an hour earlier than normal this morning. It was as if she knew it was a different day! I can only imagine what next year will be like. She had a great time, as did we all.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Home Sweet Home...Job Sweet Job

I didn't realize it had been so long since I've posted. A lot has happened since the last post. We have new carpet and our living room, bedroom, and kitchen are now painted (thanks uncle John!). Chad has been working 'round the clock to make everything perfect...and everything is very close to being done!
We've spent our first few nights at the house, and we love it! Maria is very excited about her new room as she's found all of her long lost toys that were packed away for the past few months. The deer keep visiting, and thankfully there are still the same number as before hunting season.

Great news - Chad has a job!! He took a position with EcoLab in Duluth. He will be a Route Specialist with a territory of the entire northern part of the state (actually from Coon Rapids - north). He has started his training this week, which unfortunately takes him away from us again. He's in Racine this week and will be somewhere else next week. His first day was today and so far, so good!

We also had our first houseguests this weekend. We had a blast with the Mayers (Chad's roommates in the cities). On Saturday we went curling for the first time ever. We're hooked! We also went to the UMD-UW hockey game. Unfortunately the Bulldogs lost, but we still had fun!

I hope to post some pictures of our curling extravaganza soon!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Ideally...

We have a home! We're slowly moving into Ideal Street. Although we haven't spent a night there yet, we've been spending many days there. Our first day in the house, Rainy was very happy to see that we have a family of deer who come to visit.


Our backyard


My uncle Mike has been helping us a ton by painting our celing and garage and fixing our walls. Chad and my dad put a new hardwood floor into the kitchen on Saturday afternoon (only took 4 hours!), and my mom has painted Maria's bedroom a great shade of purple! My ugliest bathroom in the world has yet to be made over, but I'm trying to be patient.



Maria helping papa with the new floor...







Again, being helpful (or not so much). You can see the old kitchen floor in the background.



We've been enjoying our weekends together in Duluth - we even have new friends already! They go quickly, however, as Chad is still driving back and forth to the cities during the week. We're crossing our fingers that something will come soon!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Closing

Everything has finally cleared with our underwriters (or undertakers), so we're going to closing! The big day is this Friday! Our address will be 614 W Ideal Street, Duluth MN 55811. We are going to move in slowly as our new carpet won't be delivered for about 4 weeks:( But it's nice to know that everything looks like it's going to work out.
We are both still working hard - me at casa Sundin and Chad in the cities. We're still crossing our fingers that something will come along to bring him up here soon, especially since we'll have a place of our own.
We'll soon be ready for visitors, so feel free to come and see us!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Moving day

Moving day is drawing near! Chad has been packing every night, so we are pretty much ready to go. It's amazing how much stuff we have! Some good news - we have found a house! We will be moving to Ideal Street (no joke!) in mid-October. It is a four bedroom, two bath split-level. It's got a lot of work to be done, but the 2500 square feet give us a lot of room. One of our first projects will be to take down the wheelchair ramp...although it would be a fun sledding hill come winter:)


I also had a surprise development this week. Naviance, the computer company that I have trained for for over a year has hired me on full-time. I will be working at home, but will be supporting all Naviance users in the state, and when needed, the rest of the country. I'm really excited

We're still crossing our fingers for Chad to score a position in Duluth. Please keep him in your prayers. We would love to have him join us when we move into our new home.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The big 3-0!

Today I hit the milestone I've been waiting for! I turned 30! I had a great day - Chad and Maria gave me diamond earrings in the morning, Maria and I went shopping in the afternoon, and we went to our annual birthday destination, the Timber Lodge for dinner:) I tried to work as little as possible too. The flexiblity of my job comes in handy sometimes!
We're headed back up to Duluth tomorrow to look at another house. I was hoping that we would be done with our search by now, but we just keep finding new places to look at. We're thankful for our awesome realtor, Nicki Conrad, who is also from the Falls.
We're scheduled to move on the 27th, so we'll be all packed and ready to go in about a week. It's starting to sink in with us - every time we go somewhere in the cities we wonder if it's the last time we'll be there. Weird! We're excited for the new opportunity though. Turning 30 really is starting a whole new chapter of life - one that I'm so anxious to begin.
I had some time to take some new videos of Maria today. Check them out!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

9.9.2008

Not too much new to report on. We went house-hunting last weekend and saw a few potential places, and it seems that every day we are emailed a new listing, so we're going to go back up this weekend to check things out. Hopefully we'll have a decision soon!
We had some people over for the Vikings/Packers game last night. Unfortunately for me, fortunately for Chad the Packers won. He now has bragging rights until they play each other again. I also owe my nephews M&M's, so I'm pretty bummed about that - I like to be on the receiving end of the chocolate!

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Our first blog

Hello everyone! This is our first attempt at a blog. We thought that since there are so many upcoming changes in our lives and so many people that we'd love to keep in better contact with that we'd give this a try.

To get everyone up-to-date, we are currently living in Burnsville until the last week in September. We have accepted an offer on our house and are now looking for a place to live in Duluth! I am lucky enough to be working from home as a counselor for an online high school, as well as training for Naviance. Chad is still working at Everest and is waiting for the right job to come in Duluth.

Maria has been very busy as well. She is talking a lot, and is VERY friendly to everyone she sees, saying "hi" nonstop. Some of her new words are Rainy, yellow and antidisestablishmentarianism (maybe not). Rainy has also been busy chasing squirrels, taking naps and dreaming about his new yard.

We hope that this finds everyone well. Have a great Labor Day weekend!