Happy New Year!
How is everyone doing so far this year? It’s been a fun start to the year.
Started with a bit of a panic attack, but I’ll get to that later.
First up? Baby pictures.
New Year, new baby. Here’s the little guy on the first of the year.
Since we had some time off to bond with the little ones, we decided to take a trip to the coast and visit Astoria. We got some fish and chips and stayed a night at a hotel. The next day we took our annual trip over to Tillamook for some food before heading back.
Above is a photo with all 4 kiddos in the room, snuggling.
What else? Ah, that panic attack reference. Let’s get to the bottom of that.
So I am currently on leave from work (FMLA) and ended last year (as I typically do) by using my vacation on the last few weeks of the year. Well, after the start of the year, I got a phone call from HR (while we were at the hotel) telling me that they expected me to be back at the beginning of February.
We had timed everything out to give us maximum bonding time. Due to this our vacation time would end at the beginning of the new year, and from that point forward we would be using the full time allowed for FMLA and would return to work mid-March.
They said that they had proactively started my FMLA time when I first took my vacation. This sent me into a bit of a spiral and I almost felt like I couldn’t stand, let alone breathe. We had surgeries and other checkups over the next period where we needed this time off. I let them know that it would cause hardship for our family, and they responded that we could take personal leave if we needed to.
I ended up letting them know that the FMLA was important to my family because then my job would be federally protected during that time. Whereas a “personal leave” is unprotected- meaning they can give your job to someone else and you return to no job.
After a lot of back and forth, the HR department worked with me enough to grant my request for my leave to start at the beginning of the year. I did feel like it was pulling teeth just a little, however, we were grateful that it was resolved how it was.
Panic attack explained.
Hmm…. let’s talk about something better.
Someone had a birthday! Luca turned the big 3.0
He wanted to have a Back In Time birthday (aka Back to the Future). Who would have thought (based on his Christmas gifts)?
He loved it. We were even able to go to Baskin Robins and they made a custom cover for the cake. We found an image of the time machine online and added it to his cake. See below.
As a follow-up to his birthday activities, Grammy made some Cinnamon rolls. They were gone the same night they came out of the oven, which is fairly typical. Especially since the kids have discovered how yummy they are.
I suppose that’s a sweet way to end this post.. so until next time!
just Pray
