mark starts his new position at CDW

after thinking about this for quite sometime, mark made the decision to leave teaching in pursuit of a career in business. he would have made a great impression on students, with his personable qualities and love of learning, and would have made and even more amazing tennis coach. unfortunately, because of tight budgets throughout the state and all the layoffs an opening in social sciences/history never came up—which led us to open our options to a new career.

in late november mark started looking and applying for new positions. he quickly got a call from a rep from CDW and started the interviewing process. after two phone interviews he was invited to meet with managers at the mettawa, illinois location. shortly after an offer to join the team was extended! he got the job!

his new job is in sales and he's really excited about it. CDW has an extensive training program that lasts 6-weeks and continues for 6 months after you actually are allowed to start selling. he is selling IT products and services to small businesses (100 or less employees) throughout the US. can't go wrong with technology! it will definitely be a challenge and a change of pace, but we're really excited about his new career.

we have heard many great things about CDW and people starting where mark is and have done really well for themselves. we are so grateful that mark has the opportunity to work at such a great company and excited for what the future holds!

baby caela

I just couldn't wait to meet caela. so mark and I drove out to geneva (well I took the train after work) to meet baby caela and see how momma aubrey was doing.

the whole family was doing great and I loved how proud chris looked of his new baby girl. we talked about her delivery—3 hours! what a marathon! and all the fun details :) holding her i just couldn't believe my friend had made this baby! she is so beautiful in every way! just an amazing thing... this thing called LIFE!

I'm so proud and can't wait to see all of caela's updates in the coming weeks.

congratulations vojack family!

aubrey has her baby!

aubrey had her baby today! i'm so overjoyed for her and chris and can't wait to meet baby caela isabel!

we have a secret...

we'll tell you about it in march! :o)

netflix, so many choices...

so mark and i recently decided to get netflix, since they had a promotion for a free month. we're really excited to have so many options when our regular channels just aren't cutting it.

problem is... there are way too many choices. we end up clicking through the menu for a half hour before we both can agree on something to watch. literally driving me crazy. why is it that all the really good stuff, what mark and I actually agree on, is never "available"? :)

we'll see how long this lasts!

christmas in florida

hello everyone. apparently I have to write everything in lower case. it looks better? so I am going to shed a little light onto our christmas trip to florida. first, this was our first ever trip to florida during christmas time. my side of the family moved down there about 5 years ago and had previously been coming up here to the chicagoland area.

the trip started out with me having to make a phone call the night before to the airline, because the next day there was supposed to be a large snow storm. even though there was supposed to be a snow storm the airline still made us cough up the extra $100 charge to switch our flight time. it was money well spent because we got out early and we wouldn't have made it with our original reservation.

once we arrive in ft. myers, it was fun to get off of the plane and head outside to the warm night time air. kind of makes me ask why we do not just skip the long, cold, snowy winters and live there instead? and my new company has an office down there, hmm.

anyways, it was nice to be there going between st. petersburg, where my parents live, and sanibel island.

when in st. petersburg, we got to eat at the best ever sushi place called osakas.

christmas time is near...

it was mark's turn to visit his family over christmas so we had a pre-christmas dinner with my dad, sis and ryan.

i wanted to make it special, with traditional polish foods my mom had prepared—and I think I actually may have pulled it off! with the many years of cooking with my mom I am forever grateful for the amazing lessons she gave me. her golopki (stuffed cabbage rolls) are a family favorite so i decided i'd try making them for the first time on my own.

i was so nervous if they'd even turn out right and everyone at the dinner table agreed they were delicious!