Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!  We pray your family is well and blessed.  The coming year already promises many changes for our family, but let us bring you up to speed...

During the first half of 2010, Tim worked in Gainesville, GA at Red Clay Interactive while I continued the second year of my master’s program/dietetic internship at the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, GA, where we lived. We had the pleasure of seeing our niece Lailey turn 1 year old, the birth of our nephew Joseph Dominic Maggioni, and our nieces Ava and Sophia turn 4 and 2. That totals 3 nieces and 1 nephew for us currently.

In July, I completed my dietetic internship and graduated from UGA with my master’s in Dietetics. We had been looking for what our next steps were going to be when Tim was hired at a national advertising agency in Bluffton, SC. Bluffton is just across the bridge from Savannah, GA where Tim’s family lives, so we jumped at the chance to live close to one of our families. I was hired at Memorial Hospital in Savannah after completing one of my internship rotations there. Along with the move to Savannah, we signed a contract to build our first house in Bluffton. So we put our stuff in storage and Tim’s parents graciously allowed us to bunk with them for the next couple of months while we had our house built. The house process included a long waiting period for it to get started and the site of the house being moved. We later realized this was a blessing.

In October, I passed my board’s exam and am now a registered and licensed dietitian, YAY! I have been working as a clinical dietitian in the hospital’s rehabilitation facility, neurovascular floor, and a couple small units, while cross-training in areas such as intensive care and pediatrics. On top of Tim’s job, he did some pro-bono work for the R.O.C.K. group (raising our children kindly), the child abuse

prevention group here in Savannah where his sister is the executive director. We were able to attend their annual ballroom extravaganza and participate in the dancing, a silent auction, and watch the “dancing with the doctors” dance competition. In November, I was able to go to the American Dietetic Association conference in Boston. My sister (Sarah) flew up for a crazy fun, 24 hour, sister romp around Boston where we toured and had fabulous Italian food. Boston was an amazing city, and it was incredible to attend a national conference.

In this new year, we are preparing for another move (we have moved every year since we have been married, and why should 2011 be any different?). Tim has been unhappy with his job since he started a few months ago and we quickly realized that this job could not be a long term thing for us. We searched for jobs in and around Savannah but came up empty. Tim received a job offer back at Red Clay in Gainesville, and after much prayer, we are moving MLK weekend. At this time, we have both put in our resignations at our jobs, Tim has started at Red Clay, and we have pulled out of our housing contract. Because we decided to build a house instead of buy one, and because of all the delays with the building of the house, we are not having to sell a house in this market...Thank you Lord! I currently don’t have a job lined up in Gainesville, and we could use your prayers for that. But to be honest, I'm looking forward to a little bit of a break, which I'm sure I'll get bored with after the boxes are unpacked. Although these past few months have been stressful and scary, we are excited for what God has for us. Since all of our belongings are in storage, at least we don’t have to pack! It's back to North Georgia for us!