Manifest Destiny

Thorne House is moving to Los Angeles.

The short story is that Adam has accepted a position with Beats by Dre.  He'll be moving to LA in early April.  The family will be following this summer.

The long story....

In the beginning, there was the Big Bang.  Except nothing went *bang* because there's no sound in space. Certain people decided that was unacceptable, and delved into the field of acoustic engineering.

Adam was one of those people.

Last year, he took at job at Imation in Oakdale, MN, as an acoustic technician.  It took about 3 months for him to stop grinning like a fool every day.  That's understandable: it's not every day that you get to take your garage hobby, turn it into a career path and get a raise.  We were all really excited for him.

We were less excited later when Imation announced that they would be cutting their audio department.  When we got the word that Adam would be laid off at the end of this coming June, we started the new job hunt.  One of the people that Adam reached out to was a former Imation coworker, now at Beats, who was very enthusiastic about getting Adam on the Beats staff.

Adam flew to LA for an interview on March 12th, and Beats made him a formal job offer on March 18.  (Anyone who knows me well can now have a good chuckle over how you think I did with that waiting period.)  His new job title will be Associate Acoustic Engineer, which is a nice promotion.  He'll start at Beats on April 15th.

The rest of us will move...later.  We determined that we wanted Corbin to finish the school year at his preschool, so we'll be in Minneapolis through most of May.  Also, the Madison Lams have decided to make the move with us.  I cannot say a loud enough YAY! about that.  We are so lucky and blessed and grateful for their presence in Minneapolis up to now.  I am incredibly thankful that they're willing to go on this adventure with us.

Many of you have been upholding us with thoughts and prayers and good wishes.  Thank you all so much for the good karma!  I'm sure I'll be needing some in my own job hunt, and as we consolidate three households into one and move that one across the country.  Don't be surprised to see a lot of posts about things that we've decided not to keep (you may just want to unsubscribe to my FB feed right now!).  If you know anyone who wants to live in a good house on a great block with fabulous neighbors, let us know.  We will be really sad to leave our neighborhood, and Minneapolis in general.

I'm excited for this change, and for this opportunity for Adam.  I'm excited to live only a couple of hours away from my brother and Lena.  I'm excited to live in the same city as my best friend (for the first time in 14 years).  I'm excited to take the kids to the Tar Pits and the tide pools and whale watching.  My mother is looking forward to eating her weight in avocados.  My father is looking forward to not falling on ice next winter.

In the meantime, we'll be doing our taxes.  The excitement never ends.

Month 11 or, Second Christmas

Dear Miriam,

You are almost a whole year old.  It's already funny to look at pictures of you in your first few months and see how much you've changed.  Except your eyes.  You still have blue eyes.  It's still interesting to me.

This month, you've started standing on your own.  You pull up on something else, but then you'll let go and stand for a moment.  You can also stand up by yourself, which is fun to see.  I wonder how long it will be before you start trying to take steps.

I also wonder when you'll get more teeth.  You still only have two little bottom teeth.  Which doesn't stop you from eating giant apple slices.  We've been trying to feed you up, since you didn't gain any weight last month.  You got longer but not fatter, which doesn't explain why you feel heavier every time I pick you up.

You've been making us laugh a lot lately.  You've started playing this weird game with your legs when we change your diapers.  You lift them up over your head, and then smack them down as hard as you can.  You first started doing it when you were playing in your crib, which was fine because there wasn't a chance that you'd kick me in the face.  But now the game seems to be, "How fast can Mom dodge my feet?"  Luckily, I'm winning so far.

You've picked up Corbin's habit of making weird faces every time we want to take a picture of you.  Sometimes you open your mouth like you're trying to get a photo of your tonsils.  Sometimes you scrunch your whole face up as small as you can.  Sometimes you just stick your tongue out.  You wait until you see the light that means the flash is going to go off, too, so we think we're going to get a cute picture of you and then as soon as the shutter is clicking, you grimace.  So for every cute picture of you here, we have three or four of you making horrible faces at us.  We'll save those for when you're sure to be embarrassed by them.

You still babble at us a lot, which is fun. A couple of times it's really sounded like you were trying to say a word, so I answered you like you did.  It will be interesting to see when you start saying words.  Some second kids talk later because their older siblings talk for them.  I don't know that that will be the case with you.  I think you're more likely to want your own share of the conversation.

We finally managed to have our Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Thorne.  We all met up in Madison to visit and exchange presents.  You got some new books and a cuddly new stuffed dog.  You also got a new high chair, which is smaller than your other one, so it's more comfortable for you and it fits under the table, which Dad likes a lot.  It is always nice to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Thorne.  They love you very much, and we don't get to see them very often.  I hope that you will take advantage of opportunities to spend time with family and to have good memories of them.  We are very lucky in our family.  You have many people who love you and want you to be happy.  I hope that you always remember this: that you have wise and smart and amazing people around you, in your grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Love,
Mom

Giant apples slices!

Opening presents:

With G&G Thorne: