8 Months to Go!

Duncan's brand new car: a 2012 Ford Focus

From Duncan:

So, just an update from me as a lot has happened in the past few months. Fortunately, the blog has been a great tool to communicate some of the news and announcements, and we are glad you all are able to share this time with us even if you are half-way around the world. 

Amy and I and have been together for almost 3 years now and I have always known that she is the one for me. She is an amazing person with a great heart, and she cooks well too :). I proposed to her knowing that she would be a wonderful wife and someone that would be a true companion in life. We are making progress toward planning the wedding and all the little arrangements that go along with that, however I am generally not the most helpful when it comes to that so my involvement is somewhat limited to opinions and vetos. We would love to have you all come but at the same time understand that this is quite a venture for some of you.

I graduated at the end of July, after a long haul through university and finally made it out sane, and hopefully a little more educated. I was so happy to find a program I enjoyed and that it was something to be proud of after all the time invested. This is a degree that will help me be flexible within the working world as it has aspects in a variety of different areas, which helped me land my first job. The company I work for is called Fastenal, they are a distributer of industrial and construction supplies and are made up for a large retail base that stretches al over the US and Canada as well emerging into Europe. I work in the Atlanta distribution center which services about 300 stores in the southeast area. I am in charge of the quality program within the hub. I primarily deal with implementing programs and controls to improve quality and sustain a high level of service to our stores. I have just completed my training and will start my duties this week, it has been an interesting few weeks working in all the different departments and working various schedules. I am excited to be able to have the freedom and flexibility to achieve my goals there and I am sure that this will be a great starting point for my career. Unfortunately, having stepped into a role such as this it requires me to work fairly long hours which isn't desirable considering my already long commute but I am sure I will get used to this and make the most of it.

I hope to have updates every so often for you all as we approach the wedding. 

From Amy:

So, since Duncan wrote a lot I feel like I should write a lot... but I'm just in school so there's really not much to talk about!  School is proving to be difficult for me, so I giving it a lot of my energy.  I am taking Caring for Childbearing Families and learning about pregnancy and babies, which is a whole new world for me (for many obvious reasons)!  I'm used to working with adults in the hospital setting and I have never learned anything about maternity and newborn care, much less the science behind it.  I just started work in the hospital for mother-baby yesterday and I feel like it's going to be a difficult one.  The hospital I work at has the largest women's unit in the United States.  I just finished working at a major trauma center in Georgia.  I really love and appreciate what I am doing and the gifts God has given me in this program.

Duncan is doing so well with his job.  I rarely see him because he's busy, but he really seems to enjoy what he's doing and that makes me so happy.  :)  This job and now he bought his first car all by himself, he is officially a grown-up!

In wedding-related news, planning is going well.  It isn't our number one focus right now (work and school are our priorities), but things are moving along.  Fortunately, a lot of the decisions have been easy: get married in our church, the priests decided the date, and an amazing, couldn't-be-more-perfect reception venue has been provided at a phenomenal price close to the church.  My mom helps out a lot when she can (she's really busy with work herself), which is nice.  And Duncan is more helpful than he thinks.  He always has helpful opinions and though some things he couldn't care less about, he is still really helpful and has a lot of his own great ideas :).  In December when I am out of school and when work has become more routine for Duncan, we might try and make a little bit more plans.  So far, all is going well, though, and we look forward to seeing you all in JUNE!