.: February 2016

If you had asked me four months ago - or even three months ago - if I had any plans of leaving BDO, the answer would have been no. Even if you asked me today, I'm still not sure that I've left.

While teaching at a BDO National Conference the week of December 7th, I got an email from a colleague I'd stayed in touch with at Davenport University. He was my mentor while I did a stint at adjunct teaching and we'd remained in contact for recruiting over the last four years. Every year he'd ask if I'd be open to taking on a class and every year I was just too busy with BDO and family that the thought of teaching one class was overwhelming. This year I jokingly replied No but let me know if you ever have that full-time position open again. When I got an immediate response of We do - would you really consider? I didn't even know what to say. We had a brief phone call while I was traveling and I agreed to schedule a coffee the following week when I returned. Just to catch up.

Tuesday the 15th I swung into Davenport for what ended up being an hour of them selling me on all the reasons I should make the switch from public to academics. Summers off! Fridays off! Spring Break off! Christmas Break off! Oh, and the satisfaction that I'd be molding young minds in all things accounting. I guess they actually do a little bit of work.

We ended the meeting with me still on the fence but an agreement that I should meet with the new Dean of the business school. Friday the 18th, the morning after the BDO Holiday party, at 8:00am, I sat down with the Dean and three other faculty and was peppered with questions on why I would be a good fit at DU before they opened up the door for me to really ask what I would be getting myself into. I left that meeting almost 100% confident this would be my next journey.

Christmas was fast approaching as was the BDO year-end closure. The day before our office closed for nearly 10 days, I walked into my boss' office to tell him I was leaving a place I had come to love so dearly. After that it was a whirlwind of face to face conversations with several other partners and co-workers as well as phone calls to those who'd already scattered for the holiday break. Classes at DU would be starting on January 11th which only gave me five days in the office after break to square things up. Thankfully DU agreed to share me with BDO two days a week until the end of January to finish up some rather large projects and give me time to appropriately tell my clients - some who I'd serviced for my entire career - that I would be leaving BDO. And I only cried twice.

I had a love-hate relationship with BDO (as I imagine most people are with their job) but never in a million years did I think I would leave. A very small piece of me still wakes up every day wondering what on Earth I got myself into. But that feeling seems to be getting smaller and smaller as the days keep passing and I'm not getting a hundred emails all hours of the day or getting phone calls from clients on holidays. Davenport didn't issue me a laptop so when I leave work - I LEAVE WORK. If I bring stuff home on the weekends to read and don't get to it, I don't feel stressed to the max on Monday because I didn't get through something. Other than my scheduled class times I set my own schedule. If I want to have breakfast with Lily and come in at noon - no one cares.

It's been a month and a half and outside my actual scheduled classes, I've been working at a DU sponsored tax prep site for low income households, I've gotten the opportunity to present at an Association for Human Resource Management luncheon, I've already been scheduled to teach an eight hour continuing education course to a corporate group, I've interviewed a textbook publisher, and will participate in the upcoming commencement ceremony in April. I've been assured that the possibilities are endless - I just have to ask.

So why? Looking back on the extremely quick - and perhaps rash - decision, the answer is in front of me every single day. Perhaps when I had my last ranting post, the decision was made before the opportunity had presented itself.

I blinked. And this little one

has transformed into this not so little one.

And the next time I blink, Lily will be walking across the stage at her very own commencement ceremony - obviously as a Panther.

I know I know I know. Instead of the friendly nudge to update, the other day my girlfriend sarcastically told me I should just shut it down. I mean - why bother keeping the blog around if I'm just going to leave it out there to taunt her?

I've started drafting this post so many times. It started out as a Halloween update, then was titled "We did Disney!" and now - here we are just into February and So. Much. Has happened.

All Lily wanted to be this year for Halloween was Minnie Mouse. Until of course the week of Halloween and she decided she wanted to be a princess, a fairy, an angel - you name it - anything other than Minnie. BUT since I'm the meanest mom there is and we already had her costume, Minnie Mouse it was going to stay. One of the best things about BDO is how family oriented they are. Office trick-or-treating was always one of my favorites before I had Lily and now that she gets to participate it's even better. Especially since it poured ALL. DAY. LONG. on Halloween. We would have had enough candy from BDO to last us months if I hadn't recontributed it back to the office a week later.

Braving the rain with Daddy, Uncle B, Grandpa, and Kent

Office Trick or Treating

Trunk or treat with the Slawinskis

My Minnie Me

Then we did this crazy thing called Disney. Ok well not really but sort of.

My parents took my brother and I to Disney when I was 10 and Brayden was 7. We stayed at the Caribbean Resort and I barely remember the trip. I swore I wouldn't take Lily until she would be able to remember it. That was until I visited Orlando for work, visited Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney), and couldn't wait to take her. I mean - who can resist a place where your staff can get out and dance?

The deal was that a vacation for the Hoy Family in 2015 was not going to happen. We'd been putting a lot of money into the house and still had a lot left to do and thought it was best to forgo a vacation. Hawaii 2016 was almost exactly 12 months away so we had something to look forward to. Then the weather started cooling off and we got antsy. Allegiant Air was offering up a flight and car deal we couldn't resist and we had Starwood points to cover our hotel stay. We booked our trip and less than two weeks letter boarded our flight to Florida.

We knew our hotel was close to Disney but didn't realize it was literally within walking distance to the main entrance. We had planned to do a character breakfast and just Magic Kingdom, knowing Lily (and us) were not up for a full-on whirlwind through the Disney parks. Little did we know that planning a Disney vacation is not for the spontaneous. Reservations open up 120 days in advance and people book them immediately. A childhood friend that now works as an event planner at Disney was able to get us a reservation at a character breakfast and provided us with some great information. Unfortunately he was scheduled to be on a Disney cruise so we couldn't meet up with him but he saved us.

My soon to be sister-in-law will tell you we did Disney all wrong. We didn't do the whole set your alarm clock every morning and wait outside the park gates until they let the rush of people in. We didn't get to experience the melting down toddler because we missed her nap time or the 45 minute wait in line in 90% humidity and direct sunlight. We didn't tie a Mickey balloon to our stroller to help us find it in the sea of black strollers at the stroller parking. Heck - we didn't even wear tennis shoes or fannie packs to the park! Instead we did Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom and enjoyed nearly every second of it. Magic Kingdom was decorated from head to toe in Christmas - all of Mickey's gang was suited up for the Christmas parade and even Santa made an appearance. While Lily will talk about this adventure now and for the next several months, I know she won't remember in five years. But the look of pure joy, excitement, and awe on her face as she got to see everything made it all worth it for Mike and I. To an almost four year old, the littlest things were the most amazing things. It was a great reminder for us as parents that we will never get this time back. That we need to often take a step away from this crazy world we live in where we're constantly connected to our jobs and taking "emergency" phone calls outside the carousel and look at what's really important.

The week we arrived back from Florida we threw ourselves into the whirlwind of the holidays. There's nothing better than being surrounded by family but why oh why does it have to fly by so fast?? Thanksgiving we spent the morning with Mike's family visiting his Grandma and then back to my parent's for another full fledged Turkey Dinner. Friday followed with Mike and I hitting up the shops and then the annual Youngs family holiday celebration.

In the Hoy House Christmas does not happen until Thanksgiving is done and over with. Thanksgiving was always one of my favorite holidays growing up and it gets skipped over so quickly these days. But I tell you what - once Thanksgiving weekend is over - we are all about it. This year we started a new tradition with some of our favorite friends by hitting up the Ada Christmas parade and Winter Chili Cook-Off. It was cold but the candy was flying, Santa was waving, and the beers were plentiful.

Following Thanksgiving I took another trip for work and my travel buddy and co-worker convinced me to take a tour of the Dallas Aquarium. I wouldn't say that I was dying to go but the sea otters and ant eaters were my favorite.

Returning from Dallas, I kept reminding myself that it was a marathon - not a sprint. Christmas was approaching quickly which meant of course Lily's preschool Christmas program would be the same night as the BDO Holiday Party. This year we opted for a Gatsby Themed Gathering so Mike and I donned our black, gold and sparkles (me not him) and set off for a charming evening of preschoolers sing-screaming at the top of their lungs with plentiful drinks, gambling, and dancing to follow.

Little did I know I had just attended my last BDO Holiday party. But we'll have to get to that in another post.

The next morning we headed for Chicago to celebrate the Hoy family Christmas which as always was full of extreme chaos and amazingly cherish-able moments. Stop - SLOW DOWN.

Deedee Hoy's Christmas creation!

Poor Graham. It's a difficult life growing up surrounded by only girl cousins. Just ask my brother...

The Sundstrand-Racette Family Christmas celebration quickly followed the Hoy celebration and was as equally chaotic and enjoyable with all of the little kiddos (and flowing cocktails). We even posed for our traditional "kids" photo which Graham will have to look forward to when we fast forward twenty years.