The Americanization of Emily: Catch-Up

I haven't blogged since April. Mark kept the ship afloat for a while, until he decided to start his own personal blog.

So, the question was, what should I do? Should I try and keep the blog going even though I no longer seem to be able to find the time and energy, or should I just quit while I'm ahead?

Realistically speaking, I don't think that I'm going to be able to write as regularly as I have done in the past. But, I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel. I think that I might try and keep it going, but perhaps on a more irregular footing.

If you would like to know whenever I write something, but can't be bothered returning here regularly to see if I've posted anything new, you can be notified of updates by subscribing to the feed.

"So, what have you been doing during your unsolicited absence?" you may well ask. Here's some highlights:

Disney World

About 9 years ago, back in November 1998 Mark had a conference in Disney World, Orlando. We decided to go as a family. Lauren was just over a year old and Emily had recently turned 4. Mark would go off to his conference and we would see him in the evenings. We decided then that we would like to take the girls again when they are old enough to remember it a bit more and when Mark can enjoy the holiday instead of having to work.

(Source)Now, here we are living in America, only about 630 miles from Disney World. We would not have to pay about $3000 in air fare, just to get there. In addition, this year Mark had a milestone birthday. So, this Spring Break we all jumped in the car and drove down to Orlando, Florida. We had a great time at SeaWorld, MGM Studio, Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom.

As an aside, I have to thank Mark's student's Dad who works at MGM Studio for getting us three days of Disney park hopper tickets.

Work Permit and SSN

My EAD came through at long last at the beginning of May, so I am now able to work (even though the SSA had to send my Social Security Number (SSN) application to Homeland Security, who didn't return it for about three months). I am self employed and working from home, but am contracted to TPF Software. At the moment I'm working on web-based stuff (mainly PHP) and some Delphi stuff as well.

Trips

We've taken a few trips over the past few months. These have mostly been covered by Mark, so you can read a bit more about them there if you like.

We went to: