Life has been busy for us since Nat came home from Seattle. He’s been working hard at finishing up his last project and working on his slides for his defense this Friday. Unfortunately, some of his results aren’t coming out the way that he wants, so he’s been dividing his time between rerunning simulations and working on his slides. It seems like that Nat is making really good progress in his slides, and he just has to wait to see how his results are. If his results aren’t good, he’ll need to take some time to figure out why and to present why the results aren’t good. I think that Nat is a little bit frustrated that the results aren’t turning out the way he wants, but sometimes research is about understanding why the results are bad.
We have been able to have some relaxing times, and I’m thankful that Nat has been trying to balance his workload and family. We celebrated Mother’s Day this past Sunday, so I got most of the day off. I pampered myself a pedicure. 
We went out for dinner, just the two of us, and it was a good time to relax.
Yesterday, Memorial Day, Nat worked. He did come home at 4, and took Sean to the block party on our street. I was thankful that he did that because I wasn’t feeling well (I took a nap and woke up with a low fever). I did manage to spend some time at the block party, and it was nice to meet some of our neighbors. We had missed the block parties the previous years because we had other plans that day. Sean had a great time running up and down the blocked parts of the street with the other kids. He also had fun splashing in some big puddles.
My mom is coming in this afternoon;,my dad is coming tomorrow afternoon, and Nat’s parents are coming in late Thursday night so they can watch Nat defend on Friday morning. It’ll be nice to have help this week with the kids, especially since I’m feeling sick. It’ll be nice to celebrate Nat’s achievement as a big family too!