My parents are French and Filipino (hence the pseudonym - my brother calls himself Frenchipino), so I was born in Manila and grew up sort of all over the place. My family moved around every 3 years or so for my Dad's career in the hotel industry. We lived in Bangkok, Montreal and Chicago. I am pretty proud of my background now, but was not a huge fan at the time. I took me years to forgive my Dad for yanking me from Bangkok and moving us to Montreal. After I graduated from high school in Chicago, I stopped following my parents around, but they continue to be jet-setty and cool. Right now, they are in a resort in China, so yeah.
I went to a liberal arts college in upstate New York, and spent a blissful 4 years away from reality. I had an amazing experience and made lifelong friends, but wasn't quite ready to be a grown up when I finished, so I took the LSAT and headed back to Chicago. My LSAT scores were not awesome, so I was not at a top ranked Chicago school, but was challenged and enjoyed it nonetheless. While there, I met my excellent husband, B in my 2L year. We moved in together during 3L, studied for the bar exam together, and got engaged shortly after getting our passing scores.
B and I spent quite a few months looking for jobs, but struggled. 2009 on is kind of a bad time to graduate from any law school with employment. I had the "luxury" of staying unemployed for as long as it took to find a job, thanks to the support of my parents. B is not so lucky as I am, and couldn't hold out for a job as a lawyer. He worked a couple of miserable jobs until landing a spot at a BigBank, where his law degree isn't entirely wasted and he is happy. I was hired by some family friends who owned a healthcare company that do a lot of recruiting of Physical and Occupational therapists. I took care of all their immigration documents.
We got married in April of 2010, and a few sneezes later, I was pregnant. Right around the same time, my bosses offered to basically double my salary if I were to move to Las Vegas, where they needed help running a few Physical Therapy clinics. Even though B and I were happy in Chicago, it was impossible to ignore the salary raise, especially when we have two law school debts to pay for on only one lawyer's salary (I still only make about half of a Big Law associate's salary). So, we moved to Vegas and don't have any plans to leave for a while.
We had our little Mia on May 25, 2011 and she is the most wonderful addition that I could ever imagine.
I would be remiss if I did not also introduce you to Swarls Barkley. Swarley is a 4 year old Lab/Cairn Terrier mix that Brian and I adopted when we finished taking the Bar exam. Swarley loves everything and everyone and is Mia's best friend (reluctantly, on his part).
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| Hi! I'm Swarley! I have never met you, but I probably love you! |
Last but certainly not least, Lucy was born on December 2, 2014 and has rocked our world (in the best way possible). We're now learning to parent two girls, work full time and still keep everyone happy and fed!
