I made it!

In Primary, we have decided to teach sharing time for the entire month to keep the theme consistent for the month. February was my turn and I made it through! I think I had some good teaching moments, some great teaching moments, and some not so good teaching moments. But I am closer to knowing most of the kids names, and that is a huge accomplishment for me. I'll take it.

Dad said you could do what?

We went to the Hermosa Vista Elementary School carnival fund raiser last night and had a really good time.  Katelyn was a monster on the rock wall, Megan owned the bounce house, and Adam was a champ in the stroller.  Amy and her family came along to enjoy the carnival with us.

I went there straight from work and met up with the group to walk around with the kids and dish out the tickets. At one point, I had to go meet Kaley in the parking lot (she wanted to borrow Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs), so I had the girls come along.  Near the parking lot was the station where they were hairspray painting kids hair.  Katelyn asked if she could do it, and then Megan did too.  I was happy to go through the tickets and move on to the next thing, and figured it wouldn't hurt, so I said yes.  Katelyn picked orange, because they didn't have brown.  :)  Yep, she wanted her wacky hair color to be brown!  Megan went with blue because they were out of purple.  The good news is that it is washing out good and will be out for church tomorrow.  I suppose the bad news is the look that I got from Cassi when she saw what I let them do.  :)  I think Amy was siding with Cassi.  I told Katelyn it's a once-a-year deal, so she doesn't get any ideas.

After the carnival, we all went back to our house for movie night and then Amy's crew went home and we got the kids in bed.  Here's how they looked last night going to bed (Megan is faking asleep much better than Katelyn).  You can barely see the blue streak in Megan's hair.  By the end of the night, that's how she preferred it. :)

My baby turned ONE!

I know I say this every time I reach an age milestone, but I REALLY can't believe Adam is ONE! He is such a good baby. He started walking at 11 months, and is a pretty accomplished walker now. That is early for my kids. He still looks too small to be walking. Adam's favorite toy is a ball. I think I'll just claim that this is his first word. I made him an ice cream cake shaped like a basketball. We invited family over for dinner. Then when Chris got home from work, we opened presents and had cake and ice cream. Of course, Adam loved his first introduction to cake. We just love having Adam in our family!

New Calling

I've been called to be the Assistant Varsity Scout Coach in our ward.  I'm excited to work with the boys.  I'm nervous because I haven't been real "outdoorsy" although I do enjoy camping and stuff.  Mostly I hope I'll be able to help the boys prepare to be Priests and on their way to the mission field.  If I can do anything with them from the scouting side too, it'll be fantastic.

Got Work?

I do! I do!  It hasn't been as long a search as some have had these days, but I'm VERY thankful to say that I have officially accepted an offer of employment.  The company is called Cylon Corporation up in Scottsdale and I don't really have much idea what they do yet.  But, I'll be working on the development team, doing automation and qa stuff in PHP.

It was really kind of a fluke the way this happened.  I posted a resume on their site back in November for an Automation QA position.  A week ago Sunday I was going back through places I had already posted and updating resumes.  While there, I saw a PHP developer position available.  I remembered it was available when I applied before, so I decided to give it a go.  Lo and behold I got a call last week, an interview last Friday, an informal verbal offer last Friday afternoon, and an official everything-in-writing offer this morning!  I'll start February 1, so I have a few days to work on the house here without working on finding a job at the same time.  A funny coincident, the HR guy who contacted me is the same guy I worked with when I applied at GoDaddy almost exactly two years ago.  Crazy!  I guess he likes this place better too!

There are a lot of cool "perks," like they bring in lunch everyday, keep a fridge/snack shelf stocked with food and drink so you can almost eat all three meals there (I better not though, or I'll gain back all the weight I've lost so far - about 20 pounds).  Another exciting note is that I'm getting a raise with this new job.  I'm on a bonus plan (I guess some people are on a straight salary plan), which means that if bonuses are paid out every quarter, I could end up getting a 22% raise from Novell.  This is such a huge blessing and sigh of relief that I almost can't believe it.  Thank you so much to everyone who helped in every way, even supporting words encouraged me and helped me stay positive during this trial.  I'm nervous and excited to start this new chapter in my career.  It's going to be a lot longer commute up to Scottsdale than down the hallway to my den, but I'm happy for the opportunity.

Ward scramble

We were surprised this new year with ward boundary changes. January 10th, our ward was invited to a special fireside meeting along with 6 other wards in our Stake. The Stake presidency said they knew they needed to make some changes, but that they were trying to make it as little as possible. Somehow, that wasn't what was meant to happen because in the end, the right change was huge. After all the short talks were given on change and fellowshipping, and reaching out to others, all the maps were explained. My stomach literally dropped when I realized I was just one of about 9 families getting "shaved" off my ward and put into another ward. I loved my ward. Really, these people are the cream of the crop people. I wasn't ready for this kind of change. I just got to know these people. I really didn't want to start over! But, as is always the case, Heavenly Father knows what we need. I didn't even make it one week before being called to be the 1st Counselor in the Primary Presidency. I love the Primary and I am ready to dig in and serve. Our first week as a Presidency was a little overwhelming. I have so many people to get to know, and I need to do it quickly. I have a feeling that this is exactly what I need. I know that Heavenly Father knows each of us and is in the details of our lives. He cares about each of us and what is happening to us. It took a little while, but I can finally say that I am excited for this change.

Ice Ice Baby

Since leaving AZ to go to school/mission/etc. my parents have gone to Disney On Ice several times with the AZ crew that was around. They didn't go every year and it's been a few years since the last time, but they asked if we'd be interested this year, since it was going to have Ariel, Tinkerbell, Lion King, Cars, and (oh yeah!) Mikey and Friends. We said of course!

Here's rare footage of my mom. Don't be alarmed by the coats and blankets. The weather outside is AMAZING, but we're going to a show ON ICE, so even us AZ folks can figure that out!

We went a little early because they had a "Meet the Princess" including Tiana from "The Princess and the Frog." I'm glad we went as early as we did, because the line was short when we got there, and not short when we were done. This isn't a great picture, but it was a mass of people and I'm just glad those are my kids in the pic!

Here we are, seats 2-16. Although noone showed up to take seat 1, so that's where the coats and stuff we didn't end up using went!

Adam enjoyed the show too, and lasted until near the end of the second act. Cassi didn't miss any of the show, she just stood in the portal entrance and he was fine.

Here are just a couple more pics from the show. I had fun playing with the flash off and took way too many pictures. Ahhhh, the blessing of digital!

After the show timing worked out (and we were right next door) to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner.  I realized while we were Downtown that it had probably not been since my senior year that I'd been to the US Airways Center.  Too long!

It was a fun show and outing.  Super thanks to Mom and Dad for letting us all come with them.