Pictures

I downloaded some more pictures, so I thought I would post some!

My dad turned 53 last week, so we had a birthday party for him this last Sunday. This is a picture of my sister and EmmaLee.

My dad was just lucky we spelled out his age with candles instead of actually putting 53 on!!

This is my nephew Caleb and my brother Thomas. Caleb and his family are moving to Idaho this weekend, and we are going to miss having them so close!!

Eden LOVES cameras and getting her picture taken, but she thinks she always has to pose in one way or the other, so they are always fun and different!

EmmaLee might only be 18 months, but she has a huge personality! When she isn't happy with what you are doing, she lets you know!

I told you Eden really doesn't take "normal" pictures!

A couple of weeks ago I found Isaac asleep in his room like this. It's harder to tell with this picture, but he is actually sitting on a toy box that I had stacked some extra pillows on. His bed is next to him.

You can see his bed in this picture just to the right of him.

This is Caleb's sister McKell. She has huge blue eyes (did you notice?) and always has them wide open!

Eden isn't the only one that tries to pose. This is Isaac's typical smile when I ask him to smile for me. One of these days I might have to make a post dedicated to it, and I could post a whole bunch of pictures with this same smile! He is such a ham and likes to make us laugh!

For a quick update, we still have no news. Last Saturday we mailed off 80 of Rob's resumes, and so far we have heard back from about 5 of them, one of which resulted in an interview today. When Rob got there, he found out it was for a completely web based job, so it's out, but at least something came out of all that work, and there are still a lot more out there! The rest of the ones we've heard from were the, "thanks for your interest in our company, but we aren't hiring right now", which we expected. At least they were kind enough to reply! So, we are still looking, and hoping! We have no idea where we are going to be in 2 weeks, let alone 2 months! We are considering moving in with his mom sooner than later just because we really are broke right now, and figure it might be easier to find a get by job up there where we wouldn't have to move if she ends up selling her house and having to start over again! One thing that helped make today a little less disappointing was actually not a very fun event! Last night a neighbor was at the house talking to me in the entry way where the stairs are. My kids kept coming up by us, then leaving, going back and forth. Well, Isaac went by the stairs and leaned against the gate, which then broke forward, sending Isaac tumbling down the whole flight of stairs! I felt so helpless watching him because I had actually been reaching for him trying to get him off the gate when it gave way, so I had just missed him! I ran down to him, and of course he was crying, but I couldn't see any obvious injuries, and luckily because I had seen him the whole way, I knew he really hadn't landed very awkwardly, so I wasn't too worried about any major injuries. Long story short, he is fine, and I realized that I would rather be looking for a job for the rest of our lives than have something serious happen to anyone in my family again! So, I think that experience helped me keep the disappointment of today more in perspective!

Update-Sort of!

This is another update, sort of. Really, there is nothing new to report, except a few new thoughts. We are still just looking everywhere we can for a job, and I've even applied for a job just to see if we can get by. We have one last week of unemployment, and then we're not sure what we are going to do! We have printed off a bunch of Rob's resumes and we are going to email them to all the companies we can think of that might have graphic designers. Hopefully something will work out! Another thought we had last night that we are going to start working on is the possibility of going back to school. Rob's wanted to go back to get his Bachelors, someday, and we started thinking, well, maybe now is someday. We can't seem to get a job, and with the economy the way it is, who knows how long before we do get one?! So, why not spend this "struggling" time actually struggling towards something? And, Rob's mom's new house is in Clearfield, which isn't far from Weber State, so we are considering trying to go there. Or, I have an aunt and uncle from Cache Valley who just left on a mission and whose house is sitting empty. They tried to get somebody to move in while they were gone, but it didn't work out, so we know they would let us stay there if we wanted to, and then Rob could finish at USU. The down side to that one is that their mission is only 18 months, and it would be down to just a year by the time school started, so half way through school we would have to figure out a different living situation. So, anyway, we are just starting to work on those thoughts, so who knows if that will end up being what we do. And, we still have to come up with some kind of a job to get us through until school starts, so there is still a lot of things we have to figure out and have work for us. But, at least it's somewhere else to go, besides just waiting around for a job! Thanks for reading the whole way through, if you did, and letting me put my thoughts out. One way or the other we will get through this time, huh?!
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that my brother and his family are going to be moving to Idaho, just north of Rexburg sometime in March. He got a new job with a company up there, and they are excited about it! It is a corporate job, so he will have a Monday through Friday, 8-5 job, which will be a huge blessing for him! He's been working swing, including like 3 out of 4 Saturdays, and he's really excited to get a more consistant schedule! I'm so excited for him for that part, but I'm so sad that he will be moving away! But, it's not as far as it could be, and we are already planning on going to Yellowstone and visiting with them a lot for vacations!

Never Mind

I'm not even sure how to write this entry because I want to scream about it, but I'm trying to be positive, so sorry if it doesn't really flow. So, Rob worked all of last week for his new company. It was CRAZY! The company basically fired the guy that Rob replaced, like a month ago, but the guy basically ran the whole print shop and didn't tell anyone how he did it (thus he was able to steal from the company for a long time because nobody really knew what he did). So, when they finally caught on, they fired him, but nobody knew how to run the place, including the owner! Soooo, the owner keeps hiring other people (Rob was number 3) to basically step in and run the company. Rob's never worked at a print shop, so he didn't know how to do all the printing aspects. He was told he was being hired as the Graphic Designer, but reality is that the print shop doesn't really do designing, so really the owner hired the wrong person. And, sadly enough, the owner (Jon) really liked the first guy that stole from him (Jeremy), enough that he even named his own son after him! So, it's almost like being in the middle of a divorce because really Jon just wants Jeremy, and nobody is as good as Jeremy, but he won't hire Jeremy back because of what he did. So, everyone he hires falls short of his expectations. So, long story short, Jon called Rob Saturday evening and told him that he appreciates the work he did, but he wasn't the right guy for the company. It was bitter/sweet news because obviously we really were hoping for a long term job, but the truth is that Rob was not very happy there. From the first day, Rob knew it wasn't what he had been given the impression it would be, and we knew we were still going to be job hunting just as much as before, but we had maybe hoped the job would last long enough for us to leave it instead of being let go. The good news is that because the boss has been so weird about hiring people and then letting them go, he had arranged for the first two weeks to be "probationary", so he was paying Rob more like a private contractor than as an actual employee. Because of that, we were never technically "hired", so we should still qualify for the remainder of our unemployment. But, there is only like 3 weeks left of that, so we are hoping something comes our way soon! We feel like maybe we were meant to be in Sandy, and that's why this happened. Without it, we would have moved up to Clearfield already. So, maybe what we are suppose to be doing needed us to be in Sandy, but it's not quite ready yet, so something had to happen to keep us there instead of moving all the way up to Clearfield. At least, that's what I'm hoping! I don't want to move twice, and I don't understand why this would happen! I don't know why we would change our whole course of life for something that wasn't even going to last a week! I really don't feel like moving again so soon, so I'm hoping something works out! But whatever happens, I guess I'll just have to believe it's for experience, and try to be happy about it! At this point, our plans are to stay in Sandy at least until the end of the month. Then, unless we feel prompted otherwise, we will probably move in with Shirley in Clearfield. So, that's us this week! I'm ready to be off this roller coaster!!!!!