Photo Tag

My friend Jamie who also has a blog tagged me to do this and it certainly peeked my curiosity to see what pic I would find.
The rules: Go to the fifth photo folder on your computer and then pick the fifth picture you find. After you post the picture, you tag five friends to do the same and blog about it. As Jamie is the only person I could tag, well no one will get tagged. But if you want you can still do this, just email me your 5th picture since you don't have a blog!

The Christmas light picture was the actual 5th picture and is of our lights outside our home on 11-30-06. But I added another because I was really hoping it would be of the boys, so I took the 5th picture of the boys from the 5th folder. It's the same day as the lights, Brendan was almost 3 and Carter was 3 months.

Another Interview!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to let you know that Dave heard back from 1st Bank wanting to interview him. The position is for management training, I believe. It's definitely a management position and he has it scheduled for next Friday afternoon, the 27th! I'm excited and also cautious what with our recent experience, however this is a different bank. I actually had been looking at this bank back in the fall at teller positions up until shortly after I got the survey job and according to their website they really value their employees which I love! Teller positions are typically a high turnover job and when I had been looking I was checking their site everyday for about a month or so and NEVER saw a job opening in the Fort Collins or Loveland area which really tells me something....their probably as good as they say they are to work for! That's also why I don't want to get too excited yet but I am very happy he has the interview with them. He is also still looking at other jobs and applying for them. Dave took a class Friday on gov't jobs and the ins and outs of applying for them etc. which he really felt will help in the process of applying for the gov't jobs he's found.
All in all that's about the only news we have so far but I do want to add something. It's going on 4 months now that he's been unemployed and we are doing very good considering. I just want to let you all know that. I know it's very hard not to worry especially for our parents but we truly are doing good money wise and budget wise even with our situation! I believe it's because of some hard lessons we have had to learn in the past that have actually helped us be better prepared for something like being unemployed and I am so grateful for those. The boys should qualify for CHP which is a free or very low yearly payment, special health insurance for low income families and once that happens I can cancel the current one we pay for ourselves. With that and all the other ways we have been able to save on bills I am very confident that if need be we can easily not miss or be late on any bills only counting the paper route and unemployment income. Not to say I'm not trying to do my part but I don't count my massage income with so few clients because that can fluctuate without any notice, until I build my clientele up again we just count that as extra blessings for our bank account. =) I know I didn't need to share this all I just wanted to be able to try and alleviate some worries you all could be having about us, even though I know as our parents I can't make you stop completely but can try to lessen them a bit. Probably the harder part for us is that we still have not been able to sort of come up with a new routine for our family with Dave being home more often. I'll say this, I am way more productive myself when Dave has a job, I tend to put things on hold when changes like this happen. Obviously something I need to work on and learn how to do, maybe as soon as I do that Dave will start a new job!?! ;) I'll get right on that, first thing in the morning. Right now I'm going to bed so I'm well rested to start!
Anyway, we are always appreciative of your prayers and help with job suggestions etc.! And you all, parents and friends are always in ours too! We'll let you know anything new as soon as we know. We love you and hope you have a great week!

Alyssa says to the boys, "We have a surprise we're going to take you to"!

We've been talking about doing this with the boys for some time and finally got to yesterday. It was nice enough and we actually remembered at the right time. Budweiser brewery just north of Fort Collins has a camera day with the horses on the first Saturday of each month for two hours in the afternoon and that's what we wanted to share with you. Once Dave and I decided this would be the best opportunity we've had for some time to finally take them to see the Clydesdales, I told both the boys that we had a surprise for them. Well we had only been there for about 10 minutes and had looked at the horses and took some pictures, when Brendan asks me, "Where's our surprise?" Wow, I thought it was a fun surprise but I think he might have been expecting something in which they would get to play or jump on things. Oh well, maybe that helped him to realize that there are a lot of different kinds of suprises. It was shortly after that we noticed that they did have one of the horses, Slash, outside where you could pet him and get your picture taken with him. I think that made the surprise more exciting for Brendan and Carter too. Of course I know they would have liked to play on the really cool, big wagon but of course we had to let them know that we couldn't, Carter didn't like that too much. But they really enjoyed being able to pet the horses. So all in all, a good little free something to do for about a half hour or so as a family that we haven't done before! Hope you enjoy. :)

Job News

Well, we just heard from Heidi about 20 minutes or so ago and unfortunately they are not hiring Dave. They actually were told from higher up not to hire for the job at all for the time being. Supposedly they didn't want to chance hiring somebody right now, just to lay them off in the near future if they needed to. So, of course we are disappointed but at the same time I'm miffed that they would make everyone spend their time going through the whole process just to change their minds later. That's business for you I suppose, they do have that perogative. At any rate we will move forward. I strongly believe things happen for a reason and it's just not meant to be, like we had hoped.

So, Dave has still been applying for other jobs and networking at least twice a week as well as going to a job fair at the college tomorrow. He's going to research who will be there so that he can have resumes and/or applications ready to go and know who he would like to talk with. We'll keep you posted and keep you in our prayers and blessings as well. We hope you are all doing well and having a great week!

We Love you all, Lys