So, I haven’t posted in so long that it took me a few minutes to remember how to get into our account. Sad. Anyway, we do have some exciting things to say about Christmas and New Years, but I’ll save that for later. For months now Ethan has been saying such a funny thing, and he said it again today so I thought it’s time to write about it. He’s incredible with words and conversation – for some reason he’s just picked up on language and numbers - it’s fascinating to see how fast he learns. But there’s one word he just can’t seem to get into his brain…. APRON. My super talented sister in law, Alissa, gave me and Katelyn matching aprons for our birthdays back in August and we wear them quite often when we cook together. Ethan felt left out immediately. One day he said to me, “I want a neighbor. I want to put on a neighbor. Where’s my neighbor?” I was so confused until I put it together that he was referring to an apron. Then I bought him some overalls, and he was so excited to finally have his own neighbor – I tried to explain to him that they weren’t a neighbor or an apron, that they were called overalls. So then he started asking to put on his “overgirls”. Well, close enough I guess. Luckily he was given his own (baseball) apron for Christmas from Grandma Deedee, so now he can skip the overgirls and just put on his neighbor like Mommy and Katelyn. What a laugh.
Well, it feels like we’ve been very busy recently, but it isn’t until one of us sits down to write about life on the blog that we even stop to think about why life seems crazy busy and what exactly we are up to…and then we just give up and the blog doesn’t get updated.
So..here goes an attempt. At work we decided to shift directions a bit and as a result no longer have a need to have different teams creating our different products. It’s more complicated than that, but the end result was to downsize which meant saying goodbye to friends and coworkers that I work with closely on a daily basis. That was tough. On the positive side though I am very excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for us as a company and enjoy the cohesiveness of a smaller group, similar to how it was in the beginning almost 3 years ago (3 years already..that’s crazy). An immediate affect though is that fewer people are left to handle the work that 2 or 3 people had been doing before which make for some pretty long, exhausing days at work, at least for now. BriAnne has been very supportive and even though I know it’s tough on her when I call to say I’m going to be late getting home she says “Ok, love you!” – she’s great!
Nextly, the expectation of #3 has us on the lookout for a good van deal. That’s right, a minivan. All pride is gone. Seriously, I’ve always hated them, but I guess there just comes a time in every Mormon family when the dang things just look too darn efficient. They haul a lot of people, and a lot of crap, and do it with fairly decent gas mileage. In preparation for that we sold the truck and are sharing the good ol’ Altima until such time that I’ve found a little beater truck and said minivan. Sharing the car does have it’s advantages (we’re saving quite a bit!) but it’s also tough for both of us to not have the freedom to just jump in the car and take off whenever! I think we’ve got schedules coordinated for now (between work, dance lessons for Katelyn, etc) that it’s pretty smooth. It’s also great to work with my brother Dave who is good w/ taking me home in a pinch, etc.
Next is the calling…being ward clerk started off busy enough. Somehow, some way, it’s gotten about three time as busy over the last month or so. I honestly love it, but for the first time ever I’m finding it challenging to keep track of everything on my plate and feel like a ball isn’t falling somewhere. The bishop assures me I’m doing well, so I’ll just keep plugging away and hope everything falls into place!
BriAnne has been busy with her calling as a youth instructor as well, not to mention dealing with the craziness of having a 3 and 5 year old at her heals all the time! She does great at juggling what’s on her plate, getting Katelyn to school, being involved in parent helper stuff at school, gymnastics and piano lessons, planning out the holidays and everything else.
In the midst of it all, we are very excited for the holidays coming up and are loving every minute of being in our new house (although we’ve not done anything in the way of improvements, like THEY have!) We’re still stuck on trying to figure out what we want to do 1st!
That precedes the real season that you say “Tis the season” for….
That’s right, it’s HUNTING season!!!
Some inevitable things are going to happen here within the next couple weeks. 1)The usual hunting clan, minus Ryan who wussed out this year, will set up a massively over-engineered camp site that leaves everyone not familiar with it thinking “why not just go find a Hilton to stay in?” To which I respond internally with “get lost”. 2) based on the meals we usually have there, we’ll be getting approximately 60% of our yearly intake of cholesterol in less than a week, and finally 3) I’ll call up my friend Clayton who will humbly relate the story of how he shot another great buck.
Mark my words, it will happen!
