The Jon Wadley Fam

Came and went all too quickly.  It’s all good though, better that than having it drag out so that we continue to eat a lot more junk food.

We’ve got our Christmas morning beautifully documented via our video camera (you know, the one we forget we’ve got until Christmas time rolls around) and neither of us thought to snap pictures for the blog.  Oh well, rest assured I think the kids were happy with what they got this year and everything went excitedly smooth.

Out of the piles of wrapping paper, bubble wrap and boxes that consumed our living room though emerged a true match made in heaven. In the midst of Brooklyn’s new play kitchen and all of Katelyn’s new girly stuff emerged something I would have given up all my toys for as a boy…I’d say Ethan is pretty darn lucky! But, I think he’s earned it…being the only man about the house during the days to hold down the fort. He needed something to help him make the rounds of the yard insuring it’s security from pooping dogs and stray cats:

Do you think he likes it?

I only made one request of him though…that he let’s me borrow it for the deer hunt next year.  I’m pretty sure that thing will get places I can’t get my truck, LOL.

I’ll be honest, I’ve got a lot to be excited about right now.  Christmas is right around the corner. My brother drew a cow elk tag so I may get to stretch the legs in the mountains again.  We’re going to Hawaii in February for our anniversary. We’re almost done “making over” our big room in the basement.

What had me more excited than any of that, at least for today? I got this humdinger in the mail:

This probably has you asking either out loud or introspectively: “Why the crap is he excited about that?” All I can say is “I don’t know”. I have just always wanted to serve on a jury. I’ve come across several people who have had to serve multiple times and hope to never do it again and I think they are nuts. Now, I realize this is for jury selection but trust me, I’ll be crossing my fingers that I make it through.  I didn’t think I could be a potential juror for a different city but I guess I was wrong.

Oh, I whited out a few things because I don’t know if it’s OK that I put it on the blog. I sure would hate get ruled out because of it!

And I say that in both a good way and a challenging one.

I don’t remember if it was in March or April, but sometime early on in the year I distinctly remember thinking to myself, something like “wow, 2011…what a boring year so far”.  Now that the year is almost over, I can’t believe what a crazy one it turned out to be, almost immediately from that point on. There was always something big going on with someone in my immediate or extended family.  It seems like some families naturally have more drama than others (on the average) but ours has always been fairly low key. 2011 was a bit different though..we experienced everything from a motorcycle accident to cancer to jail to surgery and a lot of other crazy things in between.  Throughout the chaos though has emerged a strengthened family.  It has been neat to see family pull together to support and help one another, and testimonies grow and flourish in ways that probably wouldn’t have been possible without experiencing the “refiner’s fire”.

I’m grateful for the experiences we’ve been through.  Having said that, here’s to hoping 2012 will be a little smoother ride!

I haven’t provided a job update since announcing that I was moving to another company…I should probably do that. I went to the new place and was there for about 2 months, full time while doing contract work for OS. I’ll sum it up by saying it was a great learning experience, but didn’t go the direction that I or the person who hired me had envisioned and discussed. Instead of doing DBA work they told me that they needed me to do development work for the time being as I had development experience and they were very shorthanded. I said fine, as long as I start to see some DBA tasks as well before too long.  I gave it enough time to get a feel for how things were going to go and while I didn’t hate the job, it also wasn’t helping me develop the skills I wanted to further develop and refine. As such, it also wasn’t worth the time and stress it was putting on my family and other areas of my life (elder’s quorum calling, etc). After much thought, discussion with BriAnne and prayer, I felt it would be best to go back to OS full time. It’s been great to be back!

Needless to say, our family is getting excited for Christmas! See, this is what we did today right after church:

Then it’s on to watching Christmas Vacation! Well, not today but maybe tomorrow.

For family pictures.  If you know us, that’s a big deal! I think our most recent was taken when Ethan was a year old or so.  A lot changes in a young family in 3 or 4 years.  Case in point: