Our Anniversary

Tom and I have been really busy this last week. Monday and Tuesday we went to Colorado for a job interview and Saturday I threw a bridal shower for my cousin. With that and everything else going on like fathers day, work, and me only feeling good on and off we haven't really had time to shop for or plan for our anniversary. Not to mention I can't do many of the things we would like to do being 8 mo. pregnant. Anyway, the other day I got a phone evaluation at work and for every point I scored I got a dollar. I got 81. I figured it was money we weren't planning on and I didn't have to work real hard for it so I decided we would just cash the check and do or buy anything we wanted and that would be our celebration.

I had the day off and Tom did until 4:30, so we were off to see what fun things we could do. First we went to Wingers for lunch and used a gift card I gave Tom for Fathers Day. We then went to the Aquarium in Sandy. We had heard it was really cool and it was. Chalyse loved the fish and it was super kid friendly. We got there in perfect time for "critter corner" where they had a parrot and some other critters that we could see close up (like a tarantula and scorpion). They also had some really cool jellyfish, an octopus, and eels AND they have a pond were you can reach in and pet the stingrays! At the end they have a play area with little caves for the kids. Before we left we went to the gift store to buy Chalyse a little souvenir. Everything we would let her see she would quickly bring close to her and hug and rock. We decided on a blue, fuzzy stingray. She loves it.

After the Aquarium we went to the Peppermint Place and bought some chocolates. They sell their mess-ups for a dollar a pound! After all this we still had almost $50 so we went to Walmart to look at kiddie pools for Chalyse and maybe a game or something. We were going to just get a a cheap little pool for $10 but we found this other one with a slide and a dolphin that you hook to the hose and it spays. It was so cool so we got it. We had a little left over, but couldn't really think of anything else we wanted so we hurried home so we could try out our new pool before Tom had to work. It is really fun and Chalyse loves it. It is funny, we could have gotten stuff for ourselves but we had the most fun buying for Chalyse. Besides we couldn't think of anything else we wanted besides bikes and that would have been at least $400 after getting 2 bikes, a bike trailer and a rack for our car and we wouldn't really be able to use them for a while. (Maybe that will be our Christmas.)

All in all we had a lot of fun and on our real anniversary we have a ward party, that will be fun too. :)

We didn't take the camera to the Aquarium but here is Chalyse and our new pool.

The Job Hunt Continues

So, I didn't get that job in Elizabeth. It's probably best that way. We would have been in Elizabeth this last week end to fill out paper work, etc. Two nights ago, a huge tornado touched down just outside of Elizabeth. That would have been a bit exciting.

We went to Western Colorado the last couple of days for an interview. We were able to visit with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Norm, Aunt Linda, Uncle Jeff, and Aunt Barb. It was near Aunt Barb's house, so they let us stay with them. It was a lot of fun. The job is for a rural school where the middle school and high school are in the same building but different parts. It's a nice little community.

I have several jobs in the pipeline right now, including the one in Western Colorado that I'm waiting to hear back on, one in Virginia that I interview for today, and one in the valley that I also interview for today. That one is at an alternative high school and would be part time (about 13 hours/week). Needless to say, I'm hoping for one of the other ones, but I'll take that one if there isn't a full time position for me somewhere else. We could stay here so both Camille and I could work, and I could even pursue another endorsement to make myself more marketable. We'll see.

Interview

I've had a few interviews so far, but tomorrow I interview for a job in Elizabeth, Colorado, which has a relatively large high school (it has about 850 students as opposed to 120 students in a school that serves k-12 like some of the districts I've applied at). I would teach social studies (don't know exactly which subjects, yet) in a fairly large social studies department (7 faculty members in it compared with me being the only one if I were hired in some of the other districts). That way, I would only have a couple of different classes instead of teaching 7 different subjects every day. As you can tell, I am hoping that I get this job. Pray for me!

Little Helper

Chalyse is sick again! Poor girl. It's not fair. Hopefully she gets over it quickly. This morning i guess she really wasn't feeling well because she had a complete break down during breakfast. She would want her oatmeal but when i tried to give it to her she would freak out. So we gave up on the oatmeal and gave her a muffin. She just wanted to hold it and complain. When i asked her if she would eat it she would throw it down but when i tried to remove her tray to clean her up she would scream and snatch the muffin back up. We tried this a few times but pretty soon she was hysterical. So I put her back to bed and as soon as she was in bed with her binki and blankie she became silent and she slept for another 2 hours.
Chalyse is getting so big though. She can do so many new things. Like eat with a spoon. A skill I though she would never get because she would always just hold her spoon in one hand and eat with the other. She still has trouble and tries to just dip her spoon most times but she is making progress. Another thing she has been doing lately is "helping". She is good at picking things up for me and putting them in the drawer or box or wherever and she likes to take her dirty clothes to the laundry room...and her clean clothes. The other day she spilled some milk on the floor and i gave her a towel and asked to to clean it up and she did.

Spanish Rice

Here is the Spanish rice recipe that John and Jenni asked for. It serves 6.

Brown together:

1/2 lb ground beef
1/4 to 1/2 med. onion OR 1 tablespoon dried onion flakes
(do not drain fat.)

add:

3/4 cup uncooked rice and fry briefly

add:
2 cups hot water
one 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/8 teaspoon marjoram
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 35 min.

Job Hunt

Since I know that many of you have been praying for me to find a job, I thought I would give you an update of what your prayers have done.

I've been actively looking for a job for two or three months now, and and I've submitted more applications than I care to think about (easily 75 or more). I've looked for jobs from Anchorage, Alaska to Orlando, Florida and just about every place in between. I've learned a few things as I've done this.

The most important thing that I've learned, I think, is that being able to work and provide for your family is so important that you shouldn't be too proud to work in a given place or doing a particular job. Since the beginning of my job search, we've prayed that we would find the right job for us and be in the place God would have us be. At the beginning, though, there was always a thought in the back of my mind saying, "Just as long as it's where I want to be, too." I had a little checklist of preferences for where I wanted to work: high school and preferably somewhere close; but if not close, then somewhere that pays well and has a nice climate with lots of green, and not Payson. As I went along, I couldn't get interviews, no matter how hard I tried, and I'm grateful for that. I was taught that I shouldn't let my prejudices get in the way of providing for my family. I have gotten to the point where I really would work anywhere.

Things got better towards the end of this last week. I scheduled three interviews in three days, one of which I went to this last Friday, and the other two are on Tuesday. I also scheduled a screening interview. The interview I had this last Friday was in Roy, as is one of the interviews on Tuesday. The other interview on Tuesday will be over the phone for a school in Oak Creek, Colorado (it's a bit north west of Vail). My screening interview is also over the phone for Anchorage School District.

Emergency Room Fun

Our doctor diagnosed Chalyse with an ear infection, but I hadn't noticed her pulling at her ear at all. I think that he suspected that it was the early stages of it and that it would soon flare up. She got an antibiotic, and her fever seemed to have gone mostly away on Friday.

Yesterday (Saturday), her fever shot back up, however. We decided that we needed to go to the emergency room after her fever just wouldn't go down (it was well over 103 again). After three and a half hours (we got there a little bit before 7:00 pm) and a whole lot of tests that Chalyse thought were very rude, they diagnosed her with viral pneumonia. They told us to keep her on the antibiotic just in case it was really bacterial, because there's no way to tell the difference from the symptoms.

About an hour before we got done, Chalyse decided that she was miraculously healed. She started to use an entire day's worth of energy in the short time she had before going to bed. We didn't want her getting down on the cold floor, so we had an extremely fun battle with her for the rest of the time we were there.

104 Degrees!

Chalyse has been sick with a cough for about a week. It hasn't been too bad so we have just been waiting it out. Last night though i put her down for bed at 6:30 (she had refused to take an afternoon nap) and at about 9pm she woke up crying and really warm. We took her temprature at almost 104 under the arm. Yikes! We quickly dressed her down to her diaper and gave her some Motrin and a cold drink wich she downed. At around 10:30 she was still over 102 but it seemed to be dropping...slowly...and she didn't realy have any other simptoms besides her cough, which wasn't even that bad, and that she was a little fussy. She even thought about getting down and playing a few times but didn't really have the energy. So we decided to just watch her closly and take her to the doctor in the morning if she wasn't doing much better. Well, her fever continued to drop and by morning her temrature was normal and she was mostly back to her perky self...until her nap. She woke up an hour into it with a fever again and was really grmpy. Her fever wasn't nearly as high as last night but i decided we should take her in just in case. Tom has her at the doctors right now so we'll see what happens. I hope she starts feeling better soon. It's no fun being sick.