Everytime I go to Facebook all I want to put as my status is "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Steve and I need better stress management techniques. It seems like more often than not I'll wake up in the middle of the night and find him missing because he can't sleep. The other day we had a date night and at one point in the conversation we looked at each other and said "Let's talk about something OTHER than our current job search!" 10 minutes of silence ensued and then we started talking about it again. Where will we go, what is our top pick, where would we not want to go, what are the dangers of living in a border town (you never know when those crazy Canadians will invade and they expect you to say "eh" all the time...sheesh), would a pregnancy transfer to new insurance (not an announcement), why we cringe about living in Utah, will we be able to buy a decent home, what are the schools like, what if we don't get anything at all....the list goes on. I'm as close to an anxiety attack as I ever want to be- uncertainty does not agree with me.
We have both agreed on our top pick, but I probably shouldn't put it out there in case we jinx ourselves. My constant prayer is that the Lord will help us to go to a place where our family can thrive, but perhaps my idea and His idea of "thriving" are different. I wish I could put this out of my mind until we have options with which to make a choice. I just haven't been faced with a situation where I could be living in 35+ different places in as little as 9 months. Bleh.
Favorite Job Search Quote: "BYU...it's better than Mexico."*
*Don't get me wrong- we both went to BYU and it's actually pretty high on our list. I'm just not sure I'd be happy there- we'll see.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
I promise- this is the last post!
Are you getting sick of us yet? Well, too bad. Here's some more family pictures.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Wuv, True Wuv
Almost 8 years, 2 kids, and countless life experiences later, my life with this man just keeps getting better. I can truly say I love him more than the day I married him.
I recently read an article about how the 20's are a time to be selfish and develop yourself as an individual.
They don't know what they are missing.
I recently read an article about how the 20's are a time to be selfish and develop yourself as an individual.
They don't know what they are missing.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Miss Nadia
My sweet, strong-willed girl. You are perfect.
If you couldn't tell, she loves to run.
But she's not always perfect on the execution.
Peek-a-boo!
If you couldn't tell, she loves to run.
But she's not always perfect on the execution.
Peek-a-boo!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Rowan's Wackiness Captured
"I'm not even smiling! I'm grumpin!" -Rowan
It took a good father to pull out some smiles.
I love every one of these- they totally show Rowan's many faces.
Obscene quantities of family pictures to follow...
It took a good father to pull out some smiles.
I love every one of these- they totally show Rowan's many faces.
Obscene quantities of family pictures to follow...
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Wildlife Photography
Catching these guys in a natural moment is like trying to get a shot of wildlife in their habitat. They seem to have an innate knack for knowing when they are being filmed. I love how well they play together for the most part and this is a little snippet of that.
Personal Progress
No,unfortunately this is not a plug for the Young Women's program. I'm just on an alliteration streak. We've completed a few goals around here and I thought it'd be fun to share.
ROWAN
If you recall, a long time ago we were working with Rowan on learning to write all of his upper case letters. Well, we may have taken forever (too many fun distractions over the summer), but Rowan finally finished.
Towards the end, Rowan was interested in drawing his own pictures for the words.
My personal favorite is "vomit", but I have a gross sense of humor sometimes. Rowan is starting to read a little and write a lot. I bought him a blank notepad and he filled it in a day. He loves to write me letters and then I have to pronounce interesting letter combinations. How do you say NWEBMTVC?
Our whiteboard often has a word of the day with no encouragement from me.
He knows words like ZOO, STOP, ON, OFF, YES, NO, I LOVE YOU, and so on. Our next goal is lower case letters and I have a feeling he'll be reading a lot after that.
NADIA
Nadia is obsessed with the potty. It's gotten to the point where if I don't throw away her dirty diapers fast enough, they'll end up in the toilet. She got rather upset when one of her slightly older friends came over and used the "facilities". She really wants to do it, but I'm not sure she's ready. We've pulled out the little potty and it's one of her favorite things around the house. It's funny how much more interested she is in doing things than Rowan was at her age. She loves unloading the dishwasher and helping with any household chore. I don't know if the interest stems from being a girl or the second child, but it's kind of neat.
She's also doing a lot more word combinations and possessives. Mommy's juice, Daddy's bus, Rowan's car etc.
Her interests also extend to building things. She likes legos almost as much as her brother. When we were cleaning out our laundry closet, she took it as an opportunity to build with soup cans.
ME
My mom has come over the summer for several years. Each time we talk about how she should give me painting lessons, but we get distracted or worn out from watching kids all day. This year, just a few days before she left, Steve offered to take the kids so we could finally do it. I took a couple of beginning art classes at BYU, but I was never that impressed with the instruction I received. I'm so excited for her to come next year and maybe we can do some more. In between packing and moving to some unknown location hopefully.
The paint we used was from Walmart and was extremely dry and chalky for oil paint. The canvas was meant for acrylic and again from Walmart. So learn from me and don't buy paint supplies from Walmart. Regardless of these obstacles, I'm really excited about how this turned out.
The original
I find I like working with smaller canvases. At BYU, we had huge ones and the effort it took to fill it made for a lower quality product, especially given the time constraints due to deadlines. Thanks Mom for all your help!!
STEVE
Steve is crazy busy this semester. He is teaching (200+ students!), doing his research, conducting experiments for his dissertation, taking his last class, helping support different facets within the lab, running support for Iclickers on campus, and applying for jobs. So far he's got about 30 jobs that he will be applying for and a lot of them require different things for the application. Some want research statements, some want teaching statements, and all of them seem to have a different emphasis on what they are looking for. Printing off a resume and sending it to 30 different locations would be a cakewalk compared to the prep that is involved for what he's encountering. The jobs he has found seem to either be Ivy League positions or branch campuses. There are a couple that are in between, but not many. Even with some of these prestigious universities on the list, we don't really have a top pick, which is a little surprising to me. Every position has a downfall- too far from family, too high cost of living, living in a state we don't like, too intensive/competitive of a work environment etc. Even with these obstacles, we are both really excited to get the applications in and see where we end up. I know that the Lord will take us to a place where our family will thrive- I've felt that confirmed to me time and time again. It may not be what we expect, but coming here wasn't exactly a smooth transition either. Anyways, I'm proud of Steve for all the hard work he is doing to get us to the next step in our lives.
ROWAN
If you recall, a long time ago we were working with Rowan on learning to write all of his upper case letters. Well, we may have taken forever (too many fun distractions over the summer), but Rowan finally finished.
Towards the end, Rowan was interested in drawing his own pictures for the words.
My personal favorite is "vomit", but I have a gross sense of humor sometimes. Rowan is starting to read a little and write a lot. I bought him a blank notepad and he filled it in a day. He loves to write me letters and then I have to pronounce interesting letter combinations. How do you say NWEBMTVC?
Our whiteboard often has a word of the day with no encouragement from me.
He knows words like ZOO, STOP, ON, OFF, YES, NO, I LOVE YOU, and so on. Our next goal is lower case letters and I have a feeling he'll be reading a lot after that.
NADIA
Nadia is obsessed with the potty. It's gotten to the point where if I don't throw away her dirty diapers fast enough, they'll end up in the toilet. She got rather upset when one of her slightly older friends came over and used the "facilities". She really wants to do it, but I'm not sure she's ready. We've pulled out the little potty and it's one of her favorite things around the house. It's funny how much more interested she is in doing things than Rowan was at her age. She loves unloading the dishwasher and helping with any household chore. I don't know if the interest stems from being a girl or the second child, but it's kind of neat.
She's also doing a lot more word combinations and possessives. Mommy's juice, Daddy's bus, Rowan's car etc.
Her interests also extend to building things. She likes legos almost as much as her brother. When we were cleaning out our laundry closet, she took it as an opportunity to build with soup cans.
ME
My mom has come over the summer for several years. Each time we talk about how she should give me painting lessons, but we get distracted or worn out from watching kids all day. This year, just a few days before she left, Steve offered to take the kids so we could finally do it. I took a couple of beginning art classes at BYU, but I was never that impressed with the instruction I received. I'm so excited for her to come next year and maybe we can do some more. In between packing and moving to some unknown location hopefully.
The paint we used was from Walmart and was extremely dry and chalky for oil paint. The canvas was meant for acrylic and again from Walmart. So learn from me and don't buy paint supplies from Walmart. Regardless of these obstacles, I'm really excited about how this turned out.
The original
I find I like working with smaller canvases. At BYU, we had huge ones and the effort it took to fill it made for a lower quality product, especially given the time constraints due to deadlines. Thanks Mom for all your help!!
STEVE
Steve is crazy busy this semester. He is teaching (200+ students!), doing his research, conducting experiments for his dissertation, taking his last class, helping support different facets within the lab, running support for Iclickers on campus, and applying for jobs. So far he's got about 30 jobs that he will be applying for and a lot of them require different things for the application. Some want research statements, some want teaching statements, and all of them seem to have a different emphasis on what they are looking for. Printing off a resume and sending it to 30 different locations would be a cakewalk compared to the prep that is involved for what he's encountering. The jobs he has found seem to either be Ivy League positions or branch campuses. There are a couple that are in between, but not many. Even with some of these prestigious universities on the list, we don't really have a top pick, which is a little surprising to me. Every position has a downfall- too far from family, too high cost of living, living in a state we don't like, too intensive/competitive of a work environment etc. Even with these obstacles, we are both really excited to get the applications in and see where we end up. I know that the Lord will take us to a place where our family will thrive- I've felt that confirmed to me time and time again. It may not be what we expect, but coming here wasn't exactly a smooth transition either. Anyways, I'm proud of Steve for all the hard work he is doing to get us to the next step in our lives.
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