So, This is Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

It is really early in the morning and we are getting ready to go to my parents house for Christmas. I am looking forward to spending some time with my parents and LeAnn's. Donna is celebrating her 29th birthday again.

My grandmother is in town with my family as well. She came over yesterday to view our new house for the first time. She loves it. It is hard to believe that we have lived here for 9 months already. Time sure does fly by.

Back to Christmas. LeAnn and I opened our presents to each other last night. I got movies, tools, and some other goodies. LeAnn got clothes (which she wanted), a book, roses, movies, and a gift card for the Melting Pot (one of our favorite restaurants). LeAnn thinks that I went overboard, but I think that she got what she deserved. I love her and she loves me, that is what matters.

Grammy's was another enjoyable Christmas Eve. Nearly everybody was there. We shared our presents, spent time talking to each other, and eating. The normal assortment of sweets were available, along with chile, corn bread, and tamales. Unfortunately, the food did not like me, so I don't feel to good. Oh well, 2 hours of sleep will have to do.

I have to go, as we are leaving. Hope everybody has a Merry Christmas.

Please continue to pray for all of our families and those who are traveling during this busy time. I hope that you are all safe and enjoy Christmas.

David

Blessings

This year amid the hustle and bustle of preparing for Christmas, David and I had the honor of taking some time out to deliver gifts to our fellowship group's Adopt-A-Family. The family was truly grateful for all the gifts small and large. Their jaws dropped as they realized that in addition to the gifts that halfway filled their tiny living room we had also brought them a double stroller, a toddler bed for their son(who slept on the floor previously), and a dresser. They were thrilled and truly speechless. As we witnessed their joy it was brought home to me how blessed we are to both be working at good jobs, to be living in a home with plenty of extra space, to have enough money to go to the grocery store and buy everything that we need, to have the support of friends and family both near and far. We were privileged to be able to share the abundance that the Lord has given to us this season. We pray that the Lord will bless you abundantly this Christmas and through the coming year. Merry Christmas!
Love,
LeAnn and David

2 weeks before Christmas

It is almost 2 weeks before Christmas. Aunt Lorna and Uncle Stan have come and gone (after a very eventful trip here). I spent about 2 days with them. They arrived several hours late, but got here safely. We watched the U of A / ASU Football game over at Dena and Juan's house on Saturday. We all left a half time, due to exhaustion. On Sunday, we had a huge family BBQ. Almost everybody was there. We all shared time with one another and spent the day playing games and watching TV. Everybody had a good time, and it was especially good to see Lorna and Stan. Maybe some day we will be able to go see them instead.

LeAnn is working yet again. Her December schedule is really messed up because of holidays and things that we have planned. We will survive and get through it. She is still enjoying her job, and is looking forward to the holidays.

I am still enjoying my job. The principle thinks of me as a minor miracle worker, getting stuff done that she wants to talk to me about before she has the chance to do so. It is not my fault that she ends up being the last to know about problems. I try not to get her involved too much, so she can do her job. I do mine better than I think they expected. My transition to Technical Services has gone smoothly. I am now full-time and am enjoying it all. I have still been learning the layout of the campus, as I keep having to go and find the network equipment with no direction as to where it is. I keep telling myself that I have 8 days left (we end school on the 18th and have to report on the 19th).

Please continue to pray for Katie, as she didn't get to see Lorna and Stan due to illness. We continue to pray for all of the family who read this and all of our friends as well.

We continue to wish you a Merry Christmas. I will post something again soon.

Thanksgiving 2008

Hi everybody and Happy Thanksgiving. I am home with LeAnn, who was called out due to low census. We had an eventful Thanksgiving this year. Since LeAnn was supposed to work tonight, she slept all day while I was over at her parent's house working on their new surround system. I installed the wires last year, and now they upgraded. Good thing I did that before hand. Their surround system is semi up and working (needs a few wires, but works for now). We will be having Thanksgiving with them tomorrow, and then my parents on Sunday.
Donna was working on pies all day today. They smelled wonderful. Too bad they will all be gone tomorrow. My parents are having Mexican food when we go over there. My dad is sick, so they couldn't go and visit my grandmother in Phoenix. They are going to try and see her on Saturday.
We are NOT going shopping tomorrow. We did this one year, being at the store at 2:30am. This year, we have most of our shopping done beforehand, but are going to go later in the day to get some things that we just purchased at a lower price then return them.
Tomorrow, I am also going to install Steve and Donna's Christmas Lights. As Katie will be down, I feel that we should all work together and get the Christmas Tree up and the lights up. This will be a simple undertaking, but take quite a while, especially with cherries on Saturday and dinner tomorrow (with LeAnn possibly working).
One very important thing that I forgot, the dogs have been destinkified. We gave both dogs a bath and trims. They now smell so much better.

We are ALL looking forward to Lorna and Stan's visit within a couple of weeks.

We wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving and a enjoyable Christmas Season.

Please pray for all of our families and friends during this Christmas season. Pray for Katie, that things will be good for her including her job. Pray for good health for my parents and Donna.

David

Nov 20th Update

I have finally, I think, started my 8 hour job, after waiting over a month and a half. It is nice being able to work full-time. The only issue left is who my supervisor is because I am now under a different department within the district. That will happen tomorrow, when I meet with the head of Technology Services. That meeting will be fun. It happens at 8am. I have also been working hard to expand the school website. Thanks to those that have checked it out (and for letting me know of issues that have occurred).
LeAnn is at work tonight, caring for sick babies. I have not been able to see her much these past 2 nights because of work and my parents being out of town. I have been getting off around 430 and having to stop by my parents house afterwards. It is ok, as my parents will only be gone for 2 more days. Tomorrow is her last day of work this week.
We plan on going to church on Sunday and visiting her cousin Selina and her 2 kids. I am going to fix her computer and LeAnn is going to visit. We will have a good time. When I was working for Trico, I saw the outside of her house. It looks nice.

I hope everybody is having a good fall, as it has been unusually warm here. Continue to pray for Katie, Donna, and the rest of the family as we all begin to enjoy our holiday season. We hope to see and hear from many of you over the coming weeks (Yes, that includes seeing Lorna and Stan in December).

David

November 15, 2008

Greetings

It has been nearly 3 weeks since we last updated everybody. I have been at my job at Rincon High School for over a month. It seems like so long ago that I started. I am very busy (mostly trying to get my pay paperwork corrected, which should happen on Monday). I have started to update all of the computers on campus (this will take several months due to the fact that they have been neglected for nearly 2 years). At the same time, I am running the website (yes, I created the whole thing), monitoring the computer lab, building several new labs, and running all over campus with various problems. This past week, I had to attend manditory training on software that I have been using for nearly a month. I didn't really learn anything important, but it was nice to get away from campus for several hours. I did monitor my site while I was away, and ended up fixing a couple of problems while I was there. As part of the website duties, I get to take a lot of pictures. My goal is to take nearly 3000 pictures by Christmas break (December 18th) and have them all displayed on the website. This will be quite a task, considering everything else that I have to do.

LeAnn has been working a lot. She just got off her 8 days off, but we had a yard sale and other things that we were doing. We got rid of some items, but need to give the rest of it to charity. Last night, LeAnn told me they had 33 babies, with a lack of nurses to care for them. They were REALLY busy. She said she was very tired today. Luckily this is her last night for several days. She has to work on Thanksgiving (Wednesday - Friday nights), with possible call on Tuesday. Luckily, she does not have to work on Christmas. She has also been applying for a day position. God willing, this will happen soon.

We plan on doing Thanksgiving with the family on Friday and Sunday. On Friday, we will be over and Steve and Donna's house for our traditional Thanksgiving. Then on Sunday, we will celebrate Thanksgiving with my parents.

As my parents are currently out of town, I pray for their safe return and travels. I also pray for Katie's health and safety, as she had the flu this week. I also pray for Donna and her health, and for Steve to have the love and compassion to help her as needed.

We send our love to all and Kisses from Max and Lucky, especially Max.

David

Social Butterflies

David and I were social butterflies this weekend! Friday night we went out to a new restaurant with my mom and dad. On saturday alone, we went to 3 different events. I started the day off with a Southern Living party. From there I picked up David and the dogs and headed off to the NICU graduates picnic. We invite all the kiddos that have been in the NICU to join us for a fun day in the park. It gives us a chance to catch up with them and their families and see how they are doing. After that we stopped by the house to change clothes and drop off the dogs and we were off to a Hawiian themed party. Sunday we had dinner with David's parents and then were off to our fellowship group meeting. I feel like we almost need a weekend to recover from our weekend! But we had a great time all around!

This weekend I also put my name in the running for a day time position in the NICU. It will be decided by senority and since I am still pretty much low man on the totem pole, the odds don't look great, but we are praying that I get it.

We also dropped the list price on our townhouse. We are currently paying two morgages and it has been a strain on our finances. In the 2+months that it has been on the market it has only been shown twice. The market is just not the best right now, and there are several forclosures in the area that are driving the prices down. We are praying that God will bring the right buyer along quickly.

They say that things come in three's so here is the third for us. David found out on friday that the paperwork for his job did not get changed in the finance department for TUSD to show that he was an 8 hour a day employee. As a result they only paid him for 6 hours a day. They are working on getting it straightened out, but they are unable to make the pay retroactive for the last 2 weeks that he was working full time. They are giving him comp time, but that doesn't help when we were expecting a full paycheck. We are praying that the paperwork gets straightened out quickly and that he will once again be working 8 hour days.

Second Place

David and I attened the 4th annual chili cook-off at our church today. I made a pot of chili and entered for the fun of it. I used the family's Christmas Eve chili recipie and doctored it up a little with some chorizo and some other things. The judges had to taste around 40 different chilis. I am sure they paid for that later! In the end I took second place! It was a fun day all around!

Entry for October 11th 2008

Since it has been some time since the last update, I decided it was time to update everybody on what has been going on.
To start with, LeAnn has been working and working and working. She has been running herself ragged working her normal 3 shifts. She had call last week and ended up working 4 straight shifts. It was hard on her, but she accomplished it. She is still working in the NICU and is enjoying it immensely.
As for me, I have interviewed with TUSD and Pima County. 2 weeks after I interviewed with TUSD, they offered me the job. The assistant principal worked on Sunday to get my references checked. I ended up telling him that I would have to wait until the following Monday to start, due to the Pima County interview. I went to the interview and they never called me back (after saying that they would call me the following Monday, when I was supposed to start for TUSD). After not hearing from Pima County, I went to new employee orientation and spent 3 hours in a freezing cold room filling out paperwork. I actually started on Tuesday.My first day on the job was busy. I met so many people, I don't remember most of their names, but I remember most of their faces. There are approximately 70 teachers at Rincon High School, which is where I am assigned as the School Site Network Technician. The first thing that happened as I got there was the server for the school went down. Since we can't access the server, we had to call the district technician to fix the problem (even though most of our problems can be fixed by us). A couple of hours later, everything was back online and our day continued (I work with another site technician for University High School, because we have 2 schools based at our site). Many teachers asked for help, and we were more than willing to help them. I had so much fun, I walked out of there with a huge smile.
The next day was much of the same. I was running around the school helping everybody. I was so busy, I didn't have time for lunch.
Thursday was the same.
Friday had no school. It was a grading day. However, we started with a meeting and I was introduced to the staff that was there. I also had the task of setting up my classroom/lab. Due to unfortunate circumstances, the lab didn't get set up. The lab consists of 1 side containing 30 computers(soon to be 32 or more), with a station for me and the teacher, and a second side containing 28 computers (soon to be 30 or more). I have a semi-large desk with a table on one side hooked up to a scanner and network printer. I also have taken control of LeAnn's PDA and am using it constantly. It helps me to keep track of everything going on, including email (which I am getting a lot of). If I can get permission from my supervisor, I am going to set up some servers to help with the networking classes and aid the school with email capabilities.
I am also looking at grant opportunities to update and expand the lab. I plan on (with enough money) to upgrade the entire lab and place computers in several classrooms, all networked. I am also asking my supervisor for more equipment, desks and chairs, so that I can accommodate more student in the lab and larger classes (the largest class I have is around 35). I am also planning on opening the lab during lunch with a pass and before and after school with a pass (as I am available). In the past, students would just walk in and use the lab. This is changing. The teachers and staff have been extremely helpful and very easy to work with. I also have 2 interns that are going to help me this year (one is going to do nothing other than the website, while the other is staying with the other site tech till the end of the semester unless I need him).
I am extremely happy to have a job once again. My normal hours are 7:00 to 3:30, which means that I get up at around 5 to leave at 6 to get there at about 7. Rincon is located at 5th and Swan, so it is about a 45 minute drive in the afternoon and less in the morning (no traffic). I am so happy, that I have been working from home at nights trying to answer emails and get simple things done (such as updating the website). LeAnn gets a little upset at me doing this, but understands. She is so sweet and understanding.
I think that this will be it for this update. I hope to hear from everybody soon and everthing is good where you are at.
David

Entry for July 17, 2008

Hello everybody.

Yes, I am currently nausiated and drugged up, but I can still type pretty good. My surgery was successful. I had a plica removed from my knee and am now in the recovery stages. I had my first physical therapy appointment yesterday and got the drain removed. It was painful up until then, but it is a little better now.

The people from our small group and church are helping us out. One of them is going to take me to physical therapy tomorrow. I really like them and our church. I am happy that they are able to help me out when I need it.

I am going to lay down for a little while to help to ease the nausia. Thanks for all of the prayers that everybody has given me.

Entry for July 04, 2008

This Monday Dad had a total knee replacement. Wednesday was the hardest day since it was the day he came home from the hospital. He and mom were understandably exhausted by the time we got them home. Dad began outpatient therapy on Thursday and he is up and walking with a walker and already able to bend the knee beyond 90 degrees.

David's knee surgery was postponed due to a death in the doctor's family. He will be having his surgery on July 15th instead. In the mean time his job search continues and he is working on getting the town house remodeled. The kitchen cabinets are in and he is in the process of doing some painting. The next step will be the counter tops and some new tile. Slowly but surely it is all coming together.

We spent the day at home for the most part. David's parents came over (My Mom and Dad were not quite feeling up to an excursion just yet) and we threw some hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill. We enjoyed the food and then watched a movie before moving to the driveway for a prime view of the fireworks. Our new house is just across a cotton field from where the fireworks are set off. It was the best seat we have had for a show in a few years. We could hear the whistle of the fireworks being launched.

Entry for June 27, 2008

Ok, so obviously I am not very good at keeping everyone up to date. :P Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes. My new job is going well and I am finally off orientation. I went to nights starting June 1st. I am enjoying the job, but still struggling to adjust to the night time schedule at times. Slowly but surely I will get all the wrinkles ironed out.

We found out this week that David has to have surgery on his knee...yes we did this about a year ago on the other knee. Same problem, different knee. He will have his surgery on July 3rd and is supposed to start therapy the following Monday. The doctor said that he wants him up and around as soon as the next day.

David is continuing to work on getting the town house ready to go on the market. He is hoping to get a large chunk of the work done before his knee surgery. He is working on it every day while I sleep.

Well babies are calling gotta run!

Entry for February 06, 2008

I am finally done with nursing school!!! I tested for my license last monday and had my license in my hand by friday. I will be starting my new job on Monday morning. It will be days for the first couple of months as I go through training, but then I will switch to nights. David has been very supportive through the whole thing. He is back to work and doing well. Our next goal is to get a new house that is big enought to last us for a long time and has a nice yard for the dogs. Hopefully we will be able to do that within the next year. We are both looking forward to having some more SPACE!