Charlie job update

Charlie was called back for a second into view for Pinckney high school. His 2nd interview was this morning. He feels like he did well. The next step would be for the final three to be narrowed down to two and then presented to the superintendent. He'll know by Monday if he'll go on to the next step. Keep your fingers crossed!

House update

Charlie and Bro. Seaver (he's the contractor from our ward that we are paying to do the siding and some other work) started work on the house today. They are finishinig up the instillation of the front door right now. They already installed the back door. They look FABULOUS!!! And that even is an understatment. Tomorrow they will put insillation around the frame and put the trim back up then they will look even better. Tomorrow they plan on beginning the siding on the house too. Once that is complete it will be a whole new house. I can't wait to see what it will look like.

There is a sister in our ward who wants to buy the house. She is applying for a grant through the City of Flint to help her buy a house. The city is pushing home ownership and is giving grants of up $40K to help those who qualify. She is suppose to find out by July 14th is she is approved for the grant and then she says she wants to use that money to buy this house. We don't know what we'll do is the house is bought and Charlie doesn't have a job yet. But really, that won't be a huge problem to solve, as long as we have this house sold (which is the really hard part).

Charlie had a job interview in Hemlock, Mi last week and they turned him down for a more qualified candidate. We were pretty bummed about it because we drove around the area together after his interview and looked at some houses that were for sale. It was a nice area and we could picture ourselves there, but it wasn't meant to be. On Monday he had an interview at a Catholic school in St. Joseph. It's by Benton Harbor. He feels like it went well but we haven't heard from them yet. We aren't sure if we could live on what they pay though. They didn't have exact numbers but said they paid about 70% of what public schools pay which is about $25K a year and they only pay for Charlie's benefits. We'd have to pay for the rest of the family to have insurance. That just might be too much for us to afford on our own. Charlie would have a chance to teach Calculus though and that is very inticing to him. Tomorrow he has an interview in Pinckney. It's for a math position. We would love for him to be hired there because he could still commute from here if we needed him to for a little bit. It's a good area and good school too. So keep you fingers crossed and say bunches of prayers that he'll get the job (of course if it's the Lord's will).

The kids are enjoying their break. Alexis is showing a goat for 4-H this year at the Fowlerville Fair. She just spent a week at Charlie's parents' house learning how to work with the goat. She is going to enter in a couple of other categories such as photography and drawing and see if she can win a ribbon. She's really excited and Merrit is really jealous. He's not old enough to do it yet. You have to be 9 by Jan. 01 of the year you intend to show in. Merrit won't be able to do it for 2 more years. Hopefully Charlie's parents still have goats by then so he can have a chance.

Well sorry this is so long. Hope you haven't fallen asleep yet. See those of you here in Michigan at Kurt and Heather's house on Sunday!

another baby update

I just got back from the doctor. I am still dialated to1 cm and am 80% effaced, so no progress there. My doctor thinks I am showing the beginnings, however, of preeclampsia. It's not really a big deal, just a fancy term for high blood pressure during pregnancy. If it's not watched it can escalate and be bad, but I'm fine. She took some blood to be tested and is having me go back in on Thursday to get my blood pressure checked again. I am on strict orders to "take it easy."

That's all. I hope all is going well with you!

It's getting closer...

I hope this isn't too much information for anyone, but... I'm dialated to 1 cm and am 80% effaced! Yay! Mom said I could walk around this way for weeks still, but I'm excited that the process is starting!

A Trip!

Eric and I just bought tickets to come home in August. YAY!!! We will be there August 10 to August 19. YAY!!! It's official.
Eric's MCAT went well-he thinks. I asked him how he felt about it, and he said that he feels about the same as the last time he took it. It was a different test and the whole format was different too, so he's not sure. And now it will only take 1 month to get the score instead of 3 months-that will be nice. So, now we just sit and wait. That's that.
So anyway, we'll see all of you in Michigan in August and boy are we excited! "This will be good." (Beauty and the Beast, c/o Jimmy). See you cats in about a month! YAY!

Mayumi Clark was here visiting teaching me yesterday, and we discovered that we're flying out to Utah on the same plane! I'm glad, I don't like flying alone. Dad got his car back from the repair shop. In case you didn't know, he was rear-ended about 2 weeks ago on the freeway. He stopped for traffic and the man behind him didn't. The storehouse has been without a manager since the first of the month. We're all filling in, so they won't close it down. Because Marilyn Crofts is on vacation, and there's no manager, I'm going in Tuesdays and Thursdays, instead of just Thursdays. It's been kind of fun to tell everyone that no one's in charge, that way we don't have to make any decisions. Jim went to Cedar Point yesterday with a bunch of kids from the Plymouth and Westland Wards. Dad took his final last night, now he's done with school for the summer. That's all of the news, I'll see those of you in Utah in a week and a half.

Charlie's job search

Charlie had his first interview last Thursday. It was with an alternative high school in Auburn Hills. We haven't heard back from them yet so we are assuming that isn't very postitive. Charlie felt like the principal, who was part of the interview, didn't really like him. Charlie wasn't real excited for the job anyway. He just got finished teaching at-risk kids and isn't too keen on doing it again. He would have told them no had they offered him the job so it's probably just as well that they didn't. It was good practice for him though, to help him get into the interviewing frame of mind again. He has another interview set up for Hemlock schools this Wednesday. Hemlock is located just west of Saginaw and just south of Midland. Charlie would be teaching social studies there and would have the opportunity to coach freshmen football. We would have to move closer to there as it is about an hour and 10 minutes from Flint Charlie said. I think the kids and I will go with him on Wednesday and after his interview we can drive around and check out the area together. I'll let you know what happens.

The kids are out of school now. Their last day was Friday. I have added pictures of them and their teachers. They are pretty sad about leaving the school. Merrit and Makayla, especially, were having a hard day the last day because they probably won't see there friends again. It's a hard thing for them to understand that they will be able to make new friends.

Baby!

We're getting close! Adelyn is due in less than 3 weeks and Jason and I are frantically trying to get everything done in time. Our most pressing issue? We still need a car seat!

I've been feeling fine, this really has been such an easy pregancy and I feel so blessed. There are so many women in my ward that have had difficult pregnancies, that I can't complain. The only thing that has been difficult are my extremely swollen feet and ankles. Jason has been great about massaging them, but at the end of the day all I want is to put them up and not do anything because they are so sore.

I've had three baby showers (ward, friends, coworkers) and we've received so many gifts, it has been great. It's tough being poor! The only things we have left to buy are a car seat, crib sheets, bottles, and diaper bag. I think we're going to put off getting a stroller until we get to Memphis. We'll see. My coworkers made me a "diaper cake" and I'm including pictures. It is made out of diapers wrapped together with random baby items decorating it. Very clever and useful! There is a doll on top, thermometer, electric outlet plugs, ribbons for hair, BYU and UVSC onesies, lotion, pacifier, shoes, baby spoon, etc. It looked a little better when I first opened it, but I took some things off of it and tried to put them back on for the picture. I think it's adorable. I tried explaining it to Mom, but it's hard to picture, so here it is:

Vacation Pictures

I hope you've enjoyed the pictures! There will be more tomorrow of our adventure to donut falls...yipee! Love you guys!

Here are my pictures from the zoo and the DIA.

Kurt!

You said you would log on every day and post that you looked! Where are all your entries for this week? Just kidding.

The house we now live in.

Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what the house looks like that we now live in. As you can see, there are many improvements that are needed. We won't be able to do them all, but when we are finished it will look totally different!

This is the front. This is the side you see from our old house. This is the living room.

This is the entryway coming down the stairs. You can see the front door. This is the bathroom. This is the kitchen.

This is the girls' room. This is the boys' room. This is mine and Charlie's room.

(Don't mind the laundry)

This is the pantry/toy room. This is the dining room. Sorry it's so dark.

Merrit's baptism

Here are the pictures from Merrit's baptism. We were sorry that you guys in Utah couldn't be there. It was a blast (at least for the kids).

To the right, was a string maze we set up for the kids.

One of the activities was for the kids to draw on Merrit's face. This is how he looked afterwards.

Picture from the Zoo

I finally found a way to download my pictures without the download cable. Now I can show you the pictures I have. I'll try to put them in slowly over the next couple of days so I don't overwhelm everyone. I'll start with the zoo pictures.

I couldn't figure out how to rotate the long pictures, so I'm sorry if you get a kink in your neck from trying to look at them. I thought I had some pictures from the polar bear exhibit, but they weren't on the camera so I guess I didn't have them.

Harvenshtein

Here are some pictures from the most recent ultrasound. They did some really cool 3D ones where he looks like he's sucking his thumb. Say hi to Harvenshtein David Hutchinson! (Harvey for short.)