Lauras Mission Isnt She Lovely?!

So my girl Laura has finally turned 19. Was there a big celebration, not really cause that is not how we roll around here. I can say it was a pretty special day as her papers had been submitted to go on her mission.

I know i probably post this photo every year but its one of my all time favorites. Isnt She Lovely? Stevie Wonder sings a song about his sweet daughter when she was born, as a coincidence i heard the song not many days after Laura was born. Now every time i hear the song i am reminded of how wonderful she is. She was amazing as a baby, got shy and stubborn as she grew but now she is confident and wonderful in who she is. 

I mean look at that amazing girl, ok ok woman. Rachelle is an amazing photographer, she caught Laura at just the right time to catch her personality. She has spent the last 4 years earning her money to go on this mission. Within the time she also got to go to England/Scotland to visit family. I am so proud of her determination to get to the end of one race and move to another. 

Her birthday she wanted Dirt Cake of course....and steak and cheese sammies. 

Axel and Grandpappy got to have their own bowl of dirt cake. He was one excited boy....Axel i mean

of course anytime you get your own dirt cake you hoard it so nobody else can have it

I know they are sharks but there are worms in there as well, she wanted them both

We ended up taking Axel to Church with us that day and having him hang out with us for a while. His mum and dad were not feeling too great. It was nice to have him around for the food and festivities. 

That morning before food.....Laura opened her mission call. She is going to the Everett Washington mission. She was very excited to be close to the ocean, if she gets to be......

not sure if you can tell but she is in the top quarter of Washington state. Should be an exciting adventure for her. This is not the best map either. you can google it if you want to take a closer look....anyway, with this revelation now comes the part i hate the most, buying everything she needs. Our family has always been very thrifty, not just because....but out of necessity. Laura and i went out last weekend to look and hopefully get all of the clothing, shoes, personal items, mission bag, scriptures...whatever you can think of so she wouldnt have to worry about cramming it all in before she leaves. She is scheduled to arrive at the MTC on April 3rd, so plane ticket was first priority. Good thing the Church has a system for tickets to get them to SLC, Ut and from there a shuttle to Provo where the MTC is. So that is all figured out. That was a load off but for me a finality to her leaving. I worry about her but i know she is going to be great. My kids are all so close, its going to be strange to not have one of them around. 

I am super proud of her, i think dropping her at the airport will be the toughest for me. For the others we shall see what happens. I know a few people will be sad as she is such a good cook, all her baking will be missed. She has grown out of her shyness into a strong young woman. I think a mission will be great for her, it will make her really work on her personality more and find ways to work better with others. She will learn so much, we will be here routing her on cause i personally think she is the Loveliest girl ever.....

Job Changes, ER trip, Blues Brothers

A few new things have gone down in the past month or so. Shane works for a company called Shopko. This company is similar to target with out the food part. He works in the warehouse moving trucks in the yard and working with the mechanic. In any case, the company has declared bankruptcy and all of the employees were given a 60 day notice. This happened about a month ago.....at the same time the company i work for has decided to send all of the billing (which is my job) closer to the corporate office. That office is located in Lavonia Michigan....I can choose to go there. Actually there are 3 new offices being opened one out side of Detroit Michigan, one on the western side of the state of Michigan and one in another state i dont remember nor care about as we are not moving there. Michigan is not an option either...according to my husband and sons there are no mountains and no elk....so that answered that question. My job is not doing any transition until October but we felt it was time to really look for something else.

Shane had multiple people come to him to give him job opportunities. One that was very good was working with the local trash company as a truck driver. Mostly just doing a route for trash pick up. There were a lot of positives on this job, but not quite what we wanted. The mayor of the city is in our ward, which is nice, he offered Shane a few different jobs with the city. Those options are putting Shane back into heavy equipment and working construction, would he be amazing at it? of course but its not an option for us. Shane likes to do that stuff on his own for fun. The last option was with a man in the ward that Shane has known since he was in high school. This man owns a salvage yard in Caldwell. Basically the offer is to work at this guys junk yard for the same pay. This job is super close to home (in fact about a mile from our house or less). Shane will be able to work with one of his good friends Lee. Finding Lee has been a great thing for Shane, those two are peas in a pod. Lee has had a rough life as had Shane. They understand each other and often call each other brother. I love Lee. The nice thing about Lee is that he is a mechanic and is willing to show Shane anything he wants to learn. Lee was also the one who suggested working for the trash company. Lee is the mechanic for them. But i think Lee really wanted Shane to work at the salvage yard, Lee works there part time. So the three of them Greg, Lee and Shane will be working the Salvage yard. Not sure if this is a great thing as they are all a bit rebellious but the job is much easier on Shane than any job he has ever had. I am glad for it. I am happy as it will get Shane out of a warehouse environment and outside where he loves to be. So he will start that job as soon as Shopko dumps. The comfort of knowing we are being watched over is nice.

For me ..... well I personally was a bit devastated as I wanted to work at this job for a while longer. I needed to get more experience working on the Medicare side of things to be able to move to something else. The insurance at Trinity is amazing and has saved us so much money. Last year Makayla had to have a surgery and the amount we had to pay was only 10% of what it could have cost. My immediate worry was the insurance. I had the option to stay at the company until it moves and get an retention incentive and severance, however, the taxing on the retention was going to be at a bonus tax rate and given over 4 different payouts. It just did not add up to be good for our family, so i started sending out my resume. One of the sweet ladies i work with took my resume and added in some more information i had quite a few hits within the first week of putting my resume out. 2 options came up very quickly one for the local infectious disease office another for an oral surgeon office. I interviewed for both. The infectious disease one was not a place i wanted to work at, it was down town Boise almost to the east end. Not a place i want to be. The drive will not be the greatest as the traffic is crap at 730 in the morning. The oral surgery office was only 2 mins further than i am driving now, but i would still hit traffic. The oral surgeon office offered me almost a dollar more than i am making and they had great insurance....in fact amazing insurance. I accepted the offer to work there. I gave my notice at Trinity had my last day be March 15th. I would start working the other job on March 18th....Here is the twist, cause you have read this long there is a twist..........I applied at Simplot as well for the Human Resources department. I was shocked to get an interview, even more shocked to get an offer to work there. How do I say no to working for one of the largest agricultural companies in the world? I got the offer for Simplot a week after i accepted the offer at the surgeon office. The surgeon office is medical billing with light administrative work, my heart has always been in Human Resources/Business Admin. How do i say no??? I dont. There is a stipulation on this job though, I will be a contracted employee and have a year contract with the hopes of hiring on within the year. There is a new project that is being worked and they need an extra person but the higher ups have not completely approved the position, with me being hired there is a likelihood they will show that this position is needed. Either way i make out on the deal because now i have Human Resources on my resume which is what i need to really start moving around if i have too. I am in the hopes of staying at Simplot, we shall see what happens. The pay for this position is $5 more than i am making now an hour also i get all the benefits of the company except i do not get any paid time off. But we budget well and if i need to take a day off or something it can all be worked out in our budget.

Exciting times at our house....in the mean time of all this happening John got into a car accident and wrecked my car (its still drivable but John got quite the concussion) So we fixed the car and i am still driving it. John has had to take some time to recover and during this time got smacked in the eye with a tennis ball because that is how we roll here. So he has had to see an eye specialist as well to get the swelling out of his eye so he can see again. It was a bit scary as he couldnt see for a while. He seems to be on the mend but it wouldnt be our house if something like that didnt happen.

Emergency room visit..........dork

I suppose that is the update i have right now. I am glad everything has worked out so well, i am still in unbelief as to the blessings that have come to us. These changes are really good for us. The changes will really push our family to the next big adventures. I will write the next post about Lauras mission call. Which has been a great blessing and surprise. Our marriage has been struggle after struggle, maybe for a while it will slow down. We figured if we live the same as we are now we can pay off our house much faster than we expected. That is exciting............

Oh by the way, my boys new favorite movie The Blues Brothers.......yes you read it right....Jake walks around now saying he is on a mission from God..............and the boys laugh over every stupid joke.