Awards

Second quarter ended the second week of January. The end of a quarter means it's awards time again. We received a note stating that Campbell would be receiving an award. Last quarter she got the Spanish award. We were curious as to what the award this time would be.

We were surprised to see her win an math award. Apparently she now knows all of her multiplication facts. We are very proud of this accomplishment. She and I spent hours and many tears (hers and mine) over the course of the last year learning these. She is a smart kid, but math is not her thing. This is frustrating for me as I find math fairly easy. I guess this is the difference between an analytical person and an artistic person.

We were much less surprised to see that she had also won the writing award. The child can write. She has the ability to draw you write into her stories. In fourth grade she can paint a picture with her words. Her teacher is amazed with her ability to do this. Apparently most 10 year olds don't write this well. She should be able to write will with all the reading she does. She just complete the Little Women book. The version she completed is the large version (not the one with information removed for kids to read). The book was 754 pages. She read the book in less than a week.

We also received her report card. Again she did very well as usual. The only thing she needs to work on is her attention to detail. The teacher said she is a great student, but needs to learn to take her time and pay attention to the details. We are very proud of our smart girl.

First Hike of 2009

This weekend we were able to get in the first hike of 2009. The weather was absolutely perfect for hiking. It was 55 degrees here so we headed over to Cheyenne Mountain State Park. It's only about 20 minutes from where we live.

The hike we chose was a simple 3.29 miles. Along the hike we saw pleanty of "prairie dogs". As a girl who grew up in Montana, I will never understand why they call these things praire dogs. They are just gophers. We also saw some deer. One group of deer was no further than 15 feet away. They were definitely not scared of us.

There was a little bit of snow on the hike. It was mostly dry, but we didn't run into some of the white stuff. The biggest issue was mud. We all came home with our fair share of mud on our feet.

It was a fantastic day to get our first hike of the new year in.

Employment Woes

Some of you may know, some may not. I am no longer working for Tech. The found someone to work locally in the office. Obviously, me living in Colorado was not conducive to working in the office in Greenville. Anyway, I have been job hunting.



Back in November I submitted my resume to two organizations. I interviewed with both organizations and was offered the job at both organizations. The pay was the same at both places as was the position. One was an hour commute. The other was local. I took the local job. I was to begin working the first week in January.



It turns out that due to the economy the will not be able to employ me. The other job has also already been filled. Therefore, I am unemployed. Hopefully this won't last long. I have submitted my resume to several other jobs today. We don't necessarily need the money. My working just gives me peace of mind in case something to happen to Aaron's job. It just gives the peace of mind to keep me sane. In the meantime, I plan to take this extra time and organize this house. I will be making a few bucks by selling a bunch of extra stuff we have just hanging around here.

Christmas in Carolina

Ok. It has been way too long since I updated. I will start with our Christmas.

We had our family present opening on Christmas Eve this year. We were to be traveling on the 25th so this worked better for us. The kids both had a terrific time. Caleb really understood the concept of opening the gifts. Although, he still wanted to play with every gift before he went onto the next one. To say the least, this took up some time.

Favorite gifts: Aaron built Campbell a bed for her dolls and I made the bedding to go with the doll. She was absolutely thrilled!!! I also made her and her dolls matching batrh robes. These were also a big hit. Caleb loved the stick horse that Aaron made for him as well as the doctor kit that he got.

We made it a very relaxing day. Aaron worked half the day then we opened dinner and had pizza for dinner.

Christmas day we flew to Atlanta where we got a car and drove to SC. We spent 4 days in Charleston. We visited with Aaron's family, did some sight seeing, and just relaxed. We went to Ft. Sumter one day. Aaron and I had lived in Charleston for 2 years but never made it out to the fort. So glad we did on this trip. We also spent some time on the beach one morning. We visited the Charleston Tea Plantation and Angel Oak. Lastlyk, we spent an afternoon walking through downtown Charleston and visiting a couple of old houses.

We left Charleston and went to Charlotte to see Adam and Laurel. We were hoping to see the new baby as well, but he had not yet made his arrival. We visited for a couple of hours and then went to Greenville. Upon our arrival in Greenville, we dropped Campbell off with her friend. She was thrilled to be having this sleepover. Aaron, Caleb and I went to dinner with James K. and his daughter. We then spent a couple of hours with the K family. It was really nice to catchup.

On New Years eve we went to the jewelery store to get my birthday gift. I then had lunch with the ladies from the office. It was great to visit with them all again. That night we spent New Year's Eve with the best people. I LOVED hanging out and visiting with Michelle, her family, and some other friends from our days in Greenville. I can not think of a better way to bring in the New Year!

The next morning we went back up to Charlotte where we were able to see the new nephew who made his arrival early that morning. It was a great way to top off our Carolina Christmas vacation.