It’s about time I update this thing, right?
As far as my
many (actually, eleven) blog followers know, we are still living in Utah, I am still having a blast teaching 1
st grade, and Jeff is about to strike it rich with his entrepreneurial endeavors…. But things are just about the opposite of that.
Here’s the scoop:
Moving:
So in the spring of 2011 we started to think that Jeff’s job just wasn’t right for us at this time in our lives. He started looking for other jobs in Utah, but was coming up short. Nothing was quite right. We expanded our job search to California and Colorado so we could be closer to our families. Well, what we soon realized was that California is expensive, but Colorado is do-able. Jeff and I both started applying for jobs in the Denver area in June. Still nothing came. I had a couple interviews, but did not have my Colorado teaching license yet (It took 5 months to process!) so nothing came of them.
In the middle of July Jeff and I came out to Denver for a few job interviews (2 for him, 1 for me). We had a family vacation planned in Denver at the end of July, so we really wanted to be able to move before that came. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to hear back from the interviews before we had to make a decision. I remember specifically on Sunday morning on our way to church (in Denver) we made the choice to go ahead and move. It felt like a “now or never” chance. Even though we had no jobs lined up, we felt like the opportunities in Denver were better for us.
As we said good-bye to my parents after church we asked them what they would think if we drove out for the family vacation in a moving van… and if they would mind having house guests for a few months. Of course they were excited to have us close by. So we drove back to Utah on Sunday, quit our three jobs (I was also working at Archiver’s) on Monday, packed up my classroom and our entire apartment in three days, and left with the moving van on Friday. It was a crazy/busy/stressful week,* but totally worth it. We are so happy to be in Colorado!
*My only regret about moving so fast is that we didn’t get to say good-bye to our closest Utah friends, Cory and Jenelle. Jenelle was out of town that week and we left before she got back. Cory was nice enough to still help us load the moving truck. We miss them like crazy!
Laura:
As soon as we got to Colorado, the serious job hunt began. I was still waiting on my Colorado teaching license to come (did I mention that it took 5 months to process?), but I was hopeful that I could find something. Archiver’s in Aurora hired me and I was happy to have something to do and a little money trickling into the bank account. A little while later I was hired as a para-educator at a fantastic elementary school. I started working there, happy that I had something a little more fulfilling to do, but not completely happy with a job that I was over-qualified for.
After a few weeks of working as a para, I got a call from a principal in Aurora that I had interviewed with in the summer. She asked me if I had gotten a job, and told me that she had a teaching job open up in kindergarten after one of her teachers decided to retire mid-year. She asked me if I would be interested and told me when to apply. I followed through with it, got the job, and started a few weeks later. It’s funny how things work out.
So now I am teaching kindergarten. This is my class. I have 26 kids, and I’m the only Caucasian in the room. 22 of them are ELL students (English Language Learner). Most of them speak Spanish at home, but I do have one who is from Burma. The best part of my day is when my Latino students translate things for him in Spanish. Haha… that kid will probably learn Spanish just as fast as he’ll learn English.
Anyway, it’s been a rough year. One that has been even harder than my very first year, but I am learning a lot. I have a great support system at my school and I hope that next year I will be able to build on the knowledge I have gained.
Jeff:
Jeff had a little bit longer job hunt, complete with a trip to the LDS Employment center. That was, by far, the best thing. Right after he attended that seminar he got hired through a temp agency. He worked in “accounts payable” for about six weeks. He enjoyed it, but it wasn’t something he would love to do for years to come. But then, something better came along…
He recently scored a fantastic job with Cigna. I don’t know what his official title is, but he is working in the finance department. They hired him so that they could have someone in their Denver office that is able to do his job. Before, they only had people in their Connecticut office and it caused problems when they’d get snowed out or need to be available during west coast office hours. So he is learning how to do his job over the internet from people in Connecticut, and later on he’ll be in charge of training anyone in Denver that they decide to hire after him.
We are so excited for this job opportunity. We have our brother-in-law James to thank for helping him find and apply to so many great jobs, which ultimately led him to this one. Jeff is really happy with what he is doing, which makes me really happy. We hope it is a great job that Jeff will be able to stick with for a major part of his career.
Olivia:
Yep, we still have our crazy cat. My mom and dad were nice enough to let us bring her when we moved in with them. She still plays fetch with small crumpled papers. She also spends a lot of time playing with her pink mice. She has two favorites, one stays under our bed so she can play with it at night, and one stays downstairs for when I’m sewing in the basement. If you move them from their proper locations, she will move them back. But her favorite hobby (by far) is torturing any house guests that come over. She is so mean to everyone!
Anytime that we (Jeff and I) are out of the house she walks around crying and carrying her bird-friend. She is so funny about this nasty bird. It was a toy we bought her a long, long time ago. It used to be on a stick, but she chewed the string off and got super-attached to the bird part. When we are home, she completely ignores this toy. But when we come back from being gone, it’s always in a different room from where it was. When we are home and she thinks we are gone, she walks around the house carrying it in her mouth and cries. If she sees us while she’s doing that she will immediately drop it and walk away. It’s hilarious. She’s so weird.
Well, anyway, that’s the latest on us. We are so happy to be living in Colorado! Don’t expect another update for a couple more months… wouldn’t want to mess up my average 6 posts a year!
Curb Appeal
