Census Data Project

My brother-in-law forwarded me this link.  It is a project done by the NYT with some fascinating census data mapped over the entire U.S.  I spent over an hour looking up different locations and data.  Take look when you get a chance.

Update

I feel bad that I haven't posted in long time. I just finished the Fall 2010 term in school and was surprised to have made all A's.  This next term will be the last of formal classes and then I will complete the comprehensive exam in the Spring.  I should be completely done by June of 2011.

Work is going well.  I will be a permanent employee starting tomorrow.  Nothing will really change though.  I will make a little bit more, but will lose some of that because I will start doing furloughs with the rest of the permanent staff. I will be eligible for health insurance and that is a welcome change.  My work duties will be the same and the people I work with will not change.  Its just nice to not have to worry about your job.

Last week, I was released from the Elder's Quorum presidency (1st counselor) and called as the 1st counselor to the new president.  So, not much change there.  Laura stays busy with her RS president calling.  I'm amazed that she can get so much done with two little girls at home and no vehicle most of the time.  Our ward is shrinking due to move outs and inactivity, but we are still alright.  I'm worried for them when we move and a few other families move in the next 6 months or so.  They will lose their 2nd counselor in bishopric, RS president, EQ 1st counselor, and Ward mission leader.  Hopefully we'll get a lot of move-ins soon.

Work is very good

I interviewed for my job yesterday.  I've been at the County IT department doing the same job for about a year now and yesterday I interviewed for a permanent position.  Its strange interviewing with your boss and coworker.  I think it went well and hope I'll be a permanent employee soon.  It's not a sure thing though, 12 other people interviewed for the position.

It looks like its more good news for the family.  I'm glad that everyone is doing so well.

We love you and miss you all.

Work is good

Stephen has found a job. Ok, "found" is not quite the right work. It found him thanks to the magical workings of Jennifer. After applying to Kroger through their online application, Stephen got a call from someone in the HR department. She was going to pass along Stephen's information to a pharmacist at a local Kroger that needed a tech immediately. Despite the apparent urgency of need, it took over a month for the phone interviews with the pharmacist and the HR lady.

After a long and agonizing wait and several helpful phone calls by Jennifer to Kroger personnel, Stephen has officially started work as a pharmacy technician! Yeah! One step closer to our long term goals.

Love,
Sarah

Fall Recess

We had a great weekend holiday. It was UEA (Utah Education Association) weekend. The time when the Utah teachers union has their meetings and school it out. We decided to go hiking this year in Little Cottonwood Canyon. The leaves were turning color and it was a beautiful day (70's). Here are a few pictures from our hike.

Love you,

Connie

Poor Nathan

On Thursday (Sept 23rd) Nathan was putting his bike down and just dropped the handle bars. Well, the handle bars came down and the full weight of his bike landed on his big toe. The poor boy has been in pain ever since. He will loose his toenail. I guess the internal pressure got so great the it finally broke through and started bleeding. I have had to squeeze his toe to get the excess blood out twice. I feel like such a heel when I have to do that because it hurts him.

Stephen passed!

Yesterday Stephen took his Pharmacy Certification Test and he passed! We are very excited. He's spent a lot of time studying over the few months and it feels good to be done. Now he's looking for a job in a pharmacy and we continue the long, but slow march to finishing his pharmacy degree to become a full-fledged pharmacist.

First Fish

Even before we moved here, Isaac has been telling us that Oquirrh Lake was his "fishing lake." He has been 'hand fishing in the little stream that is part of the lake and has brought several fish home, but he wanted a fishing pole. He finally earned his fishing pole. He has tried to catch fish using plastic bait and it certainly was not working. A neighbor let Isaac use some salmon eggs as bait and today he caught three fish. He was so excited that he called daddy and told him. It was great.

Latest on homes

The bank wanted us to go higher than we could on the yellow house, so we are leaving that one alone. This is the blue house at 11557 Inglehart Ln. It is a good home as well. The only thing I don't like about the house is the lack of mountain views from the house. Other than that, it is a great house. At this point, I will take a home over mountain views. Having said that, we are also still looking at other homes around the area. Especially within the ward boundaries that we are in. We love the ward and would love to stay here. We appreciate your prayers in our behalf. Thanks,

Love, Connie

We found it!

Ever since we moved here 4 months ago, we had heard about a zip line park here in Daybreak. We never could find it, until now. Sean got online and googled it. It is fun. The one with three girls is Erin and two of our neighbors ( They are close to Erin's age). The other one is Erin

New Calling

As of this past Sunday (July 18), I am now the Primary Chorister for the Little Elm Ward. I'm a little nervous about the calling, but hopefully it will be fun. Wish me luck!

Sarah

My attempt at drawing floor plans

Hi Everybody,

My mom wanted to see the floor plans for this house we have an offer on. I couldn't find any real ones, so I attempted to draw them. They are obviously not to scale, but you can get a general idea of where the different rooms are. Sorry they are sooooo bad.

Kestrel Rise Home

We like this home. We hope we get it

Let me try that again. We were able to walk through this home again today and we took pictures. We hope we get this house. I know it is DIRTY in the house. It is being sold as is so we would really need to clean before we move in. Anyway, here are some of the pictures we took.

There is some positive activity on this home.

Movies under the stars

For those in Texas this summer...

Frisco plays movies outside in the Frisco square in the summer on a big screen. Stephen and I are going to go to two of the movies in July if anyone cares to join us. It's free, just bring a lawn chair/blankets to sit on.

July 9 - All Dogs go to Heaven @ 8:30 pm
July 23 - The Neverending Story @ 8:30 pm

Birthday Pie?

Even as pregnant as she is, Laura threw me a birthday party.  We invited some friends and her mother was in town.  It was really great.

I had a pecan and a lemon meringue pie.  I wish you all could have been here.

School is done~ now what?

School is out now. Friday June 4th was their last day. They have been out now for one week, and they are BORED! The weather has been really weird here. The first part of the week we ALL got sunburned, but today it probably won't make it out of the 60's and it is supposed to rain all weekend.

We have been to the library twice already and now they don't know what to do. Well actually, that isn't true. Isaac "went exploring" for several hours. I didn't know where he was. I even rode all the way around the lake hoping to find him. When I got home he was there. He was exploring a new park he hadn't seen before. I enjoy being here in Daybreak, but it will take a while for the kids to get used to the rules.

No news yet on houses. We are going to put offers on a few more houses on Monday.

Love you.
Connie

School is ALMOST done!!!!

You know when you are so close to something you can almost feel it? Well, that is where the whole family is at as far as school is. The last day of school for Sean and the kids is this Friday. It is getting harder and harder to get up in the morning to drive them to school. Sean is done with early morning, but he still is driving the kids in to school (At least a half hour each way). Everybody is getting anxious to be done.

We have been having fun in our new community. The kids have made a lot of new friends and I am having fun exploring the trails and riding my bike around. I can hardly wait to get Caleb back so I can start taking him on walks in the morning.

Last Saturday, Daybreak had a street fair with a rock climbing wall, free sodas, chalk drawing on the street and flying kites in the park. It was a lot of fun. Erin and Isaac did the rock climbing. Erin made it to the top, but Isaac got about 3/4 the way up and made the mistake of looking down and realizing how far down it was. He got scared and decided he didn't want to go up any farther. I got some good pictures of it and went to download the pictures from my phone, but I couldn't get it to sinc up. I don't know what is going on. I will keep working on it and see if I can get some photos to post.

We are doing good. There is no news on the house buying front yet. We have some offers in on short sales, and hope to put one in on another one either today or tomorrow. It is at 11323 Kestrel Rise Rd, South Jordan, Ut 84095. It is immediately behind where we are living right now. It has 4 completed bedrooms and a GREAT view off the front porch. It would be great to be able to get this house because it would still be in the same ward. The kids are starting to make friends in the ward and it is a good ward. We are happy here.

There is also a forclosure on Iron Mountain way (I don't remember the address right now) that I want to look at and maybe put an offer on.

Now, having said all of this. I know we will get the house where the Lord needs us to be. That has been the feeling since we started this whole moving process thing. Everything will be all right. It is just the patience of waiting that is hard.

Connie

Livin' Large

Laura is feeling quite pregnant. I wanted to share this picture so you can see how much she's progressed.

Before and After (mostly after)

I apparently forgot to post this a long time ago.  It was saved in my drafts.  Thanks again mom and dad.

Mom wanted to see some of the "after" photos to make comparisons to the "before" pictures we'd already posted. Here are some that we took while they were here. I need to get a few more of the chair Mom reupholstered now that we have the cushion installed.

Thanks for all the hard work. It really feels like we live in a nice home rather that a dingy, plain apartment.

New Do or "No... Don't"?

Who does this hairdo look better on? Wait... don't answer that.

I know I could never pull off a look like Stephen's silky smooth strands.

Here are the results from the name survey.  It seems that no one likes Beatriz and everyone likes Claire.  The only thing I don't like about Claire is that it was the 53rd most popular name in America last year and its getting more popular every year.

I'm leaning toward Mara, which was the second most popular.  I like the survey because it kind of helps me find out if I'm crazy.  We don't let the survey decide the name but is nice to know what others think about what you think.

Laura remembered a name almost right after I sent the survey.  What do you all think about Melaina or Melena (Mel for short)?  I won't do another survey but I'll look for comments if you have them.

Good/Bad News

I feel bad complaining when something good happens.  As many of you know my temporary job was ending on the 5th.  This was bad because it meant we would have to live on savings, but it was good because it meant that I could take an extra class and finish my program faster.

Well, long story short, I have a job and an extra class that I can't get rid of without major consequences to my GPA/transcript.  As a result, I'm super busy and more than a little stressed.  I really wish I could have just kept my job and dropped the extra class in time to keep it off my transcript. C'est la vie.

I got an email from my GAO "buddy" today.  He's like a mentor kind of person meant to help me transition into the internship without any problems.  I was glad to hear from someone because I haven't really heard much since they offered me the position.  However, I was assured that everything is going alright.

I just wanted to let everyone know so they wouldn't think I was neglecting them.  I love you all.

P.S.

I hope everyone enjoyed the survey.  I'll be posting a summary of the results later so you can all get an idea about the patterns and trends.

P.P.S.

Zac texted me the other day that he is engaged to be married to a woman named Nico.  He doesn't know when but it will probably be with his family in Puerto Rico.

We are here! (and I finally have the internet again)

Well, we moved on Saturday and unpacked a few things. Sunday we went to church in our new ward and met a few people, (happy mother's day by the way) and took a 10 minute bike ride over to the temple. Monday and Tuesday I didn't have the internet set up yet so we unpacked more boxes and settled a little bit more. Today I missed work at the school so that the cable guy could come and set up the TV and the internet so I could start typing again (if I get work). I am glad this move is over. We aren't unpacking too many boxes, just what we need until we get into our own home. If I start rambling it is because I'm tired. We only have about 3 weeks left in school and then we can stop getting up sooooooo early.

Love you all.

Connie

Looks like this Fri/Sat

We are finishing up the packing and cleaning this week. It looks like everything is going forward with the sale of this home and so we have rented the U-haul truck for this Saturday. I will be able to start moving things over on Friday in our own minivan and get the ball rolling that way. I never knew how much stuff we really had until I started cleaning things out. We have already taken two pickup truck loads to the dump and several loads to the DI (deseret industries). We probably have several more loads to take to the DI once we finish sorting. It is good to dejunk. We still haven't heard yet about any of the shortsales, but we continue to pray that we will be where the Lord needs us to be. If it is okay with the Lord, I would LOVE to be at 11066 Indigo Sky Way.

Love you all.
Connie

Spring pictures

Just wanted to share some new spring garden pictures. Grandma Herring is back home from the hospital but still not doing as well as she should be doing seems she has a cough and the regular aches and pains but I guess for almost 80 that's not that bad... We are doing o k still trying to make preparations for the summer guests we are so looking forward to your visit and have more family time with more of our kids here in Texas. Hope all goes well with the move in Utah with Sean and Connie you guys are in our prayers and hope you get the house you should. I would like to encourage more entries on this blog as I will try also to do the same. I really enjoy seeing and reading the new happening in your lives.