November- January update

Tonight I have a quiet home with both Will and Ariana asleep. I should be doing a job search, but that is so boring!!!

If you follow me on Facebook you probably keep up with our daily grind, but I am going to do an update on us, as of today. I will back track from November since my last post was in October.

November went by really quickly. Will had a rough couple months starting in November. It was our first holiday season alone as a family. In Seattle we had our holiday routines, usually for Thanksgiving we would split our day between my family and Will's family in the evening. We had no where to go and Will was pretty distraught over it, yes, I am not exaggerating he was more than heart broken. So, one Sunday afternoon we went to the bishop and explained to him how he was feeling, and asked for a blessing. The Bishop invited us to his house for dinner, which Will felt like a charity case at first. A couple weeks pass and it is Thanksgiving. We had most of the day alone and Ariana woke up in a fowl mood. Finally she just busted out crying and said she misses all the family in Seattle. I completely understood and Ariana and I cried together in her room for a few minutes. We still had several hours to go until we could go over to the Bishop's house so we all took naps for a few hours, woke up and had a wonderful evening.

Fast forward a few weeks... It was a few weeks before Christmas and we were going back and forth on if we wanted to drive to Seattle for Christmas. Our original plan was to leave on the 19th and head home on the 27th. We decided it would be financially responsible of us to skip going to Seattle for Christmas. Will had three out of the 6 days paid for, but I do not have any benefits, so we would have been unpaid for a good portion of the week, and if Will worked the day before Christmas and the day after Christmas all both days, plus Christmas was double pay. My employer closed the day before Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, and the day after Thanksgiving and so those 3 days were unpaid; then they did the same thing for Christmas and those 3 days were unpaid, then I had New Years day off and that was unpaid. So in just over a months time we would have ended up missing about 2 weeks of pay, if we had decided to go to Seattle, ouch! We decided to stay home, Ariana was sick the whole weekend before Christmas, and up until Christmas Eve so we stayed low and at home, we were not able to do our Christmas Eve traditions because all Ariana wanted to do was lay down and rest and we would much rather have her feeling 100% by Christmas morning, and she was! Christmas day we had plans to go see some family and have dinner with them and do some Christmas activities. My cousin texted me and said gift exchange at my aunt's house at 11:00 so we decided to not open up gifts until the evening. We did let Ariana open a few gifts and we told her she had gifts to open throughout the day. If FINALLY snowed Christmas morning, a Christmas miracle, it seemed like anyways. We had fun sledding down the hill at my aunt's house and hanging out with several different family members. We got home about 6:00 pm and opened up our family gifts then headed off to bed. For the first 4 years of Ariana's life we opened up gifts in the evening, then she started believing in Santa and we stopped opening up gifts in the evening. We really enjoyed opening them up before bed because it gave us the day to really enjoy each other and the family we were with rather than playing with our newest toys. Although we did not have a lot of money this Christmas, and we could not be with our immediate family in Seattle we found out we are blessed beyond measure with amazing friends, family, and a wonderful family ward; and realizing that this Christmas was priceless. I really pray that we could touch and bless our friends and family as much as everyone has blessed us.

January hits us, and WOW it is 2015! Where has the time gone?! This month Will was put into a training program at work, and he is NOT looking forward to his new job. He stays in the same department, but does not think he will understand or enjoy his new job. He really loved his old job, he dealt with crabby people sometimes, but overall he really enjoyed it. So Will has decided to venture on and find new opportunities. He was been really diligent in the job hunt and had several job interviews, we are really praying for a job he interviewed with on Friday, it is about 3 miles from our house and he can come home on lunch break. It will save a ton on gas and time. The job is $2 more than what he is currently at, and he thinks the job is a perfect fit. Also, the beginning of January Will finally started going back to school. I am praying that he sticks this thru for 4 years and walks away a BYU-I alumni! I really want to go back to school, but I think it will be too hard for both of us attending school, working full time, and trying to keep a family going so I will put my college on hold for a year and let Will get back into the education frame of mind. He really struggled the first week and was holding an F, he is getting into the swing of things and passing with a B. For Will a B is a huge thing, going to school with unmedicated ADD is really hard but we are praying everything will be good for him an he will stick it out.

As for me, I recently decided it was time for me to get back on the job hunt. There is one important thing in life and that is your family. I get off work at 6pm and by the time I get home it is 6:30-6:45. I loose about 2 hours of family time compared to my old work schedule I have had at my other job. I feel like I am letting work take over and I feel really bad for Ariana. By the time I get home I give Will and Ariana a hug and kiss then start making dinner. I am really trying to do crock pot meals to help cut the cooking time down. After we eat we put Ariana to bed then we head to bed. We do not have time to help Ariana with homework so she does it everyday at daycare, which I hate. Our weekends are pretty slammed since we really only have Saturday to do things. Saturdays consist of morning chores, and grocery shopping, then doing whatever else needs to be done to get us thru the next week. We try not to clean on Sundays, just hang out and go to church. During the week cleaning is done every couple of days but its so hard when Will is doing homework and I work all day the last thing I want to do is clean. I also feel like I have broken promises to Ariana because we promised her she would get into gymnastics when we moved and its been 6 months and still no gymnastics. So, to allow for more family time I am starting to look for new work. There are a few other reasons, but this is the internet so I will keep those reasons to myself.

In reality that is pretty much my life right now- school, work, chores and shopping. Oh yeah, and it is girl scout cookie time so cookies is also wrapped up into our already busy life.