Mom, Jen, Chloe, and Karly came down and stayed for the week to celebrate the occasion with us. 
Should I be worried?
A lot of the girls that are popular in school tend to be squeely,
obnoxious, and rude. We have had discussions with Aylee about
popularity and how Amber and I never were in the "popular" crowd, nor
did we ever try to be. It just wasn't us.
Well, the other day, Alayna was whiny and squeely about everything -
such as, "Oooooh...don't touch me!!!", and "That is mine, give it back
now!!" She was using a tired, whiney, high pitched voice. After one of
her bouts of sqeeling, Amber and I overheard Aliece exclaim, "Alayna,
you are starting to sound popular!"
I think Aliece has it figured out!
.
Humored, by where this was going, I asked her to tell me who was in love
at school. She responded, "well, Mylee is in love with Calvin. Carson
is in love with Abby." Then a pause...."and Eric is in love with ME."
"Oh, yeah?", I replied, a little more interested in this conversation.
"How do you know Eric is in love with you," I probed.
She responded, "because he gave me a love letter at school today."
Jokingly, I responded, "And what did you do with that love letter -- put
it in a special memory box?"
Then, catching me by surprise, an embarrassed smile crossed her mouth
and she whispered, "yes."
Am I ready for this????
It's not fair!
You never told me it was a trial.
I had VERY important emails
sent to that address, and now
they're gone! You should be
ashamed because now, if I
don't get those emails sent to
me by March 7th I will personally
make sure your business falls...
HARD!
Kassidy,
I'm sorry that you feel this way. I have reactivated your account for another week so that you have a chance to retrieve any emails you need.
Thanks,
-Jacob.
Jacob,
I am so sorry,
I didn't mean to hurt your feelings in any way.
I guess my anger came over me. Thank you
so much for this kind gesture, and, because
of it I'll recommend you to every one I can.
Warmly,
Kassidy
That's fine. I am sorry for the misunderstanding.
As you were so kind in your reply, I will extend your subscription for another year for FREE. Please do not tell anyone that I did this, though, as our customers typically pay for the service.
Thanks,
-Jacob.
Oh thank you, I will never tell anyone!
And next year, I WILL pay for the
services. But please, do not do anything
more for me because I do not want
you to get in trouble, it's so hard to
find people this nice!
Your Friend
Kassidy
P.S. You don't have to reply since my mom does not particularly
care for internet conversations, but once again, thank you dearly.
Well, I guess Aliece decided to be more proactive. She drew up the invitation without any guidance from Amber. She then, unbeknownst to Amber, left the house and went to our neighbor's to deliver the invite. They weren't home, so Aliece then walked over to the Bishop's house (next door) and gave it to them. She asked the Bishop if he could give the invitation to our neighbors when they get home.
When she came home she told Amber what she had done. Amber told Aliece that she needed to go back to the Bishop's house and get the invitation back. Aliece replied that it would be too embarrasing. Amber told her she still needed to do it.
So, Aliece complied. She took a couple of individually wrapped peppermint candies that she bought yesterday with her money and gave it to the Bishop and his wife and then asked for her invitation.
We might have to work on the invitation a little bit, but I thing she got the gist of it in her first draft :)
Instead, we waited until Saturday and I took Aliece and Alayna with me
to Idaho to go to the reception.
We left with plenty of time so we stopped at Smith and Edwards store,
did some geocaching, and went to McDonalds.
We had a fun time together. We'll be staying in Arbon tonight And
going back to Provo tomorrow afternoon.
The baptism will be in our chapel on the corner of 2770 W & 620 N in Provo. The baptism starts at 11:30 AM. Try to arrive early. There will be a waiting room at the south end of the building. The baptismal meeting will start in the Relief Society room where the font is located.
Please let us know if you will be coming so that we know how much food to prepare for after the baptism.
We understand if you cannot make it, but we would love to see you there!
Amber started to feel pretty sick yesterday. She sat at the table and watched us all eat at dinner and she had a handful of crackers.
At bedtime, instead of doing her routine with Jace, she laid on Jace and John's floor in agony keeping Jace in his room while I was at a church meeting.
When I got home, Amber went straight to be at 8:40pm. It wasn't quite lights out, so the older kids were awake when Amber went to bed early
I was up stairs doing the finishing touches on taking care of Jace, etc. Aliece came out of her room and talked to Aylee about redoing their night-time prayers and asking for Mom to get better. Aylee agreed it would be a good idea. While the girls were busy making plans to help Amber out, John replied, "Oh, is Mom not feeling well?"
It just so happened that our stake was having a family dance the night
of her birthday. Aliece was very excited to go to a dance on her
birthday. During the dance, she ran around to every adult that she knew
and proudly showed them her beautifully adorned middle finger. Most of
the people didn't notice that she had a ring on her finger, however. One
of the adults explain to Aliece that she could not show her ring off in
that manner. Aliece asked her why and her friend told her that she
needed to come and talk to us for the explanation. It was really funny.
I got a lot of comments from people at church today telling me how much
they got a kick out of seeing Aliece at the dance. She was just so
happy and joyful and, of course, she had some funky dance moves. The
dance was a special event for her so she was decked out for the party.
The DJs were even willing to stop the dance and have everyone sing an
exuberant happy birthday to our little eight-year-old.
It was a great way to top off that girl's eighth birthday.
He is starting to understand that his actions can affect her, but he
still treats her as hard as his older siblings.
Just a few minutes ago I heard Avary screaming. I ran into the
playroom to find Jace hiding behind the loveseat. I looked at Avary
and found a line of blood and bruising under her eye. Sh had been
playing with metal toy cars and Jace must have thought it would be a
good idea to dogpile his sister - causing her face to plant right on
top on one of the metal cars. That is going to leave a mark for a
while.
Amber has now banned all indiana jones video games from the house.
What we do feel strongly about, however, is that we want more room in
our house. While we haven't decided yet on WHERE we should be moving,
we have decided that we should get the house ready to try to sell. With
the market and the economy the way they are, a potential move depends
heavily on the ability to sell our current home.
In order to start getting the house into shape to put on the market, we
decided to have a talk with the kids to explain to them the situation
and rally their help in the cause to prep the house.We sat them down in
the office Saturday morning and broke the news to them. Amber let me
lead into the discussion. I didn't ease into the subject very slowly
because we expected excited faces about the prospect. What we got,
however, were a series of tears from almost every kid. John was crying
because he can't fathom being away from all of his friends, Aliece was
crying because she would miss her teacher at school, Alayna was crying
because she only knows this house as home, and Jace started crying
because it just seemed like the right thing to do for the time. Aylee
was the only one excited about the prospect of selling out and moving
closer to family.
I was lucky that Amber was there to bail me out. She spent the next 20
- 30 minutes helping the kids to see the benefits from such a move,
should we sell the house. By the time she was done, the kids were
excited at the potential changes. Her rallying cry got all the kids up
and out of the office. We spent the entire afternoon going through
bedrooms and throwing out TONS of stuff. Amber made them the rule that
they could keep whatever would fit in a plastic tote (excluding clothes
of course).
By the end of the evening the kids' bedrooms looked twice as big. We
had thrown out toys, trinkets, and even furniture.
My back doesn't do well with a lot of physical activity, so I would take
15 minute breaks here an there to start the marketing campaign for the
house. I was able to come up with the following website that I will use
on signs, fliers, and online For Sale websites such as Craigslist.com.
You'll have to check it out at http://www.flag-house.com. The pictures
on the website are not final, I just threw some on there that we had on
our computer. I need to throw out half of them as well as add other ones.
We had just told a couple of our neighbors in confidence that we would
probably be moving. Aliece asked if she could tell our neighbor. Amber
and I had already told her the day before, so we let Aliece go break the
news. Poor Aliece...she went over and excitedly told the neighbor.
However, the neighbor (Nicole - who is really good friends with Amber)
just started crying right there. Despite knowing earlier, it was still
hard to hear. She felt bad and brought Aliece home and explained to her
that she would be missing us.
It has been a hard thing to do. We have friends here that have been
friends for the majority of our married life. Kids that we have taught
in primary or mutual have all grown and have kids of their own. Kids we
watched enter nursery classes are now going through Young Mens/Young
Womens programs. It is tough on the heart.
Anyway, we continue to pray for guidance to understand what will be the
best for our family. If our house doesn't sell, we are still good here
in Provo and would enjoy staying in our neighborhood. If the house DOES
sell, well that is another hard decision ahead!
Aliece is really excited for her upcoming baptism and her approaching birthday. She would like to invite everyone to her baptism. We understand that it may be difficult for many of you to make the trip, so we understand if you cannot attend.
We took a few snapshots of the basement as we have been working. It's been hard to get some good shots so you can really see it all because I can't get far enough away but here are a few of the ones we have taken so far. This first one is of the first area we got cleaned out. 
Dad and Dave put plastic up on the walls to help keep the moisture off the studs and I think also to help with the insulation. They started the framing!
Here they've got the first storage area, bathroom and one bedroom framed up. 
This picture was taken yesterday. Jake came over and they got the 2nd bedroom framed up and a lot of the wiring in. I guess Dad did a most of the wiring earlier this week. It's looking good and it's very exciting!
Our Valentine's Day started off a little stressful as we were up with kids a lot last night and then slept in until 7:45. We have church at 9:00 so we had quite a lot to do in a little bit of time. We still walked into the chapel 10 minutes before 9:00 which I was pretty impressed with myself :) Not that I did it alone by any means but we did it! 
After dinner we cut out a bunch of hearts and we each wrote 2 things we loved about everyone in our family and then Chloe taped them on the wall. It was a lot of fun and it was interesting to hear some of the things Chloe came up with. All in all, we had a fun day.
(I had been cleaning the fireplace that is why it is wet) I took out the fireplace insert to open it up quite a bit more. It looks so much better without the insert in.
It has been hard to say goodbye to friends and coworkers of over a
decade. I do look forward to what is ahead though. I am excited to be
boarding a plane with Jake Sunday night to make my maiden voyage to
Service-Now.com in San Diego!
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The story doesn't quite end there, however. In preparation for the tooth
fairy's visit, Alayna put her tooth in a small cup on the counter. She
filled it full of water so that when the tooth fairy was to visit her
tooth that night, the dust off of its wings would turn the water a
special color. That night, however, as I was helping Amber clean the
kitchen, I saw that small cup on the counter and I took it and dumped
its contents into the dishwasher and then loaded the cup to be cleaned.
As soon as I did it, however, I realized what was in the cup. After
searching diligently in the dishwasher I found the missing tooth and
replaced it in the cup so as not to mess up the tooth fairy plans.
Sure enough, the tooth fairy visited Alayna and left her some money. She
was so excited to show her siblings her money in the morning that she
took the precious coins upstairs while everyone was getting dressed.
She held onto her coins while she did her morning routine such as
brushing her teeth and using the bathroom. However, in the course of
being in the bathroom, one of her brass pennies ended up in the toilet
along with other things that typically end up in there. She was
heartbroken and stressed and decided to come talk to me. I took a look
at the toilet and its contents and made a professional decision that the
penny could not be saved. We all solemnly looked in the bowl as it was
flushed down the drain. Alayna was a bit dejected by this event.
However, her big brother swooped in to the rescue and pledged a penny of
his own to replace the ill-fated coin that is now making its way to the
ocean.
About one hour into my workday, I decided I had better talk to my boss
to let him know about my decision to take this other job and leave
Novell. It was a hard discussion to have, but my boss was very
professional about it and understanding. I explained to him that this
job would allow me to work with Jake again and that the pay was
significantly better. He replied that he wished I would have talked to
him because he is sure he could've arranged a similar situation for me
at Novell. I told him I was grateful for his offer but explained to him that I had made
a commitment already to this other company and I wouldn't renege on that
commitment. He told me that I was not burning any bridges and that if I
needed to come back to Novell he would hire me in a heartbeat. I really
like his attitude toward the whole situation.
It was kind of funny, however, because I have recently been assigned to
a confidential project on the side at Novell. I knew that I needed to
divest myself of that project as soon as possible since I would not be
here to drive it to the end. There were two engineering people on that
special project -- me and the chief architect for our product line. I
went to the architect and explained to him that I needed to add one more
person to our team. Leaving the company was supposed to be a secret
until after the vice president and other HR people were notified. I
couldn't tell the architect what was going on, so I just told him that
we need to add a third person. He looked at me funny but agreed. I had
one of my employees meet with him to learn about the project and to
start on it. However, just two hours later, the chief architect came
into my office. He had heard through the management grapevine that I was
leaving. He said it made total sense now why I was sending one of my
employees to work with him on this project. He then explained to me that
he was giving notice that same day that he would be leaving Novell. So
while I was trying to pawn off my responsibilities for the project to
him and one of my team members, he was simultaneously trying to pawn
himself off that project. It was really quite a coincidence that the two
of us will be leaving Novell at the same time.
Later that day, I had a special meeting with my team where I announced
that I would be leaving the company. It ended up being quite a somber
meeting and I received heartfelt thanks and congratulations. I really
have a great team. It will be hard to leave them.
Now the cat is out of the bag, my excitement level has risen tenfold for
my upcoming career change. It is now a real thing in my mind and I am
excited to gear up for it. It will be hard to leave the only company
that I know professionally as well as the people that I've grown to gain
respect for. However, is going to be exciting for me to be able to work
alongside Jake again.
So, officially, January 15 will be my last day at Novell. That weekend I
will fly to San Diego where I will start at service-now!
