Sunday, March 13, 2011

work and more work

I’ve done a lot of posts on the kids lately but maybe it is time I update you on Neal and Jackie stuff:

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Lovely illusion at our local children’s museum, September 2010. Apparently tricks the camera too.

Neal is coming up on his one year anniversary working at Thermo Fisher Scientific!  He seems to enjoy the people and the set work hours and he doing well with his job duties.  He has been on a couple short trips for work and has another coming up in April to Orlando (jealous).  We feel so blessed to have got this job and to get our foot in the door, especially in today’s hard economic times.  Work is paying for him to take some MBA classes and that keeps him busy but will hopefully be worthwhile.  He currently has classes on Monday nights and Wednesday nights and we try to get him the rest of the time ;). 

Neal didn’t have a church calling for a few months after we moved in which was okay since he was still finishing up the PhD.  He was finally called to be the Melchizedeck Priesthood Group Leader in August (basically Elders Quorem and High Priests were combined and he was called as president) and had to be set apart as a high priest because of it.  Well, a few months later the church changed guidelines and that calling was dissolved.  That was kind of our “DOH!” moment because now that he was a high priest, he couldn’t serve as Elders Quorem President.  However he was called as High Priest group leader so it worked out just swell.  He is still busy with that calling but he doesn’t have to teach nearly as many lessons.  Neal has been in Primary for sooooo long and he loved it and did a great job there but I think it is time for the adults to experience him!  He is great though, I have branch members tell me how thankful they are for him and what he does.  It blesses our family in ways I’m sure I’m not always noticing, but it is there and we are grateful for it.

Me?  Well this week I have been pulling late nights trying to get our living room ready for painting.  It looked SO ghetto with all the patchups and paint samples slapped on the wall.  The previous owners just don’t know how to fix up a wall well.  Nuff said.  But it is getting better and it is primed and almost ready to go.  I am painting it Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray, a color used by Pottery Barn, and I am going to try adding a very slight amount of sheen using silver metallic paint and glaze.  Really slight, like barely there but enough to hopefully make all the difference in the world, right?  In spite of our house in constant construction mode, I feel like we’ve been doing a lot of entertaining lately.  We’ve been inviting a lot of the branch members over for dinner and it has been fun to get to know everyone.  I purchased two Wii dance games that have been a huge hit for these dinner parties (Just Dance 2 and Michael Jackson’s Experience) and my dad gave us Wii Pictionary which is also fun for parties (but I don’t break a sweat doing that!).

So aside from painting and cooking and normal day to day stuff with kids, I keep busy serving in the Primary at church.  I am serving as a counselor in the Primary presidency.  There really is only the president and myself.  I play piano in there too.  And I basically serve as secretary.  It has been awesome.  I am learning so much.  It is hard work but the internet has been such a huge blessing in this calling.  For handouts, for organizing, for lesson helps, everything. I love that others have such awesome ideas and freely share it.  People have commented to me that I am creative but really what it is is that I have gotten good at gathering creative ideas from others, so I can take no credit whatsoever! I wish I could be that creative though but seriously, who has the time these days :) Apparently everybody but me… My faves currently are:

www.sugardoodle.net because they have everything it is overwhelming.  Check out their general conference packets, they are amazing.

scriptures4kids.com because they have some awesome printables

visitingteachingblog.blogspot.com I know not Primary but I am feeling like an awesome VTer with these cute supplements to the lessons.  March’s is particularly cute.

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