Happy Valentines Day!!!

...and my 22nd Birthday!!! :)

Sorry, we're very late on our posting. But, we hope everyone had a fun Valentine's Day! It's a great day to remember your loved ones whether or not you have a significant other. We had fun celebrating Valentines Day along with my 22nd birthday. I started the morning off with fishing a little goose out of the bathroom sink. Jared had climbed up to the counter, pushed up a bunch of stuff into the sink and then got in and sat on it like a little goose in a nest. It was kind of funny, but we're teaching him not to climb on things so much.

I gave Ryan and Jared their Valentine's Day presents early in the morning. I gave Jared a Reese's Pieces heart-wand, which he loved! I gave Ryan the same thing, along with a card and flowers (a puzzle of flowers). Ryan surprised me when we got in the car to take him to school. At my feet were a couple of the reusable grocery bags with something in them. I asked Ryan what was in them and he told me I should open them. He gave me a cookbook with 25 years with of name brand recipes. He new just to get me to make my day! It was a pretty sweet cookbook. Later in the day he gave me a box of chocolates as my Valentine's present. Yum!

Once I was home with Jared, I spent the day doing some of my favorite things to do, bake, read, and of course, play with Jared. =)

I decided to have some fun with this Pie Bites Press that  we got for Christmas (Thank Eric, Becky, Thomas, and Sup). I made some dough and used a can of raspberry pie filling. It was fun. The press is for making pie-pops, but I just made tarts. It was pretty nifty, and they turned out so good.

Ryan had a really busy day, so we weren't able to do a whole lot to celebrate 'til the weekend, but I did get to bring him home around lunch time so we could have a missionary lesson with the missionaries and an investigator neighbor of ours. That was a neat experience! I also got to share my tarts with everyone.

In the evening, when I went to pick up Ryan, we decided to have dinner at the food court on campus. We don't eat out a whole lot, so that was a nice treat. While we were there we opened the cards I'd gotten in the mail. That was a nice surprise to get those in the mail that day. One was a really cute card from Ricky, who's on his mission right now.

When we got home, one of our neighbors arrived and gave me a birthday cake and card. That was a really nice surprise, since Ryan hadn't had time to make me a cake this year. So, Ryan sang "Happy Birthday" in Portuguese and English and I got to blow out my candles and open presents. It was a fun day! Thanks everyone who helped make it special, (especially Ryan and Jared)!

Ryan's Trips to Houston and Vicksburg...

...and our journey to finding a job. :)

 

Houston hotel room

Throughout this semester and last semester, Ryan has been working on getting a job lined up for when he graduates. He handed out his resume to different companies at the BYU job fairs and we've done some online searches to see what companies might be good to apply for. 

Houston hotel room

There have been three main companies that have been interested in Ryan. The first was Exxon. They took Ryan and I out to dinner, along with several other BYU students and their spouses and we basically had a dinner-interview and were able to ask them questions while they got to know Ryan and the other students better. If Ryan had been accepted for that job we would've had to move to Houston, so that's when we first started considering how we felt about moving to Houston. They gave Ryan a call a few weeks later and turned him down, but Ryan's not so sure he wanted to work with an oil company anyway, so we were okay with that.

In October, Ryan got an e-mail from Goodman (they do HVAC and Amana products), which is also in Houston, Texas, saying they'd like him to apply for a position they had open as a Solutions Analyst. So Ryan applied and they asked him to schedule an interview with them, on campus, while they were in town. The interview went pretty well and they asked him to come to Houston to have a tour of Goodman's facilities and several more interviews. So, in the middle of November Ryan went to Houston. They paid for the flight, a limo to pick him and two others up from the airport, and the hotel for one night. Ryan had a nice time, and got to see the company and meet some of the people he'd work with. Those interviews went well, but then we had to wait for two months for them to make their decision. 

Mississippi hotel room

Meanwhile, Ryan gave his resume to a couple other companies, in case things didn't go well with Goodman. ARA (they do infrastructure consulting, etc.) in Vicksburg, Mississippi became interested and had an interview with Ryan over the phone. That went well, and they also asked him to come to have an all expenses paid trip to Vicksburg to see their company and have another interview. So, about two weeks ago Ryan went to Vicksburg. Just a couple days before he left though, he got a call from Goodman saying they wanted to offer him the job and that they'd send him the details in an e-mail by the end of the week.

Mississippi hotel room

Ryan's interview in Vicksburg went well and he came home pretty sure they'd offer him a job as well. Goodman was a little late in sending out their e-mail, so both the offers from Goodman and ARA ended up coming on exactly the same day last week. That was really good timing, because then we were able to consider the offers together.

We were pretty set on ARA at first, even though their offer wasn't as good as Goodman's. They seemed like the location and  job description we'd prefer. But, Goodman's location and job description were pretty good too. Each company had a lot of differences, but they each had a lot going for them. We corresponded with both companies making sure we knew what we were getting with each offer and there were one or two things we asked to change. We had a really rough week deciding between two really good options. We prayed about it everyday, fasted, compiled a pro's and con's list and used other ways of analyzing the two options.

Old train station in Mississippi

But we didn't come down to a decision we really felt good about settling on until Monday. One of the Goodman VPs called Ryan and talked to him about how much they really wanted him to come work for them. He then told Ryan he was going to have his boss, Sam (I can't remember if he was the president of the company or not, but whoever the boss of the VP is) call Ryan and talk to him. So, Sam called and talked to Ryan for a solid 15 minutes about how much they wanted him and how good he would be at the job and what's great about Goodman. That made us consider Goodman's job and the people he'd be working with a little more highly. 

Bridge between Mississippi and Louisianan

That night we spent an hour or two going over what each opportunity had to offer and came to the conclusion that Goodman's was the better offer, especially for this being Ryan's first job. Yesterday was not only an exciting day for us because it was our anniversary, but because Ryan made the call to Goodman and accepted their job offer. We're really looking forward to start this new chapter in our life and move to Houston during the summer.

Thank you, for everyone whose been so supportive of us in this and wishing us luck. We hope we can all still keep in touch pretty well with skype, kinnect, letters, and e-mails, and of course visits. :)

Snowball Fight with Daddy

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

We had a pretty snowy day a few weeks ago, so while Ryan was out shoveling the drive, Jared and I decided we'd surprise him by coming out to play with him while he shoveled. Ryan was really fast though, so by the time we were ready he was done shoveling, but he stayed out and played with us.

Of course, Ryan's favorite thing to do in the snow is have a snowball fight. So, he threw snow balls at Jared and I, and I made sure to get him back for both of us. We had a fun time; I stayed out longer with Jared because he LOVES playing outside.