Our Next Adventure

Chad has been offered a good job in Albuquerque, New Mexico! We've decided to take the job and begin our next big adventure in Albuquerque. We're leaving quickly and frantically trying to pack and tie up loose ends. Ten days from now, we will be heading to Albuquerque to start our new adventure.

We're both very excited about his new job! The job is perfect for him and will focus on an area of law that he loves. We're excited to live near his parents and continue the grandparent spoilage we've enjoyed here in Ohio. We will also be much closer to Darbie's extended family in Arizona, making for some fun weekend road trips!

At the same time, we are VERY sad to leave Ohio. We've made fabulous friends here and we're sad to move to a place where we have no friends. We've also loved living near some of Darbie's family, and we're very sad that we won't get to see them as often.

We are so grateful that we have found a good job so quickly, especially in the currently crappy economy. We have received so many blessing in the time we have been unemployed and have learned so many lessons that will hopefully improve our life in the future.

I'm sure we'll be taking a blogging hiatus until we get to Albuquerque (not that we need moving as an excuse, but if it's there, I'm going to use it).

Just can't get enough!

Stay tuned...we just may have some big news to share.

Family Update: Cleveland Rocks

My brother Derrick is home from Uruguay! We're so excited to have him back, but maybe not as excited as Jay, he won't stop talking about how much soccer he's going to play with Uncle Derrick. A lot has happened in 2 years. Here is the funniest picture from the airport, when Carly met her Uncle Derrick:



Alright, it's update time.

As far as our family goes, we're still unemployed, and still pretty bummed about it. Our lease for our apartment ends at the end of the week, so we were forced to make a decision about where to go. We've decided to stay here in Ohio for at least 3 months (we're not ashamed to admit that this tourism video for Cleveland was the basis for our decision). We're signing a 3 month lease on a house our friends have abandoned in favor of a fabulous house they just purchased (for the price of a VCR). They had 3 months left on their lease, so we're going to finish up their lease on a 3 bedroom house and then re-evaluate our situation when it comes time to move again. We're excited to have a yard for the summer, and an extra bedroom for Carly.

We're striving to be optimistic, but some days we struggle quite a bit. We have no idea what the future holds, and it causes a lot of anxiety. We know that our situation could be much worse, and we are so grateful for our relatively stable financial situation and the opportunity to have a fun summer break with the freedom to do fun things together as a family.

Since our lives are boring, here's onto the kids:

Jay:

• It's true, he read the flight instructions for half of the flights to and from Albuquerque. He asks what every picture means, over and over again.
• Thrives solely on frosted mini wheats, chicken nuggets, and waffles
• Asks Why? to every question, and everything that's not a question
• Still not potty trained
• Pretends to be "Firefighter Jay" most of the day
• He jumped up in the middle of Primary to tell everyone that he was the "best singer". Another child jumped up after him and Jay thought he also screamed that he was the "best singer". He completely freaked out and had to leave Primary. (We tried to tell him that everyone could be the best singer, but he's smarter than that. He said "No Daddy! If Noah says he is the best singer, then I CAN'T be the best singer!) We also found out later that the whole ordeal was a misunderstanding. The boy didn't say "I'm the best singer," but rather stood up to tell everyone "I'm going to Sea World!"

Carly

• This girl sure can eat! She already eats a million things Jay has NEVER, and yes, I seriously mean NEVER, tried in his life, including: beans, cheese, corn, and avocado. (I'm now convinced it isn't my fault that Jay ate baby food until he was 2 and still won't eat. Seriously, I didn't know babies just ate what you put in front of them and didn't gag and throw up.)
• She's decided she doesn't like 1 food: peaches. Yep, she even loves all the veggies.
• She army crawls everywhere. I'm convinced she'll never crawl normally. It's pretty darn cute, and she's super fast!
• She is fearless! She just dives into the bathtub on her belly and scoots around with the water splashing all over her face. (Jay's kind of a wimp when it comes to water)
• She's seriously adorable

Overall, we're all doing just fine. At least we're not Detroit.

There Are Pretenders Among Us

Any of you that knew Darbie during her college years probably knows that she is a huge fan of the show The Pretender. Well as Jay has gotten older, I have discovered that, just as the show explained during the opening credits, "there are Pretenders among us". For the past couple of months, Jay wants to pretend like he is someone or something all of the time. It started off with him pretending to be a fire fighter, putting out fires all over the house. As he began to understand the movies and TV shows he was watching, he began to pretend he was one of the characters of the movie/show of the week. He first started by acting like Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story II. I, of course, was the Evil Zerg and Jay always wanted to re-enact the scene where Buzz and Zerg fight as the beginning of the Movie. After receiving the movie Bolt for Easter, Jay always wants to play "Bolt Friends" which consists of him pretending to be Bolt, Darbie pretending to be his owner Penny, me pretending to be the evil Dr. Calico (note the evil theme) and Carly pretending to be Rhino (the suped up Hamster).

Lately, however, his pretending has become much more real life. For the past week, Jay has spent about 1/3 of the day pretending that he is me and making me pretend to be him. In his role as the "Dad", Jay leads me through the routine events of the day, mimicking my actions in each of the different situations. For example, Jay will have me act like I am asleep and then wake me up. At this point he will tell me "Now say 'I want a snack Daddy.'" After I follow that command he says like it was scripture and verse "No Jay, not until after breakfast". It is a fascinating way to examine our interactions from a different perspective.

Aside from using his ability to pretend for entertainment, Jay also tries to use it to avoid the rules or undesirable situations. Several times we have walked to the car and Jay has said "Let's pretend I'm the Daddy and you're Jay. I am the driver." Needless to say I only let that one work once before I caught on ;).

When it comes to meal times, Jay conveniently decides that I will play his role, meaning that I have to eat his lunch. One day, as I was pretending to be Jay, I said in Jay-like fashion "I don't want to eat my waffle, I want a snack!" Jay, playing a fabulous father figure replied: "Jay, if you're hungry enough to eat a snack, then you're hungry enough to eat a waffle".

To end most mealtime pretending dilemmas, I simply mention that if he is the Daddy, he has to eat Daddy foods. This takes him right out of pretend mode and right into eating chicken nuggets.

Jay's desire to pretend can get obnoxious at times. He gets mad when you don't respect his pretending wishes, making some of the daily fights twice as difficult. But sometimes his pretending can be pretty cute. For example, he likes to mimic our bed time routine. He will make me lay on the floor next to his bed, then he puts a blanket on me, sings me a song, and says "I love you Jay" with a hug and a kiss. Another memorable pretending episode occurred this morning. We were eating breakfast and out of no where, Jay says, "Let's pretend I'm Jesus and (pointing to Darbie) your a children and (pointing to me) your a children." I was a little uncomfortable when my child declared that he was going to pretend to be the Savior, but he pulled it off quite nicely. He came to me gave me a big hug and softly stroked my cheek (in the same manner Jesus does in many of the paintings with Him and children) and then he did the same to Darbie. It was pretty cute. I'm just glad to know that Bolt and Buzz Lightyear are not the only figures that Jay has learned about in our home.

I'm sure this pretending thing will taper off eventually, but who knows, maybe Darbie and I are parents of a real Pretender. (In which case we would of course "exploit his genius for our research")

Too Late to Find a Job?

We've been informed that our blog is depressing to look at with no new posts. Not much has changed with our current situation, but the kids keep getting cuter, so I suppose an update is in order.

Jay is hilarious. He's is quite aware that his dad doesn't have a job and it has made for many funny moments (at least he gets us to laugh about it).

• In the van on the way to go walking at the mall, we heard that Timbaland song "Apoligize" (You know, the one that says "It's too late to apoligize" over and over) on the radio. Shortly after we start walking, I hear Jay singing his own version of the song from the stroller. It goes like this: "It's too late to find a job"

• Shortly after we told Jay that Chad lost his job, Jay says "I give you a job, I have lots of moneys!" and runs to his room to retrieve his piggy bank and prove it.

• The kids and I ran into my mom at Walmart and while we stopped to chat, Jay was getting impatient and wanting the box of Band-Aids we were purchasing opened immediately. I told him that we couldn't open them until we bought them, to which he replied "I'm going to buy them by myself". My mom then said to him "Oh, do you have your own money to pay for them?". Jay stomps his foot and firmly (and loudly) replies "No! I don't have any moneys! My daddy doesn't got a job!"

Jay is officially in the "Why?" stage and I can't count how many times he says it in a 5 minute period. This kid wants answers. He doesn't settle for "I don't know". He always says "You DO know!" and asks the question again. Most of the time I just don't have answers. My favorites questions today are "Why is Carly a baby?" and "Why is that a garbage truck?". It's cute, but exhausting. He still survives on a diet of chicken nuggets and waffles with an occasional microscopic bite of a banana.

Carly is an adorable and pleasant 8 month old (seriously, time flies). She's got 2 teeth and she's scooting around the house. She's almost got the crawling thing down. She eats way better than Jay did/does. Jay can always get her to smile just by looking at her.

Here are a few pictures from last few months. Enjoy!

I LOVE this picture! She's wearing a hand knitted outfit and booties knitted by a lady in our ward, and she's laying on a quilt my Grandma made.

Brother sister bonding over TV. Jay's eye is bruised and healing from the Walgreens shopping cart incident. Jay flipped the shopping cart on top of himself with Carly still in it...but that's a whole other blog post.

More Carly cuteness.

Jay in his fireman costume: my boots and a lacrosse stick for a hose.

Another One Bites the Dust

"Another one bites the dust. Another one bites the dust. And another one gone, and another one gone Another one bites the dust. Hey, I'm gonna get you too. Another one bites the dust. " - Queen


The chorus from Queen's immortal song "Another One Bites the Dust" seems to be the anthem for our current economy. First it was Bear Stearns. Then it was Lehmann Brothers and Wachovia. Other companies like Bank of America and Citigroup are on the brink of total collapse or nationalization. Stockholders have seen their hopes of vast wealth or even a comfortable retirement vanish quicker than A-Rods credibility. Worst of all, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people have lost their jobs.

While some have been left unscathed by this dramatic economic downturn, I have become one of its most recent victims. On Wednesday, Feb. 18th, I found out that I was one of the 13 attorneys from my firm to be laid off effective Friday, Feb. 20th. I can't say that it was a total shock. I had been working their for about 6 months and I never had a steady stream of work. Just a few weeks ago larger laws firms began laying off attorneys. Needless to say, thoughts of being laid off were never far from my mind. Being told was a surreal experience. I had never imagined that I would be in that situation. Sure, I could see my self getting fired for poor performance or something like that, I never imagined that I would be laid off. Everyone at the firm felt so bad for me and offered as much advice and help as they possibly could. Unfortunately, we all knew that I had to go. All I could think was "another one bites the dust".


Although our world has been turned upside-down, and an potential for a huge adventure has been placed in front of us, the last few days have revealed many blessings. The kindness of my co-workers was clearly one of the silver linings of this whole experience. My co-workers (or should I say "former co-workers") were very helpful in offering numerous contacts and letters of recommendation. Darbie and I have enough money to allow me to look for jobs for a couple of months. Our lease ends in May, allowing us to move anywhere I find a job without being strapped by any unnecessary financial burdens. Darbie is not pregnant and all of us are in good health (knock on wood!). Finally, we have a lot of friends and family that are pulling for us and are willing to go above and beyond that call of duty to help me find a job.


While the silver linings are great and I love spending time with my family, eventually I'm going to need a job. That's where you come in Blogger Nation! Please talk with all of your friends, family, associates, contacts, or employers and tell them that you have a very capable friend who is looking for a job. I am willing to venture into and practice any type of law and would even be willing to clerk for a judge. I am also open to other jobs where I can use my knowledge of law and business but not actually be a practicing attorney. If you know of any job openings or have any contacts I can pursue, please comment on this post, e-mail or call me.


Thanks for enduring my marathon post. Don't worry, we'll try to make more happy, pictures-of-kids-filled posts in the coming days. Having time to do that is probably the best silver lining of all!

Some Cuteness

I'm slowly getting this blog updated. Here is some random cuteness to hold you off til the next post.