Grandma's Horse

Hey everyone -

I forgot to mention the other day that I got a picture of Grandma's horse. It's really cute!

Update on Grandmas

To update everyone on Grandma Younce, she is home from the hospital and doing better, though still very tired and pretty weak. We were in last night about 5:30 and she was in bed. Your mom talked to her for awhile and said she's doing OK.

Grandma Gray is plugging along, doing pretty well. Her memory is troublesome and funny at the same time. It's increasingly hard for her to retain something, even for a minute. But you still can carry on a pretty good conversation with her. She gets confused from time to time. She thinks she has a horse--I have no idea where that comes from! She mentions it fairly often. She said it was down the hill on the pasture outside (the ground around the house is flat.) Last night she said "You don't have any livestock anymore, do you?" I said no and she said "You can have my horse."

New Job Offer

Hi guys!

I need your help. I received my offer today from Contech and I have until tomorrow to get back with them. They offered $5K less than what I wanted and they only offer one week of vacation for the first five years and then after that you get two weeks. Right now I get 2 weeks. Plus I would have to pay $40 per month for my health benefits and right now I do not pay anything. Because I will have a much longer commute with this new job it will actually cost me if I take the offer as is. I know, doesn't make a lot of sense for me to accept that offer but I am going to try and negotiate. That is where I need your help. I would like to offer $5K more than they offered me and ask for an additional week of vacation. Do you all think that is unreasonable? I am not sure what to do, I feel like an hour glass running out of time here in my current position. I just found out today that they are laying off 15-20 people in the next 30-45 days. I'm sure I will be part of that. But, I do not want to sell out for less than my worth and be frustrated in my new position from the very start. Any ideas on how to write a great negotiation letter?

Thanks guys, any advice would be helpful!

M

Really too bad to hear of all the snow and cold weather in SoCal. It's been really nice here. I just snapped this photo out back this morning:

Hi guys! Really glad you set this up as a family blog, Heather--thanks. Now I can spam everybody!

Hey Miss Arielle, how about posting some of your photos on the blog? We wanna see 'em!! Yours too, Ashley!

Grandma Younce is in the hospital--may be released today, not sure. She had bad congestion and high fever. They started treating her for something called C-Diff (I'd never heard of it), an intestinal problem usually caused by overmedicating with antibiotics. Think they tried 4 different antibiotics trying to get rid of congestion. We're hoping she's feeling better. Grandma Gray is doing pretty well. She's got a sore foot--one of the other ladies in the home ran over her foot with a motorized wheelchair! Don't think it's too serious, though. We're all so grateful that she's adapted well to Ruth's house--she really feels at home there. Grandma Younce was slowly getting more used to it too, I think.

Anybody guess why we gave this painting to Chris for his birthday?:

DC

So, many of you may already know Ashley is going on a trip to Washington DC this summer - the week of June 16th. The trip will include all the usual Wash. DC stuff, memorial, congress, lincoln memorial, etc. and it will also include a trip to Amish Country.

Here's the link for the trip in case you want to know...
http://www.worldstrides.com/discoverdc/Discoverdc.asp

But what you may NOT know is I'm going too as a chaperone. It will be almost 20 years since I was in DC. It was in July of 1988 when I last was there, so it'll be really interesting to see it 20 years later. Wonder how much is different from when I was there last (I also wonder how much I remember!). It should be a fun trip. We plan to bring computers along so we can blog our days while we are there.

Grades, Grades and more Grades

So Ashley got a 3.8 this past semester - YAY Ashley! She of course was on the honor roll and got to go to an assembly for all of the overachievers at her school... She was really excited.

Speaking of Ashley... she got her official High School registration packet this week. She's picked her classes for next year (well really only picked electives, but still had to circle the right core classes for her grade). She picked German as her first choice for a second language class, and French as her second choice. She also picked Digital Photography as her first choice for visual arts elective, and I believe the second choice is multi media. She is jazzed to join clubs at Vista - her biggest problem is deciding which ones to join because she loves so many of them! Stay tuned to find out what she chooses.

Meanwhile, I just finished my first class (mgmt 604 - Managerial Assessment and Development) and got my grade - an A - 4.0 baby! I think it is ON between Ashley and I now... LOL!

Just call it Snow-Mont :)

So if you haven't heard yet we had a pretty cold day yesterday. In fact, it really did snow in Beaumont yesterday! I also heard the east county San Diego it snowed too. When we went out last night for Valentines day, we could feel the icyness to the air - it was 38 degrees! That's pretty cold for Murrieta :)... So enjoy the snow pics of Southern California!

Oops I forgot my login!

Right after my first (and latest) post, I lost the login to this blogspot. Now, I've finally found it - so I'm back! I have alot of catch up to do, so I will be updating this blog very soon...