In Which I am a Terrible Blogger

Hi all,

Sorry it's been like, half a year since the last update.  For a while life wasn't super exciting, and then the holidays hit and since 2014 started, it's been just insanity.  I will try to capture the magic and memories from the past half year with this update...mostly by going through my phone and looking at pictures.

Fall semester went well for Zack--he made it on the Dean's List again!  We also celebrated his 25th birthday; I got him a record player...and definitely opened a can of worms with it, because now he talks about getting records all the time!  It's been pretty fun though.  We also went to Amber's 1920's/Downton Abbey party, which was fun!  For Halloween we went down to Lewiston; Kandace's parents have a crazy awesome party every year, and we got to go this year.  It was pretty fun, they decorate all the rooms and have great food and music.  And for our last-minute costumes, I think we looked pretty great.  Zack was The Dude from The Big Lebowski, and I went as Minnie Mouse.

1920s style?

me & birthday girl Amber

being SERIOUS about the 1920s

Penny thinks she's a lap dog because Zack pulls her up onto his lap to scratch her belly

Minnie Mouse top half

not bad for last minute!

Zack as The Dude

at the party

In November, we got to see Glenda, she came out for Thanksgiving and stayed with us for a little bit.  It was nice to have her around and to have some family time; we went to WA for Thanksgiving and brought Penny with us.  Zack's cousin brought his cute fluffy dog and we had a great time playing the dogs and baby Rachel and enjoying the joy being around family brings. 

driving to WA

Thanksgiving in WA with Glenda

chasing Penny around

of course this is the best picture of us from the trip...

For Christmas we stayed in Moscow, which was a nice change from the past few years, where we've been traveling across the country.  It was so great to not have to worry about packing, or airports and jetlag.  And, as fate would have it, of course, our transmission blew out like, the week before Christmas, so we were more or less stranded anyway.  But have Christmas with just us and Penny was very nice.  We got a big tree and used all our childhood ornaments to cover it, and I put up decorations and had music on all the time.  We had steak with mashed potatoes and I made a combination yam/sweet potatoes & apples casserole.  Everything was great, and for dessert we had chocolate mousse!  We had a nice, quiet Christmas the next day.  Penny was overwhelmed and thrilled with all her new toys and goodies we had bought her.  We tried to get her to open some of the things we had wrapped, but she didn't understand it...oh well.  Zack and I exchanged perfect gifts: he got me a beautiful set of brushes from Lancome (including ones I didn't have, but wanted and couldn't justify to buy myself), and I got him a big box set of Neutral Milk Hotel records and goodies.  So he spent the whole day listening to those, and I played with makeup, perfect!  My 26th birthday was great-Zack made me breakfast and I opened up presents, talked with my family and later we went out to dinner.

our beautiful tree

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve dinner

NMH box set

brushes

we got Penny some booties for winter walks...it's hilarious to watch

birthday breakfast

Zack made me German chocolate cake!

pre-birthday dinner

Other highlights from December includes the Digilent party at the new SEL event center.  It was a frustrating evening, because the cab company we were to use completely dropped the ball and was late picking us up in Moscow and also leaving the party.  We spent most of the night angry at them, but I enjoyed getting dressed up and all that.  Also, Amber and I had a girls' day in Spokane and got makeovers at Sephora (we each had vouchers for free ones!), lunch and enjoyed being girly.

Christmas party look

 

um...I couldn't get over Clint's face on the M&Ms at the party

pretty ladies @ the party!

post-makeovers

after mine

I had the lady work on my eyebrows, and help me figure out the gold/purple eye that I tried again for the Christmas party

one night we took Penny out for a winter walk

she has to be in the middle of us at all times possible

Since 2014 hit, work has been insane for me.  With the start of the school year, for about 2 straight weeks I was doing over 120 orders every day.  And handling quotes (the guys who normally do were both out of the country/town for 3-4 weeks) and answering phones and about a zillion other things.  And then once the orders got down to a more "reasonable" number of like, 70 a day (I usually average 20-30 orders an hour), we had one of our biggest boards go out of stock.  It's been like that this whole year, something big will go out of stock, and we'll build up a ton of backorders and then it'll come in, and something ELSE major will go out of stock.  It's been increasingly frustrating at work, there has been drama within other departments and I'm getting fed up with how things are around here.  But I'll deal with it until we leave the area.  So all of a sudden, I blinked and it's now March.  Every day at work for the past two months has been so exhausting and draining for me, and now it's finally starting to kind of slow down.

For Zack, he's in his final semester at UI, hooray!  He graduates in May and we are so thrilled!  He has been applying for jobs and thinking about all the possible avenues for the future and we still aren't sure where we'll end up just yet.  Once we have a better idea, we'll be sure to let everyone know.

I'm sure I forgot some things, but that's a rough overview of what's been happening for us.  Also here's a cute picture of Penny in the snow because she's so adorable it hurts.

 

Rachel's Grown-Up Job

After a few years of ups and downs, it looks like I have finally found a steady, full-time, long-term job!  And we both couldn't be happier.  I work for a company called Digilent; it was founded in Pullman about 10 years ago by some WSU engineer professors.  We sell microchip boards and engineering tools.  I'm still not 100% sure what everything is, but I know it has to do with engineering.  People can use our boards to make robots!  There is an office in China, Taiwan (where everything is made) and in Romania.  We ship all over the world, including companies such as Apple, NASA, Microsoft.  Pretty neat stuff.  Click to see the website: http://www.digilentinc.com/

I am on the end of my third week here and I just love it. I am responsible for processing the orders we receive online.  I record them in QuickBooks, and print out shipping labels (I don't pack the boxes).  It takes up the morning, and usually by 1 or 2 I've finished and can move onto filing or reading the news.  I've been working on typing up my notes and organizing my own, personal desk!  It's great.  I have two computer screens, a window and a sweet desk.  I also have my own email address and extension on the phone AND a name plaque on my desk.  It's pretty official.  I can listen to my music, have snacks, wear jeans & flip-flops...it's pretty amazing.

Everyone here is really nice, and I am now the fourth woman in the office.  I think there are about 2 dozen people, including the interns from WSU, that work in the Pullman office.  We ship everything out from here.  But we do have some international distributors.  I'm still now 100% how it all works, but I know what I do and I'm pretty good at it!

What's been great is that everyone has been nice and friendly, offering me food and advice, and wanting to help me when I ask questions.  It's been great.  I feel really good about this job, it's so great.  The one downside is that now I have a commute (so grown-up!), and while it's only 15 minutes, I'm not looking forward to the winter...I've been checking for carpool info online and we are thinking we'll end up buying a commuter car for me in the next few months.

But other than that, it's great!  I'm so happy!  It's kind of a strange feeling to not dread going to work!  I mean, I do sit all day and my wrists get a little bit tired by the end of the day, but I have a little drawer full of candy and snacks, and I can take it easy if I need.  The reason I got this job is because Zak is an excellent job scouter--he sent me a ton of jobs he found on-line.  I had kind of forgotten about this job, because I had done so many applications in a few weeks.  But I came in, nailed the first interview, and was called back for a second one within three days.  I got the job offer call twenty minutes later, just as I was heading into Moscow!

I'm still in my probation period, but no one has given me any reason to be worried.  In fact, the girl whose job I now have didn't leave, they had to create a job for her; no one has left the company, really.  A lot of people have been here since it started.  So there is a great future in store for me here.  I'm really happy to have this job, it just makes life so much better!

where I work

entrance

up a flight of stairs & through this door...

my desk!

some of the things we sell

my view

fancy!

another shot of my desk area

view from where I eat lunch sometimes

where I eat

excited to be at work!

Thanksgiving Break

the poster that Zak finished the day after they got here

We had a very fun, food-filled, family-oriented Thanksgiving break.  My brother Kenny & Zak's sister Delaney drove up from Rexburg to stay with us for the week.  We were expecting them by midnight on Tuesday, but they showed up at 9.  The posters we had for them weren't done, Zak wasn't even home yet!  But it was ok, the roads were clear and fine and we were happy they were finally in Moscow.  We stayed up and talked for awhile, and Kenny fixed our wifi that he had broke, haha. 

yes, there are 3 laptops there..he was trying to fix mine

yummy cinnamon rolls!

I had cinnamon rolls in the fridge, so the next morning we got up and had them with some cocoa.  Zak had the day off on Wednesday, so we took them to the mall and the bagel shop.  Then we just relaxed and watched some t.v., and had lasagna for dinner.  Delaney and I made the pies for Thanksgiving: pumpkin & lemon meringue.  We also introduced the game Guillotine to Delaney and started our tournament.  We had helped Chad & Bryan move into their new place on Tuesday, so Chad came over after work on Wednesday to pick up Hampton.  It was so sad to say good-bye to him, after a month of him living with us!  But we will visit them often and get to play with our favorite pig.

We got up early on Thursday and drove a few hours to Moses Lake for Thanksgiving at Aunt Ronda's.  We arrived a few hours early so we could hang out and socialize with the family.  Kenny and I got our hands on a puzzle and, like the pros we are, finished it quickly.  Everyone was so impressed, haha.  We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner/lunch.  Everything was so tasty and it was nice to be able to spend some time with Zak's side of the family.  But we had to leave so Zak could get home and get to sleep for Black Friday. 

siblings

spouses

siblings, sigh

nicer one

family!

Black Friday was a decent one.  Zak was very tired after his shift ended at 1 (he got to work at 4 AM), but stayed away long enough to watch a movie and eat lunch with us.  While he napped, I got dinner prepped: teriyaki chicken with vegetable and shrimp tempura.  After dinner, we played some more Guillotine and watched some t.v.  Zak opened on Saturday, so once Kenny and Delaney were up and showered, we went to get him for lunch and walked around downtown.  There's not a whole lot to do in town, but we had a good time.  We took them to Winco and they were so excited about the bulk candy, so they got a fair amount of it for $3 apiece.  We had leftovers for dinner and played some more Guillotine.  Zak ended up winning the tournament, I came in second, with Delaney placing third and Kenny ended up in last place (a rarity in our family).

Delaney VERY excited about getting all of the leftover jello salad

Since they had to leave Sunday, we decided to treat them to the Old European breakfast house before they took off.  It was worth it and everything was delicious.  Kenny & Delaney both got the Scandinavian breakfast plate [German potato pancakes, buttermilk pancakes, Swedish strawberry cream pancakes, stuffed sausage & harvati Danish aebleskivers].  Zak got the goulash with potato pancakes (his favorite) and I had sausage eggs Benedict.  Everything was fantastic and we left very, very full.  Then it was time to say good-bye.  I sent them back to Rexburg each with a loaf of bread from our bread machine, some freezer jam, and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. 

scarily excited about breakfast

pleasantly excited

appropriately excited

It was so nice to have them around all week.  They are fun to have around and it's easy to cook for four.  Thanks for visiting, guys!