January 10, 2008

Snowing, Sledding and Silliness

It's always a challenge to really pull of a family activity when there are 4 couples to coordinate and 8 kids to juggle. Somehow, we actually pulled off a very fun sledding activity the weekend before the Andrus' moved to Malibu. The snow had been piling up and the roads where scary, but the sledding hill was ideal.

Tom did a few face-plants, Grandpa Lou's hair was matted down with snow, Ivy and Harrison ate more than their weight in snow, and Mac went off a jump over and over and over again.

It really is a lot of fun when we get the whole family together and do something outside. Everyone seems to be in really good moods and the games are always filled with giggles and big grins.





January 9, 2008

Retirement, Dress-up and Wii

The morning Grandma retired, Jade asked if we could make her a sign that read, "Grandma, we're so glad you don't have to go to school anymore." So, that's exactly what we did. With a cute picture of Jade and Grandma visiting an apple orchard.

For Grandma's retirement party, the girls played dress up. They actually played dress up every single time they were together. It is great that the big girls would include Ivy.

Grandma retired after 23 years of working. I'm so happy that she is finally a "stay at home mom" again. She never felt like she was a working mom, even after 23 years.

My mom is an absolutely amazing woman. I think about how she was as a mother to young kids and then as a mother of teenagers. She was always so patient and always took the time with us that we needed to accomplish everything that we set out to do. I trully credit her with who I am today. I love her and am so grateful for her example. Posted by Picasa

Two Flower Girls

On May 5th 2001 Cass and Dan's sweet girls, Sunshine and Fiona, wore these dresses at our wedding. Can you believe they fit both of my girls at the same time! Guess we don't need to worry about Easter dresses. I've to added a picture of our flower girls to this entry to see just how precious all 5 are.

January 8, 2008

Ivy's 2

Funny little Ivy had a wonderful birthday party, despite being in the middle of an episode. She really enjoyed having the day(s) be all about her.
We had planned on having the Andrus side of the family over on Saturday night, with Melissa and Kim. Unfortunately, after a very difficult fever filled night, we were going to cancel. But, with the calender being so packed, at the last minute we decided to still have it. By going back and forth, we lost Melissa, but everyone else was able to make it. (The Sanford's joined us on Sunday for our annual fried oyster party).

Ivy got many fun presents that were mostly based on her love of playing make believe.











She had two candles to blow out, but it was a good thing that her sister was there to help.

To top off her birthday filled with toys to build her imagination, We, together with both sets of grandparents, gave her a very cute kitchen. She seriously plays with it almost all day every day. We're going to have to get her plastic pots and pans just to quiet the noise a bit.
Ivy is very tall and average weight for her age. We are so blessed to have her in our family.Posted by Picasa

January 1, 2008

What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger...

Work has been absolutely horrific lately. It is the end of the year and we've had over 1.5 million dollars scheduled to come in this last week. The last 820k I've been working on all night. Its 1AM here, and the people I'm working with have been in Raleigh, Mexico City, Baca Raton, Brazil and Shenzen China. It's amazing to see a company rally together to get an order through the system when it means 4 million in Lenovo revenue. This order has been an absolute roller coaster for the past week and a half. We have the order, we don't have the order, the reseller has credit issues, the customer hasn't signed the contract etc etc. So finally today, everyone settled on how to process the order. Unbelievably the Director at Ingram neglected to tell his procurement director to process the order and then he went somewhere in a very dark deep hole without cell phone access. If this one order didn't put LANDesk North America over their number, I wouldn't feel such pressure. As it does- man what a migraine! So now we wait until tomorrow to process or not process. I'm so exhausted! But then, just as I'm getting ready to go to bed, I realize the last EMEA order is missing 2 part numbers. Guess I'm not going to sleep yet.

At least the hours of waiting for this evening to evolve, we visited with Mom and Dad and played Rockband. I was very pleased with myself on guitar and think maybe I should start taking guitar lessons. Okay- not because of Rockband, but because I remember hanging with guys and having them teach me songs. I always really enjoyed it- and gosh, I suck at the piano and had some talent at the cell0. Only I thought it was too boring to keep it up.

Well, back to emails and IMs to track down the EMEA order and a con call tomorrow morning to finalize the Mexico details. Goodness Gracious what I tiring job I have. Jade told me tonight that she missed me tonight- even though I was right there with her. I think new years resolutions won't be hard to make this year- I'll just have to keep them.