So much Newness!

Aargh! So long!

Yeah, it's been over 2 months since I last added to this thing. I was reprimanded by a dear friend the other day so I'm back at it.

So much has happened that I'll just give it in a quick rundown:

1. I got the job I referred to in my last blog. I went to CA for nearly 3 weeks of training and am now settled in my home office and loving it. I will be doing my first school visit tomorrow and I'm way excited for that.

2. Speaking of home office. The office I'm speaking of is in our brand new house! We moved in about 2 weeks ago so we're still getting things organized but we are getting there. It's been really nice to be in our own place again. We got a really great deal and were able to finally replace our hand me down furniture for some new stuff. New couches, new kitchen table and chairs, and. . .if you really know me you'll understand why this next one is so awesome. . .a new surround sound system. lol. I'm such a geek! Oh well huh?

3. Lincoln is 11 months old now. Crazy to believe we almost have a one year old kid. That's weird. He has done a lot of changing since we moved from UT. He has two teeth on the bottom and right now is cutting 3 on the top at the same time. Yay for us! He's been a little buttface lately as a result. :) And I mean buttface in the most loving and fatherly way! His big accomplishment happened this past Friday when he walked out of my arms and took 5 steps before crashing to the carpet. But now he's getting around a lot easier. This development is both excting and suddenly troubling for us because we now need to put things up higher so he can't reach. The problem is that me and Monica aren't that tall so we can't reach stuff anymore either!

We're all doing well out here. Now that we have a house we can officially extend the offer to any of you who dares to venture down south to AZ to see us is wide open.

I'm adding a few pics below. Enjoy!

Looking up

Finally, some things are coming into place now. Monica got a job at the University of Phoenix and is starting tomorrow. She will be working in their Finance Department as a Financial Aid and Academic counselor. She's pretty excited about it. I have been interviewing with a company called Envictus for a position as a client trainer. I've had phone interviews with the hiring manager and the CEO of the company and they still want to talk to me so that's good. :) I will be having a final interview tomorrow with the lady who would be my boss. The company is based out of Virginia and California. My position would, however, be here in AZ. I would work out of my home (Nice!) and travel around to different high schools training guidance counselors and students on how to use a software program that assists them in making better college and career decisions. I'm really excited about it. Thanks to everyone for the prayers and fasting! Lincoln has made a lot of little discoveries this month. He's learned how to pull himself up, how to eat cheerios, even how to walk! Well, with help. We hold him up and balance him but he's got his legs doing what they are supposed to do. As soon as he has the balance thing down, we're going to have an instant marathon runner! As you can imagine, Monica's thrilled! Also, a couple of days ago, his first tooth burst through on the bottom. He's been teasing us for months now with teething symptoms but no teeth so it's nice to finally have proof that he's not going to be gumming food for the rest of his life. Yay! We had a huge rainstorm a couple days ago. It rained nonstop for 18 hours! It was crazy! There was water everywhere. All the dry washes were filled. We even saw some cars stuck in water. It was pretty crazy. We'll be back to 75 degree weather in the next few days. Anyhow, thanks again! Take a look at the Lincoln's Stunts video. We're so proud!

Still at it

The past month has felt like one really long, uneventful week. It's wierd how when you have nothing to do, hours, days, and even weeks just seem to melt together. The weekends even catch me by surprise now! Suddenly it's Friday and I think "woah! where did that come from?" Bottom line. . .we NEED jobs.

So, we busy ourselves with things like organizing the Bullen family pictures, documenting the swimming pool construction in the back yard, and giving Lincoln his first haircut. That happened yesterday. He didn't enjoy the scissors we started out with but he didn't complain too much with the electric clippers. He's got a nice buzz like his dad now. What a stud!

The weather here is great! We'll average mid 80s all week. I love it!

Anyhow, here are some pics.

Here we are

Well, we're here in Arizona. And not a moment too soon from what I hear. Snow in Utah, an inch on the benches. . .It was 86 degrees and sunny when I heard about the snow. Yep, here for good reason!

We went to church today and they split the ward. Now instead of 800 members in one ward, we'll have around 400. Church starts at 2pm. Yuck!

Tomorrow, the job search starts. I'm going to create a new blog to track my Job Search process so you'll have to take a look at that.

Life is good. Arizona is pretty good so far.

Last Night in Utah

Well, here it is. . .Our last night in Utah.

We spent the day packing, packing, and also packing. I'll be taking down the crib in a few moments.

Diana (Monica's mom) just left to AZ carrying some precious cargo for us. She's taking Lincoln down ahead of time to make it easier for us on the move. She left about 3 minutes ago and we already miss our little Linc. :( All that much more anxious to get out of here as fast as we can.

The annoying thing about moving is that until you actually have the truck and are loading stuff into it, it doesn't feel like you've made much progress. Seriously, we've spent the whole day boxing stuff up and now at 9:30pm it doesn't look like we did much. In fact, our apt looks uber freaking messier than it ever has been. Monica has had to keep herself calm by drinking Diet Coke with Lime all day. I know, for most people caffeine would only make it worse. Not Monica. It's a little creepy but it really do the trick.

So tomorrow will be the big day. The party starts with me going to pick up the truck at 8:30 and then it's non stop fun till we have it all done. Hey that rhymed. . . Then it's off to the land of perpetual sun and warmth. Good thing too. It was a whopping 30 some odd degrees this morning. I'm totally not ok with that kind of freakish cold weather. Yep, I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm a cold weather pansy. Give me hot or nothin!

Next post will be from AZ. And I'll probably be wearing swim trunks. . .or nothing at all.

Unemployed

So, Me and Monica are unemployed now. Our last day was on Friday. Now, it's down to crunch time so this will be a short post. Moving is fun. A tip to future movers as many of you will probably be. Don't get a bunch of randomly sized boxes to put stuff in when you move! I started early and got paper boxes. You know when you go to OfficeMax and they have the reams of paper in those boxes? perfect and sturdy boxes they are. Get a whole bunch of them and they will fit nicely into any moving truck. That gives you more room to work with.

Anyhow, so we are 2 days away from our big adventure move to Arizona. The next two days are filled with tons of work. . . funny that my post is called: Unemployed.

Next post will likely be in Arizona. Good thing. It's getting cold here in Utah! Hence why we are moving to AZ!

The first one. . .

So, we're about to embark on a new adventure as a little fam-damily so I thought, why not start out with a new blog site. I figure that eventually, I'll end up creating our own family website. That's when I become a rock star web designer. (I just have to take classes and buy a better computer and sell my left lung to science so I can buy some web designing software.) Or maybe I'll just buy a bunch of burritos instead. At any rate for now, I'm going to use this pre fabricated template that I think is the best of the 6 or 8 Blogger offers you.

We, Shawn, Monica, and Lincoln are about to uproot and move our happy little selves down to sunny, warm. . .er. . .hot. . .er. . .lava like land of Phoenix, Arizona, specifically Mesa, AZ. We'll be staying with Monica's parents down there until we find ourselves some jobs. We could be cooks in the local Chuck a Rama! Hopefully it won't come to that. Please don't let it come to that! Once we're all employed and stuff, we'll get our own diggs that y'all can come and hang out in when you decide to visit us in Arizona. . .in the winter. . .when you're freezing your butts off and we are enjoying shorts and t-shirt weather. Oh yeah!

So, this is the first of perhaps many blogs you'll enjoy from us. I hope to have some spinoffs, including some other web related projects I am in the works with. One of them I think all of you in Utah will rather enjoy. Stay tuned on that. . .

Anyhow, enjoy and stay in touch!

Shawn