A Month of Changes

Playing games with Seth and Cassie

Jason with his Deacons

Happy Easter! It's hard to believe that it's already Easter, but I'm really grateful for the warm weather and the beautiful Spring flowers. This is my favorite time of the year and I love to walk around outside just to see the trees and flowers.

I am officially an Instructional Designer at Imagine Learning now. I really like it! I gave my two weeks notice to my previous job on Feb. 17. They didn't want me to go and counter-offered a better salary to try to keep me, but I knew Imagine Learning would be a better fit for me so the extra money wasn't very tempting. Unfortunately, since I decided to leave anyway, the management didn't give me the fondest of farewells...but, oh well. I have a lot of respect for many of the people that work there and wish them the best.

I took off March 5th and 6th before starting at Imagine Learning. It was nice to take a couple days off and relax. I spent a lot of time organizing and starting to pack since Jason and I decided to looked for apartments closer to my new job in Provo.

I really like my new job at Imagine Learning. They have made me feel welcome and are great and easy to work with. I already knew a couple people from from graduate program at BYU so I had instant friends. I enjoy the more relaxed atmosphere and a company that truly shows their appreciation to their employees. I've helped with lots of different things in my first month, but I haven't had a project that has truly been mine. Things are not quite as efficient as I'm used to and I keep asking "Why do we do it like that?" The company has grown large very quickly in the past 6 months so they are still working out the kinks in their processes. My managers think I  have good ideas, so hopefully some of them will start happening. Something that I've been working on most recently is writing new books for the literacy program. It's kind of fun and tricky to write texts appropriate for kindergarten and first grade with a limited vocabulary so that it's readable. I've already written several that have been approved and the artists are amazing and will make it look and feel like a published book, but unfortunately the Development Team is a year behind curriculum design so I probably won't see it in its finished form for many months.

During the first few weeks of March we spent a lot of time looking for apartments, especially Jason. We found one we liked in a great location and moved to Orem the 31st of March. We really enjoyed our apartment in Sandy and would have stayed longer but I really didn't want to commute every day. Even during the two weeks I had to commute, I averaged an hour and a half in the car a day. That's a lot of gasoline and a lot of time in the car. One day I got stuck right behind a semi-truck that rolled and blocked all the lanes. It took me 2 hours to get to work that day. We're grateful for the people in our ward and all their kindness to us.

We were very grateful to Stuart P. for his help as well as our home teacher Nate G. for lending us his truck, trailer, and strong muscles

We were also grateful for Jason's parents and my parents + Keith for their help moving

Enjoying a doughnut break after all their hard work loading boxes

We had plenty of help and even more offers to help us move on the 31st. We didn't want to take people away from conference so I took Friday off and packed all day so we would be ready early Saturday morning. We started loading in Sandy at 7:00am and finished unloading in Orem in less than 3 hours. We are still in the process of making our new apartment feel like home. We really like the fireplace, the dishwasher, and larger refrigerator, washer, and dryer. We made a big trip to IKEA yesterday and miraculously fit everything we bought in our little Hyundai Elantra. If anything would have been a couple inches longer or a couple inches thicker we would have been out of luck. I already put together the bathroom organizer yesterday and it's nice to have the extra storage in the bathroom.

The front of the house

Our basement apartment entrance

Our awesome moving helpers

Kitchen (minus the couch)

Living room (minus the couches and rug)

We attended our new ward for the first time today and the people were very welcoming and friendly. The best thing about living here is the location. I'm only 5 minutes from my work and we're close to the shopping center, BYU, and the freeway. As soon as Jason finishes his classes in Salt Lake next week he'll start taking classes at BYU and won't have to commute in the opposite direction.

Building the bathroom cabinet

Finished bathroom cabinet plus new washer and dryer