Job hunting

Bill is nearing the end of his PhD program and he's in the thick of dissertation writing, planning a class he's teaching next semester, and job hunting. It's all very exciting and stressful and exhilarating. He's in the process of finding places to reach out to and we've had some fun conversations of late about what and where those opportunities are.

Things such as this: the priority is to get a job. It would be nice to find something out west nearer to family. Second choice is in the United States. Third choice is getting a job. This is especially relevant to us because a significant chunk of his industry is outside of the U.S., so there's a very real possibility of international opportunities, if we choose to seek them out. The thought of moving abroad, albeit not high on our list just at the moment, is still adrenaline-inducing. It's something we very well may do later on.

Wind engineering firms seem to gravitate towards out of the way places. Fort Collins, CO. Burlington, VT. Ontario, Canada. Great Britain. Dubai. Australia. Germany. Not all of those are out of the way of course. People ask us where we want to end up. I'm at a bit of a loss to answer. It's like well, we've been in school for ten years. We have four kids. At this point the idea of a steady, well paid job is a much bigger goal than a specific place. We could enjoy lots of places.

We spend many an evening dreaming about what it would be like to live in one of these places. Most recently it was the Vermont option. Totally remote. It's on a beautiful lake. Very close to Canada. Closest temple is Montreal. Passports for everyone! Quite expensive coming from the South, but that goes for everywhere we move. Talk about a switch in climate, as we're still in the 80s here on Halloween. Back to real winter! Cross country skiing from our back door. Time to pull out all those bins of winter clothes and start supplementing for the two more kids we've had since using them regularly. And hello, everyone will want to come visit us. Think the movie White Christmas, lololol.

Fort Collins, CO. Close to family! Brand new temple in the city. IKEA an hour away versus three in the Vermont option. Because of course, proximity to IKEA is of utmost importance. Hint, not really, but fun to look at. Also expensive compared to where we live now. Again, not much of a factor. Big mountains. Snow. Lakes. Actually have some friends that live there already.

So definitely some fun evening, after the kids are in bed, sort of conversations and dreaming. You better believe we'll be pulling out the old decision analysis tools as Bill talks to folks and opportunities start to emerge. For now, lots of butterflies in my stomach, deep breaths as I contemplate the end of an era and beginning of post college life. I've been dreaming of that for years. Here's to this last push to the finish.

School Events

Kindergarten is fun. Spencer does all sorts of new things. We get to participate in tons of stuff and it's all new and shiny and maybe when it's the fourth time going through it I'll get bored, but for now, it's all fun. Yesterday was our first fall festival. I didn't really know what to expect, so I didn't pre-buy any tickets for anything. That turned out to be a good choice. We just bought a bunch of tickets and ended up sending the kids on repeat through the bouncy toys to get rid of them at the end.

There was an extra event that you paid for separately, bubbleball. Let me tell you, that $3 was worth every penny for five minutes of sheer joy on Spencer's part. I got a couple of videos and they're golden. It was a great afternoon.

Another milestone reached

Bill hit a major milestone this week in his research. He finished the data collection portion of his dissertation. With that done what he has left is to analyze and write the majority of his dissertation that he hasn't done yet. As anyone who has completed a PhD knows, or if you are close to someone that has completed a PhD, dates of graduation are exceptionally fuzzy and have no guarantee. He'll graduate when he finishes and defends his dissertation. But, that being said, the goal is to graduate in May and he's working very hard to make that a reality. He'll also start job hunting this week, looking for wind engineering jobs or possibly teaching positions. Exciting times around here. He's been in school continuously for nine years, so this is feeling really nice.

Family Pics

My friend took some family photos for us and she got some total winners. It's basically insanity trying to take pictures where all four kids look good, so I'll take it if at least one or two are smiling and I'll laugh all year when I see the kid with the crazy eyes in our family shots. :) The individual shots are pretty much my favorite. Here are a few.

What a day

This morning was pretty much a slam dunk for rough Monday starts to the week. I went running and the hills got to me and I had to walk at least half the run. My jogging stroller pulls to the right and is annoying to push, but mornings are my best time to run. So I'm in the market for something that works better and we'll see what comes of that. I want a BoB. Hopefully Craigslist will be my friend.

Halfway through my run I got a call for a meeting I was supposed to be calling in for, but I thought it was tomorrow, so I'd left to go running. I told them I'd call back in 20 minutes. Well, the course I was running goes across a levy by the lake, which is gated on both ends. I have to take the kids out of the stroller and fold it up to get through the gate. At the first gate I unknowingly dropped my phone out, probably when I folded the stroller up. I didn't notice for a hundred yards or so when I tried to get it to make that call. I went back to search and didn't have any luck, despite knowing the phone had to be right there.

I headed over to Bill's work to borrow his phone, which didn't have the number I needed, or I thought it didn't, so I had to call my mom, then make the call, 20 minutes late. In the process of all the juggling Bill was in the van watching the kids and I walked out the door of the lab without his keys. Yep! Locked out! The look of panic on Bill's face said it all. Thankfully, not a minute later a guy drove up who has a key. Huge blessing there because nobody else is in Bill's lab and it's a few miles from main campus. That was one less delay for the day.

He headed back to help me find my phone and I took his phone to call it. I walked the stretch it would be in and still didn't find it. I only found it after calling it and following the sound. Someone had wedged it in the gate. Unfortunately, they or maybe me stepped on it before that happened and the bottom corner of the screen is shattered, with cracks spread across the whole phone. It's new as of July. Total bummer. I ordered a screen protector from Amazon and shelled out to have it come tomorrow. I'll put the cover on so it can't break anymore and hope that there's a good deal on Black Friday next month and I can limp to then with the broken screen.

In better news, nothing else went wrong today. Ha! Here's to a better tomorrow.