Harder/Work Update

Juan has been hard at work for 2 weeks now! He is loving it! He calls me during his breaks and tells me whats going on for day and how busy he is! Well it is a $6 billion project so he has lots to do! He seems like the days aren't long enough to get done what he needs. Today he text me and said he was eating beef brisket, baked beans, pulled beef sandwiches and this was brought in for the engineers in his trailer! Then he said they were having a raffle but didn't know why! It's such an exciting company to work for and I'm so excited for him! His dream was to work doing big commercial construction and now his dream has come true! I kept telling him to not give up on what he wants to do. If he wants something so bad he will get it! And here we are! What a great example to our kids and family! We love him so much and proud of his hard work! What a great job to put on a resume and get such good experience!

Noble Park

On the way to Damons school one day I saw this forest, well where isn't it a forest here, but anyways, it's a park called Noble Park and it has some fun walking trails and is quiet, lots and lots of green trees, grass, and just a foresty feel right in the middle of town! We tooke Keenans bike and he had stashed away Juans belt in the compartment in the back, but it worked great because there were lots of hills and so we hooked it up and pulled him. Funny thing, as we were getting out and ready, Juan and Vicky pull up and said they saw the van so they came and walked with us too! It was a nice little walk and pretty and it's nice because it's only about 2 miles from our place!

Our little family! A little crazy yes! Not sure what Keenan was doing but he's been wearing his ninja turtle costume around and Damon can't get enough of the trees!

National Microcephaly Day

First day of Kindergarten

Damon was able to actually start Kindergarten here in this school district! So excited for him and this new thing for him. Although its not really different from going to preschool but its still exciting! This is a new school within the last couple years I presume and it has a great setup for kids with disabilites classrooms! Not just 1 but two! I'm really excited for him to go to this school because there are lots of teachers for the kids and the main teacher is young and enthusiastic! We met with a team of teachers yesterday to talk about his IEP (Individualzied Education Plan) and to get to know them a little and to talk about Damon. You could tell that he was excited about going to school again! Now if we can get him on some sort of good sleeping schedule then things will be great! The picture of the trees are what we drive through to take him to school. His school is nestled in a residential area but also a private area. It's in a new community and so it's a lot nicer school But I think its so fun where the trees are over the roadway. You can't see it but the leaves were falling and there are leaves all over the lawns! Just a cute place to live!

Big Changes!

Big things changed around here! Juan got his first "REAL" job since graduating from college. He's now a part of a big company called Harder Mechanical Contractors. The corporate office is located in Downtown Portland Oregon and are working on a massive project building an Intel in Hillsboro Oregon!

Here's the rundown as what our last five months have looked like. Juan started working as another inter with Columbia Industries at CH2MHill in Richland and was there for the last 5 months. He went back with that position as a construction engineer intern again because there was no work for him that he could find to get hired. Months go by of applying job after job all over the US and nothing. It would seem like we would get some kind of lead and get excited hoping that this could be it, but then would not hear anything. After application after application to Bechtel in Richland, and nothing, (that place is pretty much pointless to try and get in if you don't know someone or have not done an intern with them) as it is the same thing with any hanford job. Juan did not want to be out in the hanford area forever because you get lost in the people out there and really is no way to work yourself up, plus you just get lazy out there and they are too laxed on everything! Three of the guys he worked with in his office all got their notices to get laid off and they all seemed to find something in the area. But still nothing was coming for Juan. It was hard to see him become down on himself and depressed thinking, well what am I doing that's not getting me a job, or how come I went to school and nothing is happening. I always knew that our "happy time" would come sometime and then we would look back and think oh that wasn't too bad. I tried to be optimistic for both of us but man was it hard! We both always felt like we wouldn't stay around for long but didn't know what that meant. When one of the guys he worked with got a phone call from a guy from Harder about wanting to give him a job, but he had already gotten a job offer elsewhere he mentioned that he knew someone that was interested. Juan called the guy, Jerry, about a week later, talked to him on his way home from worked, submitted his resume and letter of recommendation that night, received an email back the next day wanting to set up an interview for that Saturday morning. So this was Wednesday morning. We left Friday afternoon and drove to his cousins house in Hillsboro. Talk about an emotional weekend! The hype of a job interview, could this be it, what if they don't like me, but we both felt so good about it and this is what's going to happen, but there is always the unknown. He had his interview on Saturday that lasted over an hour and by that afternoon, an offer letter was waiting for him in his inbox. When Juan was explaining to us everything that was said during the interview they pretty much had told him he got the job but had "others" to interview. He came out so confident out of that interview and I was so proud of him! It was a great turnaround to see him that way then I had been seeing him. When he got that offer letter and got the offer he asked for, he was incredibly excited! So then it was off to the next big thing of trying to find a place to live! And to move the next weekend because he started on the 19th, 10 days after his interview. How is it that his internship ended on Thursday and he had another job lined up for the following Monday? I have realized through this whole thing, that it's not what you want, or what you plan, that when you put everything in the Lords hands you will be taken care of. I found that out about the job, finding a place, and now were putting it in his hands, to take care of Damon here. There are so many more opportunities for better DRs then anything in Tri-Cities. I am very excited about that part! So here is to new beginnings and new experiences!

Niko's Blessing

Niko was blessed on September 4, 2011 and it was such a great blessing that Juan gave him! We had some close family there and some friends participate in it. He's such a blessing in our lives and cannot get enough of him. I feel like he's growing up too much. Yet I'm so excited for the fun stages that lay ahead of us but at the same time I want him to stay tiny forever! He's such a little man and a major mammas boy! We love him!