Goins on an comins too

We had another exciting week or two that left us with cool experience facial lines, bruised backbones, and scratching our heads in wonder at why impatitience drives us to do things that would be much easier if we'd taken the time to explore more options for accomplishing our mission.
A primary example is our newest piano. Vic's friend Sherry gave her a new (ok, somewhat older) upright piano (which weighs at least a ton, maybe two). All we had to do is pick it up at a house in the country, just a few miles from our house, bring it home and pop it right into our living room. As usual, since I don't have any friends of my own, I begged Donald for help (actually, you don't have to beg, he's a pretty laid back guy....now he's a laid OUT guy moving yet another piano). Still, Donald, David, and Jed all volunteered to help me move the cumbersome cat crib from one locale to another. We arrived, reviewed plans for how to best remove the item from the house (without looking like piano burgulars), and set into motion. Only then did we attempt to heave this honky tonking hulk. Then, we attempted again. With maximum physical effort and maximum resistance of natural forces (gravity), we used previously unused muscles, two piano mover dollys, and finally accomplished our task. If we had taken more time to make up our mind on how to proceed, we could have simply followed the new administration's policy and gone with energy conservation....I know, this is a terrible thing for me to say....but in this case, energy conservation makes much more sense than any thing Al Gore or Barak Obama have said. We should have simply conserved our energy and opted out of the piano.

Time to post something

As you can see from the title not much happening in the Cox household thought we'd better post something since it has been awhile. We haven't taken Jen up on her "one word" challenge, not sure why guess I can't come up with just ONE . I am now part of the Primary Pres, being second counselor to Sister Dorsett and Sister Tucker (aunt susie) I used to wonder why I had never been called to Primary but now having been in there going on 2 yrs .... I enjoy it don't get me wrong but sometimes I feel so inadequate, I am not sure why they are kids for goodness sakes. I suppose it is like this in all callings at times we don't feel like we measure up. I certainly am learning alot though, not that I haven't in all the other callings I have had but with this one I have to be on my toes, it's not easy getting corrected by a 4 year old :) which by the way happened today..thanks Kalan. No really I am loving the calling and dearly love working with all our leadership and teachers, they are great and I am thankful each and every young child or youth in our primary. I think I have turned this post into a Fast and Testimony meeting--sorry.
Lets see what else is happening in Brookfield, Rich has been putting around in his shop, I haven't dared venture out there in awhile , it scares me when I think he might be turning on power tools and such but I am learning to let him go and do and learn, that is not one of his strong suites and I tease him about it but he knows it is done in love. I shall stop rambling now the kids should be down for a visit soon. I need to go secure the rest of the house from Sam.

Christmas at the Compound

We had a very nice Christmas with the Seaman,Cattel,Sauls, clan this year, as usual. We are thankful to be part of a large loving family. We did miss a few this year and that is sad but everyone was there in heart. Poor Rich, he still isn't used to all the "noise" that the family produces, don't get me wrong he dearly loves everyone but I can look at him and know when it is time to take him home and give his ears a rest. I guess it is a good thing we met and married later in life, he might not have survived small children or even teens in the house 24/7 , I remember once Helen and Sarah were at my house and I made a comment that my ears hurt from all the "chatter" they promptly told me thats what girls do. Anyway I digress. Back to Christmas, we listened to g-daddy read the Christmas story and ate like there was never going to be anymore food ever and opened presents. Of course there is one we won't get until July which I just found out about that night... no ones fault but my own , it seems I am not quick when it comes to subtle hints, I can hardly wait to see what this one comes out looking like, how much cuter can a child get than the ones we already have ? Enjoy a few photo's

Troop Recall?

Makes me just a little bit nervous, but Eric, who was just hired last week to do my old job in personnel was recalled to active duty effective 4 Jan 09. He got to work 2 weeks. He is a retiree with 22 years of active duty and has been retired for 9 years. This just doesn't make any sense. That's 31 years including retired reserve service. I did 20 years and have been retired for 13....wonder if Donald and I are on their radar too?
By the way...he's not going to the middle east. They are sending him to Ft. Sill, OK to work in Military Personnel. THAT is even crazier!

Nathan-sitting and other eventful issues

Well, one thing is for sure...Nathan-sitting has it's own brand of excitement. While Helen and Vic were at church last night, Nathan and I spent some quality time together....In the ditch in front of our house!

After our dinner of chili-dogs, he begged to go see the Christmas lights next door and I'm just not able to say no too often....YET. I did make him take one more bite of his dinner before we headed out the door and into the ditch..

Honestly, I know better, but he loves to sit on my lap as we go through the Christmas lights, so I figured it wouldn't be a problem as it's only another couple hundred yards with him sitting there. He sat on my knee as we began backing the truck. I was checking to make sure there was no traffic when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed him toying with the mirror (among with other knobs and buttons) and glanced to see what he was doing....without stopping! It was a very slow decent into a very slick ditch. After finally giving up and calling AAA, we waited on "Mater," talked about the stars, and had half a dozen offers to help pull it out (I'd already called for "Mater and didn't want unnecessary vehicle damage). When I got into the truck this morning, my mirror was upside down and, the fan was blowing on high with defroster set...not to mention right side is completely covered in mud.

One other thing of note, I got a notice at work that a new intern position is coming up soon (the interviews are Jan 14). Requirements are firm ....30% disabled vet, BA, and at least 24 hours in Finance or Accounting. I'm really excited about it because they have a very small qualifying group and the starting pay grade is well above what I make now. After completeing the internship, the salary significantly increases. Oh...I forgot to mention, the position is in Contracting....which I've been trying to get into even before I started working on my degree. I've already informed my boss and though I really enjoy the position in personnel, she had to agree that this is a great opporunity and I shouldn't ignore it for the sake of job loyalty.

A hunting we will go

We went on our annual tree killing adventure today with Helen and the kids, hunting for the perfect tree. Helen found her's but alas I could not. You could either see thru them or they were some weird color, they actually looked like they spray painted some of them. Others were very pretty but the type of tree they were they don't hold the ornaments very well. We had a great time running after the kids . Papa, Nathan and even Sam were able to chop down and bring home the perfect tree for them . I found ours at a "lot", it is alot smaller than we have ever had, not quite a "charlie brown" tree but maybe this year the cats will stay out of it. In case anyone is wondering Sam's shirt say's "who needs Santa when you have grandparents" hmmm wonder where that came from ?

Who does this look like

Nathan loves getting my glasses and putting them on, this one cracks me up. Who do ya'll think he looks like in this photo ?