Babies First Concert

On Wednesday Josh and I had free tickets from my work for the Carrie Underwood concert at Save Mart Center. The concert was great and our seats were even better ~ third row from the stage. We were so close that i got some great pictures, including a pcture of my baby bump at her first concert. I think she'll be a fan!

My First Week & First Holiday

Well, I've successfully finished my first week with the Fresno County Sheriff. It was an exciting week of orientation and getting familiar with my workarea. I spent 2 1/2 great days in orientation with Fresno County. It included topics of insurance, retirement, customer service, how not to harass, how to leave my domestic violence at home and my favorite topic - defensive driving. Needless to say, I wish there wasn't a need to go over all of this stuff with new employees, but I understand why they have to cover it.

From what I understand I'll be doing a bunch of work with databases and crystal reports. I'll also be working on Laserfiche, the system that I used to be a vendor for (and my favorite EDMS). For now, I'm not sure what else I'll be doing but I'm sure I'll know more in the coming weeks.

The people I've met so far seem to be very cool and hopefully will be good to work with. I'm looking forward to getting to know them as I get to work with them on projects and learn about their systems. Once they finish with their major project on Tuesday I should be able to work with them more and get a better feel for what I'll be doing in the future.

So the best thing about working for Fresno County, holidays. Tomorrow will be my first official paid holiday with Fresno County. It's one of 11 that I'll get to enjoy throughout each year. I'm totally looking forward to it and will spend my time working around the house.

Until next time . . .


Josh

The Day Has Finally Come!!

Well, for those who don't know already, I have made the decision to leave my employer of 7+ years (Appleby & Company) to go to work for the Fresno County Sheriff. As of 4:15pm today, I am unemployed (only for 2 days). I start work for the Fresno County Sheriff on Monday, May 19th.

From what I understand I will be more utilized as a programmer instead of support/programming/management/catch-all. I will be the programmer that is brought in to work on various projects on any given day. I'll be working on one project one day and possibly a different project the next day. It is going to be challenging as I learn and expand my skills farther beyond what I have learned at Appleby. I'm looking forward to it.

It was a difficult decision but in the light of the changes our family is going through this year as we prepare to welcome the "bump" into our family. There were multiple reasons why I was looking for a change. The most important on being the benefits package that the county offers. Through the county we will be able to get one of the best health care packages and retirement packages that can be found in our area. Also, working for the Sheriff there is no anticipated shortage of work anytime soon. I am highly looking forward to not being involved in the sales side of projects and am looking forward to enjoying being a customer. It will definitely be a change of pace for me. Oh, and a raise is always accepted since it will possibly allow Steph to stay home with the "bump" when she arrives.

I want to menion that without my time at Appleby & Company I would not be where I am today. Thank you to Steve, Nadine and the others for how they've helped me grow throughout the years. They have taught me many lessons on how to work with others, handle projects and work in stressfull situations that need to be resolved tactfully. I am thankful that they were able to bring me in many years ago and get me started on my path to programming and network administration. I hope that those left to fill my shoes (all 4 of them) will be eager to learn and take what I've helped the company work towards and keep it going for many years with a great reputation for customer service. I will still be working on various projects for Appleby as a contract programmer but that will be on a limited basis to finish up existing projects and help out as needed.

Since I have the next 2 days off I will be spending my time working around the house to get projects either finished, started or both. I am also planning on spending plenty of time relaxing before I get to start my new job on Monday. I think there may be some Mario Kart Wii in my near future!

Anyways, I'll post back when I have more info about the new job and how it is going.

Josh

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah . . . We know it's been a while!

Ok. So, we know that it has been a while since we've posted anything to our blog. And, since we know that ssooooo many people are constantly trying to find out about us ;-), we decided we'd post again. We're working on getting into the habit for those that we don't talk to as often.

We just got back on Sunday from a vacation that lasted from April 30th to May 11th. It included a red-eye flight to Boston, MA, followed by an Amtrak to NYC, then Amtrak to Washington DC and finally a late flight back to Oakland, CA. We'll be posting more about this soon with pictures and all.

On the "bump" front, Abigail has been quite active lately (from what I understand) and she has been working on her dance moves. Just recently she started using her upper and lower limbs at the same time. She's been moving around and having fun seeing the sights with us. We'll have more "bump" pictures coming soon.

Just a quick update since I wanted to get it out there. We're working on consolidating all of our pictures from our trip (about 2,000 of them) to get the best and then post them.


Josh

We're Having A. . . . . . .GIRL!!!!!!!!

So we finally had our first ultra-sound today and were able to find out that the little bun in the oven is a GIRL!!!! Her name will be Abigail Lauren and is due to arrive early September. We are very excited to now refer to the baby by a name verses "it" or "he or she". We were able to count ten fingers, see the eyes, nose, mouth, chin, 4 parts of the heart, kidneys, bladder and legs.

Here a two pictures we were able to take home:

The first is a profile view, which is the same position she stayed in during the whole ultra-sound. But it is a good view of the head, spine, butt and legs. The second is our little girl "mooning" us and apparently the 3 dots are the girly parts.

David and Denise's Wedding March 15, 2008

The BIG day finally came and David and Denise said "I Do". The weather was hit and miss the rain was possibly going to come but it only sprinkled a little. But it was very windy, one center piece blew over and broke and i think the bride and groom almost flew away. Other than the iffy weather the day was beautiful and so was Denise. The color inspiration was from peacock feathers and as you can see from the pictures the theme is found throughout the whole wedding.

Here are a few pictures of the day.

Rehearsal

I added effects to a few pictures, I think this one of Denise is beautiful!

Yummy cake

The "big dipper"

Two Pregnant Ladies

David was a little eager to get to the honeymoon

Our first Blog

Because everyone else I know has a blog i figured its about time i jump off the bridge. i have no idea what will be on this blog but as time goes on i come up with stuff to post. in the mean time here is a picture of josh and i.