First 90 Days

I've completed my first 90 days and happy to report that I'm still loving my new job. I've had to adjust to the longer commute and early work schedule but other than that its so worth it.

We started Conner in soccer the first part of September. We thought this would be a good opportunity for him to work off some of his energy. We've stuck with it, however, it doesn't seem to be quite his thing yet. We really have to encourage him to get out there and play, mostly bride but hey what works, works. They have a full schedule of games that run until the end of October. I'm hoping next year he may have a bit more interest.

We all went to the State Fair the first Monday in October. We had our share of fried goods, road the ferris wheel and visited as many booths and exhibits as we could. This was the first year Conner really enjoyed attending.

More to come . . .

New Jobs

We started the summer off with a full schedule of things to do. It's amazing how much changes in just a short amount of time. Aaron had several teacher workshops and conferences to attend the first two weeks of summer, along with balancing the two graduate classes he enrolled for he stayed busy. During this time he learned that one of the Tech Ed teachers at Namaan Forest High School was leaving. He had talked about moving to the High School level in the past and when this opened up he threw his hat in as a candidate. In fact, on the day he announced he was interested the Tech Ed teachers were at a meeting together and the High School principal invited him for an interview that day. Dressed in his usual summer attire, shorts and a t-shirt he headed to the interview. Can you believe he actually interviewed at the High School like this? He must be pretty good because they rearranged some teachers at GISD and Aaron announced the following week that he would be teaching at the High School level. He will have four AutoCad classes and one Manufacturing class. His new shop is huge, in fact, I think our whole house would fit in there. He has his own personal parking spot in the back by the shop and can pull right up to the garage. Such a shop teacher!

I love the events and the volunteers I've worked with the last three years at CAC. Despite the best event committees, this past year has been extremely tumultuous and a true test of my character. A year ago, I started my job hunt in hopes of finding a little peace while advancing my career. This past year, I've had a boss who bullied and overworked me and showed zero appreciation. That particular boss was finally fired one week after the Gala. Huge relief! Since April, every person in the development department (5 of us total) resigned from their position. The mass exit was set into motion when the upper management dismissed, disregarded our complaints and refused to take action to remedy the problems. Two months ago, I received a call from United Way of Dallas, one phone interview, two in person interviews, one personality test, reference check and background check later I was finally offered the position as Events Marketing Director. On July 6th I formally accepted the offer and submitted my resignation from CAC. I am absolutely ecstatic about the new job. I get to work on some volunteer and award appreciation events while creating some new events to build awareness about United Way. The canvas is essentially blank. I'll be working in downtown Dallas near the West End/Dallas World Aquarium and will get to ride the train most days. For those who don't know, I'm not big on suburbia, so this is a nice balance for me.

We've spent the remainder of our summer working on repairing the exterior of the house and swimming at the water park. Conner is such a good swimmer. Everything clicked for him this year and one of his favorite things to do is pick the dive sticks up from the bottom of the pool. We are hoping to take a quick vacation one weekend this summer to Sea World. Other than that we are keeping it low key this summer.

Pictures to come soon!

Where has the time gone?

It has been a whirlwind month for all of us. Gala has finally, for the most part, come to an end, at least for 2010. We left for Austin on April 10th to meet my parents. Grandma and Papa graciously accepted our offer of babysitting Conner for TWO full weeks. He had a wonderful time camping in San Antonio, going to the zoo, a rodeo, the beach, the mall, a baseball game and lots of other wonderful activities. While Conner was having a fun vacation, Mom was working hard, really, really hard. On Monday the 11th I hit the floor running and didn't stop until Sunday afternoon on the 18th. I calculated that I worked a total of 100 hours the week leading up to Gala, who even knew that was possible! It was a very rough year logistically for a number of reasons but ultimately we reached our million dollar goal. Everyone had a wonderful time and the band was a huge hit. The weekend following Gala, Aaron and I took a mini vacation to Austin. We took in some of the night life and shopping during the day. Sunday we met my parents and Conner. I wondered if he might have forgotten us by then. I'm happy to report that he did not. Aaron and I were pretty tired of the hotel life two weekends in a row and were looking forward to a low key weekend around the house. We fell back into our routine pretty quickly. Conner was excited to get to school on Monday but Tuesday he cried and cried and wanted to go back to Grandma's. He tried very hard to convince me to drive to Grandma's (an 8 hour drive to Corpus I might add) on Tuesday while headed to daycare. This weekend we took Conner to his first movie, "How to Tame a Dragon" in 3D. He absolutely loved it. We also discovered from his trip to Corpus that he loves his popcorn. Grandma will be so proud that we indulged at 9:45 am Saturday in a large bag of it, with butter I might add. Conner made me a magnet at school for mothers day that is made from clothes pins, painted pink and has lots of glittery flowers and butterflies. It's my first official mothers day art project and I couldn't be more proud. Aaron did very well as well and purchased a basket of Scentsy products for me. My house smells awesome. This past week my supervisor, VP of Development, left to "pursue other career options". I've decided that after three years that I am going to throw my hat into the ring for the position. I'll keep you posted.

Conner's Trip to Corpus Christi and the Gala Ballroom.

H1N1 Welcome to the Boatwright Home

Aaron didn't feel good toward the end of last week but we both thought it was a cold. Saturday morning he worked at Saturday school and then came home around noon and crashed. He slept most of the day and later that evening woke up with a very high temperature. It was too late to make it to the doctor so he started a tylenol regiment to bring his temperature down. The doctor's office opened at 1 pm Sunday and Aaron headed there to get a diagnosis. The doctor sent him home with a diagnosis of H1N1 (SWINE FLU), a prescription of TamiFlu, and no work for 7 days. Luckily, Conner and I have both had our vaccines and have quarantined Aaron to the master bedroom. Hopefully everyone in the Boatwright home will make it through this week.

Conner and I visited my Aunt Glenda in Denton Saturday and helped her move some things in her garage. Her 20 year old washing machine is about to give out and she wanted to make sure there was room for a new one to be delivered. After moving some things around we had lunch at Cracker Barrel together and Conner and I headed back home.

Sunday, Conner and I did the grocery shopping, cleaned around the house, made dinner and made Aaron's birthday cake. I have a really crazy work week coming up and knew I better get this done early.

So Aaron - here's to your 40th birthday - H1N1 go away soon so we can have some fun this weekend!!!

Snow and Birthday

The last couple of weekends have been a whirl wind. Conner and I drove to Houston on February 12th. Conner was sick the Wednesday before our trip so Monica came to the house and stayed with him so Aaron and I could go to work. Since he was still running a fever Monica offered to take him home that night and keep him. On Thursday we planned to meet and pick up Conner. Little did we know the snow they had predicted in our area would be record totals. Conner stayed an extra night with Monica and Papa John until we could meet up. All schools and most businesses closed on Friday. Our area of town received around 6 inches of snow. We broke most of the records for snow totals. Monica bundled Conner up and let him run around in the snow before we met on Friday to head to Houston.

(Boatwright Backyard Friday Morning)

(Conner at Monica's and Papa John's House)

Conner and I had been looking forward to our trip to Houston to celebrate Emily's 1st Birthday. Friday night I became extremely ill, the culprit, food poisioning. I wasn't much fun after that. My best friend Erin ended up watching Conner and Emily on Saturday morning. The birthday party was at her parent's and I managed to get up and drive over and stay for about an hour. Emily's birthday theme was zebra print and hot pink. I must say, she had the best outfit ever for a little girl turning 1 - a hot pink tutu!! The rest of the weekend Erin, the kids and I stayed around her house. We went to the park for a little while on Sunday but other than that, I wasn't much fun.

Aaron attended a conference on the 19th in Kerrville. While he was out of town Conner and I caught up on playing Friday night. Saturday we ran some errands and Saturday night Aimee and Bruce watched Conner so I could go to the Anatole to check out an event. The Anatole is where the Gala is held and I'm always curious about what other organizations are doing. The Dallas Junior League had a "Rock of Time" theme and the theme for Gala this year is "Rock On". I met my friend Catherine, the catering manager, and took a quick tour of all the decor and met some of the vendors working the event. It was pretty spectacular and glad I checked it out. Conner and I headed home and watched Toy Story 2 that night. I've only seen parts but I believe Conner is on about his 100th viewing. It's all he'll watch now!!

With all that was going on it was nice to just be home this weekend and take it easy. Now that Gala is just 8 weeks away I'm spending some time at work on Saturday's. Every year I think I'll be so organized that I won't have to work so many hours around the event. We'll see!!

Computer Crash

This weekend our computer was unforunately hit by a virus. Aaron was able to get it back up and running but we lost everything saved on the computer. If any one reading this blog has pictures of Conner from the last year I would love to have them on a disc to replace the ones we lost.

Aaron and I had a three day weekend and went to a movie yesterday, Sherlock Holmes. We enjoyed it and give it a thumbs up.

Conner has officially been invited to his first birthday party. In fact, he had two invitations for this Saturday. We've decided to go to Blake's birthday party, Jodie's son, a friend of mine through work. We'll have to miss Howard's party at the bounce place. Howard is a friend of Conner's from day care.

In just a couple of weeks our little guy will be three and then it's off to Houston to celebrate Emily's first birthday (Erin's daughter).

Lots of birthday celebrations - make room for that cake!!!

Christmas and New Years

Conner enjoyed Christmas this year and really had a better idea about Santa. We introduced "Johnny" the elf this year as part of our Christmas traditions. His Granny B bought him the elf and helped pick out his name. For those of you unfamiliar with Elf on the Shelf, he watches Conner to see if he is naughty or nice and reports back to Santa every night and then finds a new place to sit in the house. He wasn't scared of Santa this year and at the Boatwright Christmas party had a chance to talk to him and tell him that he wanted a toy for christmas. Not very specific other than he wanted a toy.

Santa was very kind and brought him a new Bosch tool workshop and a tonka remote control car. Conner also collected several things from family which included about 50new hot wheels, Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs, cars from the Cars movie, a motorized motorcyle, a wood train, puzzles that make noise, books, christmas ornaments and some legos.

Thank you to everyone for making Conner's Christmas so fun. He has enjoyed playing with all the new things and he has especially enjoyed watching his movies.

We were lucky to have a white christmas this year. It snowed on Christmas Eve so on Christmas when we woke up we still had snow on the ground. Conner played in it a bit and now asks if it is going to snow. With all the cold weather we've had so far I'm sure he will get at least one more chance in the coming months.

2009 was a rough year for the Boatwright Family and we were glad to welcome 2010 and expect to have a much better year. We are looking forward to getting healthy and enjoying our family time together.