Job Hunting is Over!

Larry was offered 5 jobs! What a stud! We feel very blessed. He accepted an offer with Southwest Research Institute by mid October. He had spent most of the begining of October interviewing all over the United States. We talked about that it was a shame that we had not taken a vacation. We had the time off and with the lay-off package we even had the money, but we were too busy and responsible to go on one. Well as soon as we made our decision I started finalizing plans. We called family and friends that day and asked, "Hey, what are you doing this ______ (friday, Wednesday, etc... )" And, they were all gacious enough to open thier calenders and homes to us. It was a ton of fun! We started out on Friday, October 29th and drove about 9 hours to Charollette, N.C. Where we met up with our good Friends Brandon and Tiffany Larsen ang thier family at thier ward Trunk-or-treat. We pulled up just in time to trunk-or-treat :) but not in time to get out our camera :(. We stayed the night at the Larsens and left Saturday to drive accross Charrollette to meet up with Uncle Alan, Aunt Cindy and family. We had a great time hanging out with them all day and went to thier ward Trunk-or-treat that night. The kids had a blast and LOVED the fact that they got two Halloweens worth of candy! We stayed the night with Alan and Cindy. After catching the earliest sacrament meeting, we drove to Washington DC (a six our drive).

We LOVE Green Meadows Farms! If you haven't been, you need to. The place is crazy fun. We went around with a group of friends and visited all of the activities with our tour guide . Most of the activities are pens with farm animals inside. The guide gives the kids a few helpful hints and lets the kids go at 'em. The kids LOVE catching the chickens, ducks, and turkeys and don't even mind the occational bite. The pigs don't like to be picked up but will eat your shoelaces. The sheep and goats can be brushed or hugged and later fed. They also have a cow that everyone got to milk. Before Green Meadows, I had never milked a cow. The kids enjoyed the train ride and also got to ride a pony. My favorite is the cow and the chicks and ducklings. They are really adorable. They also have a Zorse (half zebra, half horse) a few llamas, a buffallo, and a water buffallo- but since you don't get to catch them, ride them, or milk them they are not as memorable. Obviously, Megan and Caden liked the guinea pigs. Lastly, since we went on October 18th, the kids got to pick out a pumpkin to take home.

Disney Campground

We tried to live it up while we knew our time in Florida was so short. At the begining of October we went camping with the Winters and Dokus at the Disney campground to celebrate Aubree's birthday. We went to the water parks first then set up camp. For dinner we tried out our new hobo sandwich makers. While the adults cooked the kids collected and sorted all they could find around the campspot. Then we enjoyed a short performance before watching a Disney movie under the stars. In the morning we checked out some of the other things available at the campgrounds. We had a great time.

Disney Waterparks

We got Disney Waterpark season passes in May but were able to use them lots in October without work in the way!

I needed to be at the bottom of the slide so I could catch Raelyn. Ella was so sweet and would carry Raelyn's tube as well as her own and help her at the top. What a sweet sister!

Lay-offs are Under rated!

Larry had several leads and although we were both working hard looking for a job we were able to squeeze in some fun. One day we had lunch on the peir and discovered that the catfish liked lunch meat. We came back the next day and caught several fish using lunch meat. It was more successfull than our more traditional bait. Each of the kids caught several and Larry even caught a stingray!

Jobless

Larry worked at the Kennedy Space Center for a company called United Space Alliance. He was hired as a design engineer for space shuttle support equipment, but for the last year or so most of his time was spent on designing modifications of the existing launch tower to accommodate the new space program, specifically the Aries 1X rocket. He designed the latch that kept the rocket in place until it was ready to launch. It then swung out of the way. On October 28, 2009 they had their first successful test launch. But, in the beginning of 2010 President Obama canceled the space program and is funding private companies to research and develop a new program. This meant Larry was eventually going to be laid off. He most likely could have kept his job until the last shuttle launched but to be proactive Larry started job searching in February. After much prayer we decided to take a volunteer lay-off and October 4th was his last day.

Raelyn

A friend recently gave us a dress her daughter out grew.  I thought it was so beautiful, I took some pictures of Raelyn in it.  Thanks Amy!