We were "tagged"

It's been a couple weeks since I've updated this blog and today I noticed an email saying that I had been tagged by our good friend Betty Odom in Texas. Well, when I checked out her blog I realized that she had actually tagged April.. but since I do most of the blogging on this one, I'll follow through with it and then let her do it too.

Here are the rules:
1) Link the person who tagged you
2) Mention the rules on your blog
3) Tell six of your quirks
4) Tag six fellow bloggers
5) Leave a comment to let them know
Here is the link to Betty's blog:
http://bjodom.blogspot.com/

My Quirks:
1) I like being able to put my keys, wallet, etc someplace when I walk in the door. April likes to move them to a drawer or someplace out of sight.. then I can't find them when I need them. I usually pull them back out of the drawer or wherever April has put them and I put them back where I can see them and get them easily when I am ready to go out.. we drive each other crazy doing this!
2) I hate to shave but when I do I also do it the same way.. right sideburns and cheek first. then the right neck under my jaw. Then the left sideburn and cheek, then my chin and the neck below it. Then my upper lip and finally the left side of my neck. Then I go over it all again to be sure I didn't miss any little parts.
3) When I go to bed I start out by laying on my back with my head on my pillow, but before I can really drift off to sleep I turn and face the outside of the bed so I'm laying on my left shoulder. I stay that way for a few minutes and finally I turn onto my stomach and push the pillow up and rest my head on the mattress itself.. then I can sleep.

Okay that's 3 for me.. Since this is a joint blog I'll save the last 3 for April..

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How to survive a hurricane

Lots of stories are coming out about people who decided to ride out Hurricane Ike and survived. (I personally think the people on Boliva and Galvaston who didn't evacuate were idiots.. but that's my take on it). One story reported on Yahoo news tells about Michael Ray Kujawa who tried to evacuate with his pet lion. Yes an actual African Lion! They got stranded and headed into a church. You can read it and other survival stories here: SURVIVAL STORIES

It doesn't take a hurricane to create massive destructive powers on the high seas. Here's an exceptional photo display of SHIPS BATTLING HEAVY SEAS

This photo shows a condo in Galveston that Mel (the man who took us to Tennessee and Spain to do real estate auctions) Giller sold several years ago. This video shows the damage that Hurricane Ike did to the front side:





This video shows a lot of the rampage that Galveston took. Pay attention at time code 3:23 to see the back side of the Breakers Condo project :

Hurricane Ike

April and I have been watching the videos coming out of Southeast Texas and showing the destruction from Hurricane Ike. If you haven't seen it up close check out some of these from the weather channel:

Ikes waves over road

Raw footage of destruction in Galveston

Windows blown out

Our prayers are with our dear friends in the Beaumont Stake, especially our friends and neighbors in the Woodville area. We know some of you evacuated to outlying areas and others stayed at home to ride out the storm. The reports we have heard make us feel blessed that we weren't there to experience this but we are saddened that we cannot be there to help and assist everyone with their after-storm needs.

April's mother was in the nursing home in Woodville and she reports they were without power for 2 days (until Monday afternoon). She didn't know if it was temporary or whether it would last. Meals for the residents were served cold with little variation from breakfast, lunch and supper during that time. She is fine however (other than being a little frazzled and nervous).

We pray for a speedy recovery from this devastation.

Here's some photos taken from the NY Times:

Be a Follower

I've added a "follower" gadgit to the sidebar of this blog. So far April is the only one to click on it as a avid follower of the blog and since she uses the same photo on her genealogy blog as I use on this one it's funny to have only that one pic there... so this is an open invitation to all my loyal family to click on the link there and add your name to the list. I will reciprocate on your blogs when you add that gadgit. Deal?

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's off to work we go!

I've been a little worried lately. Okay that's a lie. I've been a lot worried lately. Worried about our finances. Life was tough in Texas and the job in Spain was supposed to set us up financially for a good long time. When it fell through we had no home to return to and no income to sustain our "rich" lifestyle. One of the reasons we decided to return to Salt Lake was that we felt it would be easier to find good employment here than in Chester, TX (pop. 254-2).

One of the first things I did when we got into town last month was visit my old friends at eBay. I inquired about the possibility of getting back on and everyone was excited that I was returning. But the department I wanted to get into didn't have any openings. I needed to reapply and go through the hiring process as though it was my first time there. Luckily they had about 30 openings in another department and we starting the application process the very next day.

I went in and met with the recruiters and had a first interview. They called me back for a second interview the next day. Then they told me to just wait. I've been waiting for about 3 weeks but yesterday I finally got the phone call I was waiting for... a job offer!

I start on September 22nd. The job is a step down from where I was when I left 3 years ago but I know ALL of the managers and supervisors and have been told I can move up fast once I get in. I'm so ready to get back to work. Life on the farm was good but it never felt secure and we never had any health benefits, etc. We feel blessed to be "employed" again. Thanks for all your prayers - we know they made a difference.

Where do we go from here?

After returning from Spain, we spent 2 weeks with my brother Bob and his wife Jenny. During that time I had two interviews with eBay and we drove all over the place looking at apartments. We found several that would have fit our needs but there was one in particular that we liked especially well. We put in our application and surprizingly they accepted us!

So back to Texas we flew. We spent a week with our best friends Tim and Denese Durr in Woodville. We rented a couple big 26 foot moving vans, loaded up all of our belongings from our 2 storage units and drove the 1400 miles back to Salt Lake. Here's some of the highlights of the trip:


April in her truck out in front of the Durr's house. Getting ready to start the long journey back to Utah.

Me anxious to get the journey over with!

We spent way too much time AND money at gas stations along the way!

Along the open road in Kansas. Notice the orange cones keeping us in a single lane. We LOVE road construction. April did manage to take out one of the cones back in Oklahoma.

April took this picture of me driving through Denver! Can you believe she actually risked her life in heavy traffic just to have a cool pic of me on the blog? She's awesome!

Pictures of our visit to Spain

Since our return to Salt Lake about 2 weeks ago, many people have questioned whether April and I were ever actually in Spain. (J/K) To rectify this we are posting a few of the digital pics that we just got back from the developer! We'll add more pictures of our brief visit to Europe in a future post when I can find them on April's computer.

This is a view of the hotel pool taken from the balcony/patio of our room. Yes the room where we were confined for over a week!

Off in the distance, about 2 kilometers beyond the trees is a beach. But who needs a beach on the Meditteranean Sea when you have a lovely pool like this one?

Here is a photo of April standing on the little bridge at the pool in the early evening.

I tried to get her to pose here for me during the day in her swimming suit.. but she sternly refused!

Our room is the lower row of lights.. second light from the right.

This is a sculpture near the beach in the town of Cambrils. It was taken from a little restaurant across the street where we enjoyed a slice of Spainish pizza and a coke on our first afternoon in Spain.

April eating pizza. Mmmm yummy!

And in all fairness.. here's one of me eating some pizza.

Life Changes Fast

What a whirlwind this past two weeks has been!

As you can imagine, we've been feeling like we're been in a tornado and had our entire life swept up and displaced. To add to our woes of unexpectantly leaving Spain, we learned yesterday that our house in Texas was broken into. Someone ripped out all the light fixtures, and ceiling fans. And the dishwasher and oven/range were stolen. They also spread horse manure all over the front porch and kicked in a bay window in the dining room.

Even though we were all moved out and had no intention of returning to the house it is heartbreaking to us to hear this news. We feel violated and abused even though the house is no longer really ours.

Yet in spite of this we do have good news to report. I have already had two interviews with eBay and I hope to be given an offer of employment with them sometime in the next week. My former friends and associates there were very excited to learn that April and I were planning to stay in Salt Lake and I was looking to come back to eBay.

We have spent the past couple days looking for an apartment or home that will be big enough to hold all of our "stuff" and still be within our very limited budget. We looked at several apartment communities throughout the valley and finally chose one with spacious rooms in a quiet development. We explained our financial situation to them and asked them to consider us as tenants. They called today and said they would accept us. We rushed right over and gave them our deposit. The apartment won't be available for us to move in until August 28th but that will give us time to fly to Texas, rent a truck (or two), load our things and return to Salt Lake. I'm guessing that I won't be starting at eBay until September 1st so the timing will be perfect!

Our new home has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, a garage and patio and it has cathedral ceilings. Almost best of all is that it's a one level development with no one living above us or below us. I'll give you all more detail and post some pics as we move in!

Where's Jerry?

I know most of you are wondering if we dropped off the edge of the earth. In a way.. yes we did. Let me bring you up to date:

We arrived in Spain on a Tuesday and were told that we wouldn't need to go to the office until Thursday. Our assistant, Fedrico, drove us to our hotel in Cambrils and we checked in and unloaded our bags. Then he drove us down into the village and we walked around through the shoppes and restaurants. We had a pizza at a little place overlooking the beach. It was great!

Then it was back to the hotel and we managed to stay awake until around midnight. We wanted to get our bodies used to the time in Spain and avoid as much jet-lag as possible.

We slept until around 10 a.m. the next morning and Fedrico picked us up for a tour of the project we would be working on. We also spent some time discussing how to organize our offices and made lists of what equipment we would need.. how many desks, chairs, etc. and where everything should go. Then we went shopping for some things that we needed for ourselves. We had a late lunch at McDonalds, and went back to the hotel.

That evening, Mel and Robert had a meeting with the client to finalize some details of the project. On the following morning we got a call telling us that Mel and Mitchel (another associate on the team) would be meeting with us for lunch the next day. It was at lunch that Mel told us that the client was backing out of the contract to hold an auction. We were stunned. Mel told April and I that we should just wait it out for a couple days while everyone determined what we needed to do. The following day we learned that another meeting with the client was scheduled for the following Tuesday afternoon.

We tried to enjoy the weekend but because the project was cancelled we didn't have Fedrico at our disposal with his car. Our Hotel was about 2 kilometers from the beach and about 4 k from the village. It was a little too far for us to walk there and back so we stayed in our hotel room and watched Spainish TV and did sudoko puzzles. At some point during the weekend I went down to the pool and got a desent sunburn on my chest and one side of my legs. It's not difficult to burn in only a few minutes when your body hasn't seen sunlight for 20 years!

We eventually learned that the client did indeed want to cancel the project and the hotel informed us that he would not be paying for our stay there beyond the 31st. Robert put us up in a small apartment of his in the nearby town of Calafel and we spent two uncomfortable nights there. The only bright point was that we were now only a block from the beach.

I will interject here on the beaches.. they are some of the finest beaches in the world. The area is known as the Gold Coast because of the golden color to the sand. It really is gorgeous! However, one must be cautious. The Mediterranean is known for having nude beaches and family beaches. It's easy to avoid the nude beaches but the family beaches can be treacherous too.. as it's not uncommon to find topless sunbathers on the family beaches. We avoided this situation by visiting the beach in the early morning hours when they weren't crowded. We had the beach mostly to ourselves and with others who wanted to avoid the crowds.


On Saturday the 2nd we returned to the airport and boarded a plane back to the USA. We arrived in SLC late on Saturday evening. Bob picked us up and we are currently staying at his home. Sunday was spent getting through the jetlag ritual and today I started looking for work. We are at the moment homeless and unemployed.

Now you know where Jerry is!

That's our story and we're sticking to it!

Journey to Spain

We're sorry for the delay in posting.. and the lack of emails but we have only had very limited internet access since our arrival.

Well, here we are in Spain... finally. For months now we have been anticipating this move while multiple delays kept us at home in Texas. Our journey here was uneventful except for lengthy airport delays and an Atlantic hurricane.

We arrived at the SLC airport in plenty of time to check our bags and sit patiently waiting at the gate. The plane left on time and arrived a little early in Atlanta. But arriving early isn't always a good thing because our arrival gate was still occupied by a departing plane. So we sat on the runway waiting for it to taxi away. When it finally did we only had about 20 to 25 minutes before our flight to Barcelona was scheduled to leave.

Because our seats were near the rear of the plane we were amoung the last to leave. Our challenge was to hurry to the train get to the international gates as quickly as possible. As would be our luck our departing gate was the furthest one down the concourse. All the other passengers had boarded the plane by the time we arrived.. or at least we thought so.

After boarding, the plane waited at the gate for a few more stragglers to arrive from connecting flights. The pilot finally started to taxi out onto the runway. We didn't get far however before the captain stopped the plane and announced that we needed to return to the gate for maintainance to check out a leak that had been found on the plane. It turned out to be a leak in one of the restrooms and they could repair it quickly, however an additional problem was discovered in the operation of some passenger video monitors and that would make the delay longer.

Eventually the repairs were made and the captain again had us underway. By this time we were only an hour and a half behind schedule. As we taxied out we could see lightning in the night sky and a light rain was falling. The captain then announced that the winds had shifted and we would be departing from a different direction which required us to turn around and taxi to the other end of the airport. As we moved in that direction, an additional announcement come over the intercom informing us that the airport had stopped all flights from landing and departing. We would be sitting on the runway for awhile waiting for conditions to change.

Eventually we were informed that we had been cleared for takeoff and we were only fifth in line. We held our breath until we were in the air and on our way. In all our flight had been delayed for 3 hours and 20 minutes.

After the flight attentants had served dinner and cleared the resulting debris, April took a sleeping pill and drifted off to sleep. Uncompfortable as it was she did manage to sleep. I played games and watched movies on the video monitor, dozed a bit but never fell asleep. The flight was rough with a lot of turbulance due to a weakening Atlantic hurricane but we arrived safely.

In Barcelona, we gathered our bags and met up with our contacts here. By the end of the day we were in a hotel room in Cambrils, Spain; exhausted but excited for the adventures awaiting us here.

Many Hands Make Light Work

April and I were touched and filled with gratitude for the generous help extended to us today by our friends from church. They arrived this morning about 9 a.m. to help us move the big items from our home. Without their help I would have broken my back trying to move the washer, dryer, refrigerator, loveseat, and more. What would have taken me at least a full day of toil was accomplished in only an hour with the help of our ward family and the elders.

Tim even brought doughnuts! And Linda Odom baked a delicous cake. What more could we have hoped for?

We truly love our friends here and the thought of leaving this area tugs at our heart strings. We have so many good friends who have helped us to grow and heal. We will miss them all.

Here's a few pictures to remember the occasion.

The "boys" making a decision

Tim standing guard

Moving a heavy load

Jerry and Buck being busy

Scott and "the girls"

Alligators!

We've been living in Southeast Texas for two-and-one-half years now and had never seen an alligator. So tonight after a lovely dinner with Tim and Denese and the missionaries, Tim took us over to the campgrounds at Dam B to hunt alligators. We stopped at the boat ramp first but when no alligators were seen I began to suspect that Tim was again pulling our legs with one of his pranks. We drove on down into the campground and within sixty seconds we spotted our first 'gator!

We hung around for about 15 minutes and spotted two. If I'd known they were so easy to find I'd have spent time over at the campground long before now! It was a fun evening and just makes leaving Texas that much harder on us.

I started this post over at Tim and Denese's house.. We got home around 10:45 p.m. and spotted an armadillo waddling up the drive way. April tried to find the camera in her purse but by the time she snapped a photo the critter had snuck under the house. Such is life in Texas!