Happy Birthday Jenny

Happy Birthday little sis!

Congratulations. You are now 22! Have a cake...

greetings from palm springs

hi all,

this is our penultimate day in palm springs, or indio to be precise. There are definetly NO hurricanes here. It is currently about 98 F outside, which is about 34C. Thats in the shade, and out of the sun. In the sun its much hotter, and it only really gets down to about 70-75F at night. But, its not humid, just dry, because we are in the Mojave Desert.We have done quite a few things this week. We played golf twice, because we found a good deal which gave us a round of golf and a golf cart for $10 each. We thought about going a third time, but the sun is just too hot to be in, even though you aren't even walking around in it.
Its off-season here, as their main tourist season is in the winter, when its cold everywhere else. Here, it still gets up to 90 or so, so people come to play golf, eat steak instead of going somewhere where it is humid and there is a risk of hurricanes, ie Florida.
Anyway, we are heading back tomorrow morning, but we are going via Santa Barbara to drop shawn off at his house, and we will probably stay over night somewhere on the way back up, as it is a longer trip to go by the coast than it is to go by Interstate 5, which runs up from LA to Seattle, and is a long, straight, fast road.
Did steve and dad get back alright? Did they have a good time, and what does dad want for his birthday!!!!!!?????

Ok, hopefully will talk to you soon, not sure if we will be home in time on sunday to do that, and if not, will email or post here soon.

My job

So, i agreed terms on monday this week, and started working on tuesday. I was supposed to work this week in Monterey, before transferring to the Aptos office at the start of the week when we get back from Palm Springs.
So, fistly, i start work at 8am. And its an hour and a half away by car, so, i have to get up at 6 in order to be there in time. But its just for this week, so its not too bad. But im still tired. When i move to aptos, i can start at whatever time I want, and end whenever i want too, as long as i work my 40 hours or whatever. And aptos is a lot closer.
So, i arrived on tuesday morning, and the cad supervisor guy meets me and goes through a little bit of training, for like an hour and a half or two hours. Then i get thrown in at the deep end and help out on a project where they were short handed. But apart from that, not many people came near me. No-one really showed me where anything was or how to do anything. I just kind of had to figure it out by myself. So i don't think much of their orientation stuff.

Pretty much the rest of the week was like that. I'm not really sure why i was in Monterey for 4 days. Like, one day would have done, and then i had to go it by myself anyway. My supervisor, Ron, is in Aptos, and came to take me out to lunch on Thursday to get to know him a little better. I think i will enjoy working with him a little more than the other office, as he seems a little more hands on!

So, whats going on in all your lives, remember you can post on here too!! :P

New jobs, new car

We bought (actually ordered) a new car. Its a Honda Fit, which I think is called the Jazz in the UK. Here's the website so you can see what it's like. We got a white sport type one. Here's the link:
click here

It should be arriving to the showroom in about 3 weeks, at the end of the month.

I start my job tomorrow. I'm excited to start, I think I'll really enjoy it. Plus, I get off at 2pm every day apart from Friday's when I get off around 12:30. :) Yay! Andrew is still in talks with the company that offered him the job. Hopefully they'll come to an agreement tomorrow morning and he can start Tuesday. On Friday he got an email saying they had put his salary up, but had taken away his benefits, which isn't very helpful. I've also applied to work at Starbucks part time, just to get a few more hours and because its in Scotts Valley it means it should put us higher up on the housing list Andrew wrote about.

I think thats all for now. More updates to follow.

Brittany gets a job

Brittany got hired for a position working with pre-schoolers (age 4-5) with autism at a school in Santa Cruz. Woohoo!!
She had to do a Tuberculosis test and some fingerprints today, and once they get the results of that, or maybe before, she will start working with them.
Its not the best paid job in the world, but she thinks that she will really enjoy it, and that is more important than the money at the end of the day.

In other news, i got offered a job, however, the money wasn't right, so i told them to up the offer. I'm going to phone them tomorrow, friday, and find out if they have upped the offer, and then hopefully i will start either next week, or the week after we get back from palm springs.
I found out that i will be working for the first 3 days in Monterey (starting at 8am!!!) and then in Aptos. Monterey is about an hour and 15mins drive from here, Aptos is about 30 - 40mins.
Once we have a little money under our belts, we are going to start to look for a place to rent. We figured we would like to live ideally in Scotts Valley, cos it is only a 5 minute drive to Downtown Santa Cruz, but still pretty much in the country with the redwoods etc. And only 2 mins from Tim and Chesney, and 15 mins from Donni and Curt.

And because we will only be making around $55,000 a year or so (sounds like a lot though), we qualify for low income housing!! Its a system whereby the developer of a new housing development has to offer a certain percentage of the development at a lower rate of rent or for sale. It means you can live in a nicer house or apartment than your budget would normally afford. So we are trying to get registered for the scheme at the moment, and when we get sorted with jobs, will start to look seriously at houses.