July

I spend about 9-10+ hours a day at a computer now, so you'll understand why the blog has fallen by the way side. Once I'm done with work for the day, I'm ready to not touch a computer again til the next morning.
Still, lots of fun happening around here.

Camille is crawling! Well, scoot-armycrawling. She's definitely mobile.

Watch out world! She's also broken out her first tooth. She and Patches continue to be the best of friends (sometimes Patches babysits while I work):


I FINALLY met a real wild Texas Armadillo. I've looked in every bush we've driven past for the last 3.5 years, and finally found one! Actually, Kenny saw it while driving away from our development, he called me at home, and I ran down the street in my PJs with a camera and start looking through the bushes till I found her. Her name is Francine.



She was pretty fearless- I had to scare her off the very busy road. I got within a few feet of her and probably could have touched it her I wanted to. It made my week.

Kenny planned the best birthday surprise EVER! First, knowing I needed a new swimsuit and how hard it is for me to find one that fits, he ordered one for me a few weeks in advance- and it actually fit and I feel amazing in it! He had arranged for my wonderful brother Kevin and his wife Candace to watch the two kids so Kenny and I could go to Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Galveston for a whole day by ourselves.
It was the first time since Daniel was born that we have spent more than 4 hours with each other, kid-free. We had a BLAST! Great waterpark- the slides were not notable but that "lazy river" (which we actually called "the ambitious river") is a LOT of fun. We were worried about weather, and sure enough the whole drive down was an awful storm, but literally the moment we pulled into the parking lot, the rain stopped, and it ended up being sunny enough we got pretty burnt despite sunblocking every hour.
I don't have a picture from our day, sadly, so instead here's Camille in HER new swimsuit:


I think I've finally gotten proficient at cutting Daniel's hair. He still wiggles a lot so that's tough, plus he has crazy cowlicky hair, but I'm no longer ashamed of his home-done haircuts (And think of the money we'll save!):


Unfortunately, we've been passing around an awful cough. Camille sums it up pretty well here- goopy eyes, goopy nose, crusty face... all-around miserable:

Her little cries are hoarse and SO pathetic sounding now! She and I have been dealing with it for 3 weeks or so, Daniel caught it about a week ago, and Kenny finally succumbed today. No fun.

Lots of other pics up at our June and July albums.

The New Job

This is kind of old news, but for those who haven't heard, I got one of the jobs I had been shooting for- so much happiness here. I started full-time at a great consulting agency mid-June as an Implementation Consultant (the same work I did at Omniture before Daniel got too big, and what I've been doing as a contractor for the last 18 months or so.) And yes, this is the agency that has the #nerdshirtfriday competitions :).

I had been looking at 4 or 5 different positions but had pegged Keystone as a favorite early on. I've been watching them hire one industry leader after another since January and happen to have become friends with a lot of them over twitter. One thing I love about my industry is that it is FULL of smart people. This job will also provide the best income we've had yet in our marriage, so... woohoo!
I wrote a blog post- mostly geared at my non-analytics friends, actually- describing what my industry (Web Analytics/Tracking) is about and how it really benefits the average internet user. If you have a free minute I recommend giving it a read- especially since it touches on current legislation that will affect all of the internet.

Working from home with the whole family here has been great. Kenny no longer has to be out the door before 6 am- which has changed our family dynamic a lot. We wake up together, eat breakfast together, then I go to my home office (formerly known as "grandma's room") while Kenny watches the kids. We get to eat lunch together then by the time I'mn done with work at 5 or 6 we're all pretty eager to get out of the house. Kenny's been amazing about watching the kids, though I am a little gratified to see that even he needs a nap sometimes when the kids go down (or sometimes when they haven't ;)).

My first week of work was, well, exhausting. I went to meet a couple of my coworkers in Austin for a couple days (and enjoyed a baby-free night in a hotel), then on the 15th dove into the work from my home office. The first project was a lot to handle, but it was using Google Analytics, which I've been itching to get more experience with, so I'm happy. We've fallen into a good routine now and I'm feeling good about how everything fits together now. I'm working with some pretty big names and will take a day-trip to Florida next month to meet with some of them in person.

I still hope someday to get to be "just" a stay at home mommy, and we definitely hope someday Kenny will go back to teaching. But for the foreseeable future, we feel this is the best path for our family.

So, now that we have a bit of stability in our life, our plan is to save every extra penny possible and start preparing our house so we can move back to the Pacific Northwest. I don't expect the moving plans to start rolling until next spring, but it's nice to know we have a goal to work towards.