Tim and Carrie

Hi again, everyone!

Lately I have been updating this blog every other week. Honestly, life has been pretty mundane. Just work, eat, sleep, and drive!

Last Tuesday, November 3rd, I traveled up to Eau Claire for a workshop of our new phones for work. Most of the time was spent on the new Android phones. Shortly after the workshop, I contacted Carrie and told her that we would be getting the Motorola Droid for our phones. She was shocked, to say the least, as I have had a Blackberry for over 2 1/2 years. I was so impressed with the Droid phones that I was willing to give up my Blackberry to get one. You can do an online search for the phone to see the details of it, but suffice to say I was thoroughly impressed with it.

I ordered our Droids that Friday, as that was the day they came out. The phones came on Monday and we had them activated that evening. I was up until Midnight playing with mine, and Carrie was also up late, but did go to bed before I did. Having a new phone is a bit of an adjustment, I must say. Lots to learn!

I realize that talking about our new phones may be…um…well….not interesting to most, but since I am in the cell phone industry, it’s what I do!

Elizabeth and I after her band concert on November 6th.

Anyway, after the workshop, I was heading back to the store in Tomah when I got a call from my manager. He asked if I would be interested in transferring to a different role. I have been the assistant manager of the Tomah Verizon Wireless store since the middle of July. Tomah is a 50 minute drive to work every day each way. This new role would be what is called a “floating supervisor” position, where I would be based in Onalaska but could be assigned to any of our 4 stores on any particular day (Onalaska, Tomah, Eau Claire, or Chippewa Falls). It is still a management position, but I would be based in Onalaska instead of Tomah. My pay would be equivelent, but I wouldn’t have to travel each day. That appealed to Carrie and I, so I applied for the position, was interviewed by the district manager for it, and was selected for it. Today (November 15th) was my official start date in this new role, although I will be still working in Tomah for a while until they hire a replacement for me. Very exciting!

Today was the first Sunday for our new Worship Pastor, Ty Cooper. The service went very well and the rehearsal went very smoothly. I am very happy that Ty is now on board. I know that our church is very happy he is here, too!

Elizabeth the Drum Major!

Last Friday, November 6th, Carrie and I attended Elizabeth’s Fall Marching Band concert at Tomah HS. I made the comment to Carrie that it was the first time I had ever eaten popcorn at a band concert! The concert itself consisted of all of the marching band and pep band tunes that they had done so far this school year. Elizabeth got to direct the band as the Drum Major, and they had put together a “Drum Major” video that they showed at the beginning of the show that featured Elizabeth and the other Drum Major, Alex Sanjari. It was a very funny look at the contrasts between Alex and Elizabeth.

That’s about all for now. More next time!

~Tim

Hello everyone!

Wow! Where did October go? It just seems like last week that we were going to parades and starting to watch the trees turn their Fall colors, and here we are in November!

Joshua throwing a football

With the conversion at work from Alltel to Verizon, I have spent a LOT of time at work. One week, I logged 75 hours. Friday night the 16th, I began work at 7:00am and left work at 11:30PM. That was the day that the Alltel sign came down and the Verizon sign was put up at work. After closing that evening, we spent about 3.5 hours removing all of the Alltelproducts and placing all of the Verizon products out in the store. We had a crew from the Chicago area Verizon stores come and help us organize the store. These people have been helping us since. Each week we get a new set of Verizon people from the Chicago area come and replace the last set, so that we always have 3 “helpers” working with us in the store to train and coach us on every possible detail in running a Verizon store. We still have them at our store for a few more weeks, which is great, because we really need to help and the training. The billing conversion was completed on the 18th, and we have been working hard to learn everything we need to learn.

Hannah reading at the Miller Elementary Concert

Other than work, our other time is spent doing mostly mundane household things. There are a few highlights, though. Last Monday, October 26th (Elizabeth’s and Joshua’s birthdays, btw), we went to Hannah and Caleb’s fall elementary concert at Tomah HS. It was a very good concert. The kids sang all patriotic songs. Each class sang 2 songs at the concert, and Hannah got to read an introduction and help hand out flags to the Kindergarten and First Grade Classes.

Caleb sings at the Miller Elementary Concert

Wednesday after we got done with work, we picked up all 5 kids and went to Wisconsin Dells’ Wilderness Resort. We were able to rent a 3 bedroom villa for the night for the same price as the hotel rooms that they rent there. The Wilderness Resort has several indoor waterparks that we spent our time at on Thursday. We came back to Onalaska late Thursday night.

Friday we spent shopping with Elizabeth and Danielle to help them pick out new phones, then went back home and picked up Caleb and went grocery shopping while the other kids stayed at the house. Caleb was a big help at Festival and Sam’s Club, including sampling all of the food stands with us at Sam’s! We love appetizers!

Caleb and Hannah at the end of their Halloween trick-or-treating

Saturday I worked all day while the kids went to the mall with Carrie. Later, Hannah and Caleb went Trick-Or-Treating with Carrie for an hour while I was coming home from work. After supper, the 4 of us went out again for another hour. It was a bit windy, but we all had a good time. There was one house on 4th Avenue that really went “all out” with their Halloween decorating, including the owner of the house dressing up as some kind of monster and handing out candy while in his “haunted house” on his lawn.

Caleb throwing a football

Today was church, followed by lunch at a Chinese buffet. Then we came home and did a number of things. Carrie went out back with Caleb and threw a football around while Joshua and I played chess. Then Joshua and I went out back and played with the football with Caleb while Carrie watched. Caleb has quite a throwing arm! He throws some pretty awesome spirals!

At the end of this week we will be going to the Tomah HS Band fall concert. They hold an “end of the marching season” concert with all of their pep band and marching band songs. There are 2 concerts – one on Friday night and one on Saturday night. That should be alot of fun!

That’s all for this week. More next time.

~Tim