Happy New Year

My Happy New Year wish for you
Is for your best year yet,
A year where life is peaceful,
And what you want, you get.

A year in which you cherish
The past year’s memories,
And live your life each new day
Full of bright expectancies.

I wish for you a holiday
With happiness galore;
And when it’s done, I wish you
Happy New Year, and many more.

Merry Christmas to all

Just a quick note to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! This will be the first year that we won't be with Mom and Dad over the holiday - travel is just not working out this year, but we promise to take lots of pictures and video to share. We will be thinking of each of you - our family and friends during this special time.

So Long Kansas!

When I started this blog, the title "Where in Texas am I?" was just a little humorous poke at longing to be home in Texas. At the time I didn't expect it to happen so fast, but I have been offered a job transfer which I accepted, and we will be moving!

My current client contract will end in Q2 '09. We have unfortunately had to eliminate jobs as the work is going away/changing, and ultimately my job will also be eliminated. Back in August I started a project role in addition to my regular duties and have been working on the new UK and US contract for this client. It is substantially different in nature but has been great global experience for me as part of the implementation team.

Shortly before Thanksgiving I was offered the role that will manage the US team ongoing for the new contract, which will require relocating to The Woodlands, TX. Hmmm, long term employment in Texas (see previous post about snow) or no job in June and lingering cold (see previous post about the cold). Let me think about this....

Seriously, it was not a snap decision. Moving a family is not easy, and leaving family and friends is even harder. But we know that God has provided for us. He made it possible for Mike to quit police work, He made it possible for us to keep Holley in a Christian private school for the next year, and He is providing for us now. The chances of me finding work in my field near Wichita, or being able to find a position that would still be able to support our family without Mike going back to full time work are slim and none. We thank God for his generous heart!

The nice thing is that we can move in the spring, which gives us time to fix up the things on the house that need attention and be able to sell it at a better time, and hopefully in a better market. There will be more posts about this as we sort out all the changes in our lives. But for now, know that our friends will always be first in our hearts. Distance will not come between us.

Birthday happiness

We asked Holley what she wanted for her birthday and the only thing she would say is a party at Pump-it-up. What about at the Zoo? Nope. What about a bowling party? Nope. What about ... Nope. Just Pump-it-up. Oh, and a Nintendo DS.

So the DS is a Santa gift (shhh), and we went to Pump-it-up. If you haven't been, it has huge inflatable play equipment: a giant slide, a maze you can race through, bouncy rooms, in general a great way to tire out a bunch of kids and adults! They played for an hour, then we went to the party room where we served pizza and raw veggies, and of course the awesome birthday cookie!

Then the princess got to sit in the crown chair and open gifts while the "attendants" wrote names on the list for thank you notes, and handled the trash and sorting. Pretty cool overall.

She had 8 friends join and everyone really had fun. Here are some pics to share.

Is this work or play?

After 3-1/2 weeks of mentally exhausting work, the Resourcing transition leads and I got together for a "home" cooked Indian meal. The food was great and we got to spend some quality time out of the office.

Anna traveled from Krakow, Poland and spent 4 weeks (her first 4 weeks in her new job!) with me in TX. She deserves a medal!

Akanaksha and Megha came for the last 3 weeks from Noida, India. These girls can SHOP! It's a wonder they had room in their bags to take it all home. And they also make great cooks! They will be my contacts when I travel to Noida in January. Should be fun.

HO HO HOLY COW IT IS COLD!

After spending 3 of the last 4 weeks in Texas, what a joy (not) to come home to 40+ mph winds and 17 degree wind chills. To be fair though, it did snow on Dec. 3 most of the afternoon and into the evening. This is what it looked like.

The kicker, however, is that the next morning there was not a flake to be seen! NO scraping of windshields, NO mittens and boots slogging through mucky slush in the parking lot.

But I am very glad to be back home with my family. This is what they got to contend with while I was basking in relative "luxury". LOL. Blowing snow. YUCK!

Short Update

This is just a short post to say - Good Grief! Life is keeping us busy. About the time we decided to finish the basement and do some work around the house (winter is the best time to work inside since we can't be outside), I end up travelling. A month in Houston except for a quick hop home for Thanksgiving, and school plays, dance recitals, and a very important birthday coming up! Mike did manage to get the fireplace in the basement installed and operating, and will pick up the tile and wood this week to finish the front.

Holley wants to have her party at Pump-it-up so I need to get that booked soon. She will invite her kindergarten class (4) and 2 or 3 others. Grandma Judy is going to make a birthday cookie instead of a cake - one of the big ones that she can help decorate. How fun! 6 YEARS OLD. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN!! :)

I should be packing to leave again this evening. At least the weather in Houston is great. Upper 60s all week, no stupid wind. Promise to have pictures when I return.

I didn't forget, life happened.

The plan was to get some Halloween pictures up pretty quickly, then keep up with the posts as things happened. Well, I didn't have all the pictures, Kim had some so I waited, then spent a week in The Woodlands (Houston) and in between we had... well, life! So here are the Halloween shots. Batman and Hannah - what a combination!

The weather was beautiful - not too cold or rainy for a change, and the kids got a good amount of decent candy too.

November has brought about normal fall activities - school plays (Stone Soup), school pictures, school holidays. Sounds like a lot of school... and of course church. We hosted a Thanksgiving pot luck this past weekend and served over 200 people. Mike is going dowtown to Church on the Street in downtown Wichita to help in feeding the homeless, and they expect close to 300 on Thanksgiving. I will update more on that later.

Here are a couple of school photos - for better or for worse ;-)

Happy thankgiving to all!

And the story continues

Both girls grew older and went to school. Becca graduated from East High School about the same time Holley started pre-K and the cycle started over!!

Becca is now enrolled part-time at WSU, and Holley is in Kindergarten at Wichita Friends School. I will post activites and achievements here from time to time to share with family!

Becca is engaged to Shawn Woods, with a date set for sometime in 2011, "after graduation". Shawn left for Marine boot camp (or whatever they call it) in October. She also works as a waitress at Yia-Yia's Eurobistro and the grapevine says she is working a lot and doing well. I suspect she is keeping herself busy while Shawn is away.

Mike resigned from law-enforcement in 2007 after 18 years. He now works as an independent insurance appraiser - something he describes as learn-as-you-go. There is often a lot of travel within the state, but he doesn't mind the driving.

I have been with Hewitt for 10 years (including mergers) and am working on project design and implementation for recruitment outsourcing. I really love what I do, and the fact that I work from home, though there is a bit of travel as well. I had my first trip to the UK in October.

In the beginning

In the beginning, there was man and woman. And they married on November 21, 1992. And they shared life with Rebecca (9-5-88) and all was good.

In 2000 they built a house and moved a mile away (uh, Toto, I think we're still in Kansas!)

Rebecca was a student and got involved in debate/forensics.

Mike worked in law enforcement and Debi worked in Recruiting.

Then one day came Holley, God's special surprise for everyone! And all was good.

Starting over

I started a blog earlier this year dedicated to my Stampin' Up! business. Then having reconsidered my priorities, decided to invest my time differently. Building my business would be nice, but it is not my priority now. I like my comfortable hobby and my small stamp group and will leave it that way. So I ended the blog not too long after it started, after all, I still have the website!

But lately, I started thinking about better ways to stay connected with friends and family and decided a blog of our family was the way to go! Here you will find pictures - maybe even remotely close to the date they were taken, and randomness from the "Costello Ranch".

I hope you check often, or subscribe to the feed for updates, and leave comments! This is an interactive family adventure - so off we go!