Busy, Busy, but Good

Better late than never, right? I finally decided I better sit down and blog about what we've been up to during our first three and a half months in Minneapolis (Part One).

We're keeping busy, busy here with work and church stuff. It's great though that we were both able to jump right into our new responsibilities! It's made these first few months fly by and the adjustment has been great.

WORK

Chad started working at Target a week after we moved here. He began his clearance pricing training in Women's Apparel (his mentor's category), then a few weeks later he was given responsibility for Healthcare clearance pricing. In week 6 of working for Target, due to some staffing changes and how well he was performing, he was given additional responsibilities. He is now responsible for the clearance pricing of what is categorized as "Household, Personal, Baby" and "Snacks, Beverages, Pet Food, and Candy," in addition to continuing his responsibility over "Healthcare."

As you can imagine, he's being kept really busy with that level of responsibility and has had a few late nights in the office. He's really enjoying it though! In fact, he's added about 30 minutes of shopping time to our Target runs because we HAVE to go check out the clearance items. I'm not complaining though; we've found some great deals!

I've happily continued working for Certiport. My job responsibilities have begun to shift because we've had some people leave, new people hired, and new positions made available. I'm now responsible for the North America marketing campaigns for the Adobe Certified Associate, Autodesk Certified User, and QuickBooks Certified User programs, as well as our corporate social media accounts. I'm also continuing my responsibility over the marketing for our partner program, until we hire someone for that position. Yes, they are keeping me really busy.

Fortunately, the big focus of my time right now is on something I absolutely love! I am prepping for our biggest event(s) of the year--the Global Partner Summit, the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship, and the Adobe Certified Associate World Championship. This year we are having them in Washington, D.C., July 31-August 3.

This picture is me and the other student ambassadors at last year's event. I can't wait for this year's event!

CHURCH

We both had callings and spoke in sacrament meeting one week after our records had officially been moved! They don't mess around in this ward. They put you to work, and we're glad they did.

Chad was initially called to teach Elders Quorum. Then, just as the Elders Quorum President had forewarned us might happen, the Bishopric "stole" him rather quickly and called him to teach the youth Sunday School class. He's perfect for that calling and the youth love him!

I was called to be the 2nd Counselor in the Young Women's and Girls Camp Director. Let's just say that when the bishopric extended my calling, I put my hands above my head and exclaimed, "YES!" Bet they've never gotten a response like that before. They found out rather quickly how much I loved Young Women's and Girls Camp, and how excited I was/am to work with the Young Women in our ward! I really love them so much.

Things are going great here and we're grateful for the opportunities we are having at work and at church!

Our New Home

As promised, here's my first post about our lives in Minneapolis. It's about time too since it just dawned on me that we've lived here for 7 weeks now! That's crazy to me, but I'm sure what will be even crazier is when we've lived here longer than we lived together in Utah. I just did the math and that will be November of this year. Crazy!

Well, if I'm starting at the beginning, our move itself went really well. We loaded our moving truck in Orem with the help of family and some members of the Elders Quorum. We were so grateful for their help! Then, the next morning, Chad and his dad were on their way.

They had a great trek across the Midwest...and enjoyed the "lovely" scenery.

Shout out to the best father-in-law, Mark, for making that drive with Chad. We all know you were a far more enjoyable driving companion then I would have been :)

I enjoyed my 2 hour flight after dealing with the carpet cleaners, apartment inspection, and all the last minute arrangements (much better than a 2 day drive, if I say so myself). I was also lucky enough that both of my parents were able to take me to the airport. Such a blessing.

I met up with my mother-in-law, Suzanne, at the Minneapolis airport. She had taken a different flight due to scheduling, but it worked out perfectly. I'm so grateful that she too was able to help us with this move. It was comforting to have her there with me. I was surprisingly emotionally stable and I'm sure that is in part due to her being there. Plus, her designer eye came in handy when we ran to the store to buy some things for our apartment...at Target, of course!

We were very fortunate that Chad and his dad didn't run into any crazy Midwest storms. In fact, they made it into Minneapolis on Friday night and the initial plan was for them to get in Saturday morning. That made for some pretty interesting negotiations with our apartment manager, but she finally agreed to let us move in early.

The four of us quickly got to work on getting us moved in and set up, especially because we knew that later in the weekend the temperature was supposed to drop to negative 25. Eeek! A lovely "Welcome to your new home" kind of feeling.

Feeling a bit exhausted at this point.

Forget putting it away. We were just happy to have it all inside.

Why?

This is how we felt about going outside. Oh, Minnesota.

It went well though and we got everything off the moving truck, up 9 stories, and into our apartment in record time -- a little over an hour.

So, I thought you'd all enjoy some pictures of our new place. We love it!

 

Stay tuned for some more posts about work, church, and other fun Minnesota adventures.