Long Time Gone

Wow, its been two and a half years! Sorry its been so long, I think I got busy with life and this “newsletter” got pushed to the wayside. No matter, I am starting again!

Well no point in catching you up on the missing time, it would take too long, and you don’t want to hear everything you’ve probably already heard once! I will do a brief over-view of where we are now instead.

Levi is currently halfway through first grade, and loving school. He is a little behind in reading and writing, but Justin and I are working with his teacher to do everything we can to help him. He isn’t slow or anything, he is very smart. He is just very easily distracted. One of his passions is geography! I think once we get this reading down, he will soar to great heights in that subject! He spends lots of time looking at maps and google earth. His room is plastered with maps of the world, Oregon, and the United States. Levi just turned 7 a few weeks ago, and is already planning his 8th birthday and baptism (that is the age when our church baptizes the children). He is still our little sweetheart, and that is only reinforced by comments from his teacher and Sunday school teacher.

Hazel is still at home with me. We tried her in preschool this year, but it just wasn’t a good fit yet. I think come this next year she will be ready and excited for preschool. She is my little helper at home, she loves to cook and clean with me. She also loves to draw, and seems to really be emerging in that area. She is very creative, a great story-teller (or joke teller), and is always dreaming up new ideas! She turned 4 this past December, and didn’t waste anytime letting everyone know. In fact she was telling people she was 4 a couple months before her birthday. She is full of personality and makes us all smile!

Justin is still working with the hospital here but has job-hopped a bit since my last post. He became the Admitting Supervisor in Albany where he learned of another job implementing the new Medical Records/Charting/Scheduling software for the hospital system. He has been working on the Informatics team for over a year now and thinks he has found his future profession! He loves what he does and gets so excited when he solves problems that no one else knows how to do. He is in the “go live” phase right now, which means the kids and I will not be seeing a lot of him. He works with the group in charge of the scheduling portion, so he visits clinics from Lebanon to the coast (about a 70 mile spectrum). He has already had a few doctors at the clinics asking for his personal number to call if they need support. It makes him feel really good about the work he is doing.

I started my photography side-business up again and this past fall I became very busy. I hope once this rain stops things will again pick up. I love taking pictures, and I love the experience I am getting as well! I am not up to much else, but I have hopes to get back into some old habits (such as this blog) like painting, scrapbooking, sewing, baking, and other crafts!

Well that is the long and short of our life as of now! I hope to update weekly again, so check back next week!