Scouts, birthdays, and new jobs (yes, that's plural)

Thursday was Randy's Pinewood Derby! He was very excited about the car he made. It was a dragon (so he says) and he spraypainted it gold. He named it the "Golden Nugget Dragon." Can you guess what his two passions right now are? As always, he likes rocks, and since moving to Alaska, he's been begging me to dig in the back yard for some gold nuggets to add to his collection. And then, of course, dragons.

The front row were comprised of junior primary seats and the boys whose cars were racing got to sit up there. And Tony. It started with the wolf pack (That's Randy's group - the 8-year-olds) and then bears and then... whatever's after that. Weblos? Who knows. Anyway, the kids just kept getting older and older, and Tony was sitting right up there with them ENTHRALLED with the racing. In the two hours, he didn't get bored one bit! And the interactions he had with the other kids were so cute! This kid is developing his facial expressions so well, and it's a hoot!
Everlee's birthday was on Friday. Tony and I went into her classroom with apples and cream cheese dip, and one of the girls in her classroom had a birthday this week, too, and she brought in mini lemon muffins. Everlee had fun being sung to, and Tony always has fun being a big boy at school.

Here is the finished product of our pinata! What a pain it was to make! Well, it was actually pretty easy to make, it was just VERY time consuming. But we're very pleased with how it turned out. And it was way stronger than we thought, too! It took lots of hits!

Due to having the pinata, we decided not to have cake, so we put candles on top of the pizza, which the girls seemed to get a kick out of (see video in previous blog post to see her blow out her candles.). I was surprised at how much pizza those girls put away! Randy and his friend, Quinn, eating the pizza helped, too, I'm sure.

Thank goodness for our upstairs! Most of the party happened up there, including the breaking of the pinata (I'll post that video as soon as possible) then they piled underneath Everlee's princess net on her bed with their bags of candy and giggled and squealed like only little girls can do. Happy birthday, Miss Everlee! I hope this next year is the best one so far!

On a more adult note, Scott and I have big news of our own! First, I finally have a job!!! Hooray!! I'll be working for the school district in their HR department doing payroll and recruitment, for the most part. The pay is excellent. The location is excellent (across the parking lot from Randy's and Everlee's school, and down the street from Tony's preschool). The benefits are excellent. The hours are excellent (did you know Alaska has a 37.5 work week rather than 40?). The environment is excellent. This is an excellent job! And I'm really excited to be starting work on Monday!

The other more exciting news is Randy has quit his job! A headhunter contacted him just before Christmas, and he went through all the interviewing process, and was offered the position of store director of Jo-Ann Fabrics! We're pretty excited this new prospect. It should teach him a lot about being a business manager. It'll mean he'll be spending about a month in the Anchorage store learning the ropes, so I'll be a single mom again (good thing we got lots of practice when he was up here in Juneau!), but only for a month, and he'll be able to come home on the weekends. One of the best things about this job (in my opinion) is the hours. While he's working the same amount of hours as Fred Meyer Jewelers, he gets to go into work early and he can be home by 4pm! That's WAAAAY better than the requirement to be in the store until at least 6pm. That's more papa time! And we LOOOOVE Papa!