Updates on Camille's Job Hunt

Well, as you know, I've been on the job hunt. And as we all can attest to, next to waking up every morning to go to a job that you hate, (and by "hate," I mean "loathe deeply") the most dragging experience in the world is job hunting.

Warning: The following post is more for my own therapeutic purposes, so if this looks like too many words and not enough pictures, I will not be offended if you discontinue reading...

I was happy to leave the job that I "loathed deeply" AKA Strayer University. And even excited about the prospect of starting anew. But, who was I kidding when I thought that this would happen quickly?!?!

This time around, I've really tried to focus on only applying for jobs that I want, and would genuinely be challenged by in way that I could move forward with my goals, rather than remain stagnant. So, in what I consider to be "Round One", and the cream of the crop as far as positions that I really want are concerned, this is where I'm at:

1. Applied for two positions at USU-Uintah Basin. Was a little late in turning in my application for job # 1, so wasn't considered. I was a finalist for the second position, and I received very positive feedback on the presentation that I spent 7  hours preparing for the second interview.  Unfortunately, I did not get the job. Really huge disappointment. 
2. Applied for a case worker position working for the state of Utah in the Dept. of Human Services. Had an awesome interview with them! Felt so good about it leaving their office that day. They said they'd call me back about a week ago, but I still haven't heard anything. So, on Friday I called them, and was sent immediately to a voicemail. I left a message, but haven't heard anything. My guess is that there is a rejection letter coming in the mail. I might get lucky and be wrong (maybe there was a delay with the background check?) but my guess is that I didn't get the job.
3. Applied for a financial position with the high school. Again, great interview, no offer.
4. Applied for a program coordinator position at the hospital. Didn't even get a call back. Hospitals are usually super political, so I'm not surprised....
5. Applied for a Government Position in Ft. Duchesne (30 min. away from V.)....more to follow.

Now, all of this equates to some really discouraging days!! It took the entire weekend for me to come to terms with the fact that even after hours of re-writing my resume/cover letter, and 5 interviews (also had a pre-interview for the USU job) for 3 jobs that I really felt confident about, I still would be doing all of this for several more weeks...maybe even months. 

So, I've been bracing myself to begin "Round Two", otherwise known as the "I'm really starting to lower my expectations" round. Within this round, I've thrown out two resumes.

BUT TODAY....

I did MIRACULOUSLY get a call from Indian Health Services, which is the government position mentioned above. I was surprised to get a call from them, because when I checked on the status of my application on the USA JOBS website, it said that the position was closed. I applied for that job early early on (it's been about 2 months) and hadn't heard anything, so I assumed that I was no longer under consideration. Well apparently, I was wrong!!! I do get to interview with them on Wednesday, for a program coordinating position, and I'm very pleased. This is the last of the preferred "Round One" positions, and so I'm crossing my fingers. Also, it's a GOVERNMENT JOB! Government jobs are super hard to secure. Apparently my AmeriCorps Service is supposed to grant me non-competitive status, which makes me more competitive as an applicant for these types of jobs. It would be cool if that paid off for this.

With that being said, I do want to thank everyone who has prayed on my behalf as far as the job hunting is concerned. It really does mean a lot to me. I hope that you'll all continue to rally together...something will work out. And when it does, you will know about it :-)

Church Callings!

We have received church callings! I've been praying lately that we'd be blessed with opportunities to serve, and sure enough, we have been. Danny and I will be working as Nursery leaders, which will be a 6 month appointment. We think this is pretty funny; it seems like newlyweds without children are often called to the primary. We were, in fact called to the Nursery in our first ward in West Valley, but they extended the calling a week before we were leaving. So, it appears that this really is where the Lord wants us.

We are excited about it:-) It will be rewarding to work with the children, and serve their parents who'll then be able to attend their meetings. We are a little sad that we'll miss out on that aspect of church ourselves, especially because we're so new in the ward and still don't know very many people. But, we'll attend activities and socialize that way too.

Additionally, I was asked to sing in Sacrament Meeting! I'll be singing on Sunday, March 10th, so again if you want to come on out for the weekend to hear it, we'll gladly feed and entertain you:-)

Flaming Gorge

This Saturday, Danny and I wanted to go explore the territory a little bit. The weather has been decent lately, and we heard that Flaming Gorge was spectacular, even in the winter. So, we decided that we'd get some lunch and take a drive up there.

Sure enough, the snow only adds to its beauty this time of year. The park itself is gorgeous, but the 30 minute drive is also quite wonderful. Vernal is famous for two things: oil and dinosaurs. The drive up there has historical signs along the way explaining the type of ancient terrain that once existed. You go up 10 switch backs on a mountain, and so the valley gets more vast and beautiful the farther up you go.

We welcome visitors, especially this summer, to come back to the gorge with us!! There's a marina in the park, and this would make for an excellent family or friends' canoe trip. Rentals aren't too bad, and we could easily picnic in the park before or afterwards. It would be so much fun!!!

Whether or not you're up for the canoeing and/or hiking trails, and regardless of the season in which any of you can come out our direction, it would still be a fun afternoon outing :-)

Reading Goals & Chocolate Pie

ATTN. TO NEW READERS: I decided to add you to our contact list to receive our periodical life updates. I send these out in an email form, but if you'd like to view these posts directly on the blog, you need to accept the invitation that I sent to you from blogger, as it is viewable by invitation only. We created this blog just a couple of weeks ago, so any other posts you may be interested in reading are also recent. Love, C&D :-)

OK, so the story behind our reading goals and chocolate pie....

Several months ago, Danny and I started some new reading goals; Danny's was to read Jesus the Christ (Talmage) and I had just started the Book of Mormon again. I promised Danny that once he completed his goal, I would learn how to make him homemade chocolate pie, using his mother's divine recipe. Well, he did in fact finish his reading goal...about 4 months ago. And, while my intentions were to keep up my end of the deal sooner than this, the celebration pie just kept getting pushed back. So, a little under two weeks ago, I finally finished my Book of Mormon reading goal, and decided that to celebrate us both reaching our goals, it was in fact time for me to roll my sleeves up and make this pie for the first time on my own (I did get a demonstration from Barbara at the beginning of December, so luckily I didn't feel completely in the dark...)

The pie turned out FABULOUS (and I obviously feel the need to toot my own horn, why else would I feel the need to blog about it? :-), but it. was. a. chore. First of all, Barbara uses a specific type of pot to stir the pudding in, which I don't have. So, instead I decided to use a double boiler, because the one cardinal rule of making homemade chocolate pie is don't burn the pudding. Afraid of using any other pot that might put me at risk of committing said crime, I decided to go with the double boiler. What a joke. I stirred for literally two  hours straight, whereas using a thicker dutch pot cuts the entire process down by more than half the time. SO, I will be making an investment in a new pot before I attempt to do this on my own again.

My mom, Carilee, has often made reference to a Carl Sagan quote that I think is hilarious:

"If you want to make a [chocolate] pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

This never had been so true for me until this particular baking adventure in the kitchen. It was worth it though:-)

New Year's Eve

Ok, so I wasn't initially going to do any posts today, but my sister-in-law has her and my brother's blog set up to just send the posts in an email form, which I think makes everything so much easier for everyone. I'm testing this setting on our blog to make sure that it works...

Also, on another note, the settings on our blog are set to "private" and I have to manually enter in email addresses to authorize readers. Currently, I only have immediate family added as authorized users. So, if any extended family members want to read our blog, that's awesome, but we'll need to add them as readers. If anybody talks to cousins, aunts and uncles in it comes up in conversation, and they are interested in reading our blog, just let one of us know and we'll add them.

Thanks!

Ok, now on to the subject of New Year's..

We had an awesome time! For Christmas, I bought Danny tickets to go see Kristin Chenoweth, a major Broadway actress (Glinda in Wicked), and it was spectacular. She is stunning. So, we went to Park City (where the show was) and had ourselves a beautiful dinner at a French & Italian cuisine restaurant called Cafe Terigo, went and saw an amazing show, and then stayed in super cute little place in Heber City call Swiss Alps Inn. It was wonderful! Here are some pics from the evening....

The New Apartment

Ok, last post of the day. Your email was flooded today, only because I wanted the chronology of our life to start from the beginning. From this point, count on posts about once a month, or anytime something extremely significant happens. Several of you have requested pictures of the apartment, and here are a few.

A special shout out to those who helped us move!! Thanks to Dad (Russ), Kathryn, Nate, Laura, and Braden. We could NOT have done it without you. We love you!

Not related to the apartment, but I wanted to show you this year's Jack-O-Lanterns: Spiderman and Wolverine .

Danny's new job & the move to Vernal

It's common knowledge to most that at the end of August, Danny was laid off from his 3-D modeling job in Salt Lake. Of course, this could not have come at a worse time. Not that there is ever a convenient time to lose one's employment unexpectedly, but, three weeks before the wedding was definitely an added stress.

However, we approached the matter with faith, and confidence that the Lord would be opening new, and better doors for us. Even though we were down half of our income, the fact still remained that Danny didn't really care for that job anyway, and I myself was very unhappy in my job at the time. So, even though our timing was clearly not the Lord's timing in this area, we decided that we would trust that His plans had our best interest in mind.

After three months of sporadic shifts at Sam's Club, hundreds of resume submissions, a wedding, and an occasional phone interview, Danny was offered a fantastic design engineering job for a company called Superior Drilling, located in Vernal, UT.

Everything about this opportunity was, and has been a miracle for us. From the very first phone call from them, we both felt that this would be the road we would end up taking. Danny was flown to Vernal at the end of November for an interview, and that meeting only confirmed more strongly for us that if offered this job, we were supposed to take it. When Danny got home that evening, I asked him how it went. Now, let me explain something: We have been through many job interviews together. Last year, between the two of us, we clocked in at 7 different establishments, to say nothing of the jobs that we interviewed for but didn't get. I've never seen Danny come home from an interview as confident as he was when we came home from Vernal for the first time. He really felt good, and it showed in every way as he explained the process and his conversations with his prospective boss. We were both elated that it went so well, and even more so when we heard back a few days later that the job was his if he wanted it.

So, here we are! We have enjoyed it thus far. Vernal is a small, but quaint little town, very much like my hometown, Miles City. Vernal has nearly everything we could ask for in a town; we love our ward, the temple is spectacular, there's a great Rec Center down the road from where we live, plenty of shopping, Cafe Rio (We would've probably actually died without one...) two movie theaters, one of which is in decent condition and has more than one cinema in it, an awesome public library, and V. is an outdoor sports haven. It's lovely. Most importantly, we are happy to report that Danny is really loving his job, and it has been a great fit so far.

As for me, my time has been spent thus far job hunting and taking advantage of the fabulous rec center, with the exception of today, which is blogging day. I have an interview next week and another likely interview from a pre-interview (if that makes sense), and just submitted more apps yesterday. I'm hoping to have an update on my employment front soon, which I'm really looking forward to.

Thanks for listening!

-Camille and Danny P.

Honeymoon

We had a great honeymoon in San Diego, CA! We stayed at a resort, and ate great food, spent a couple days at Sea World, went kayaking, played on the beach, laid by the pool, and had fun being in the sun. It was perfect :-)

Yes, I was the dork in the pancho. Reason being, Danny really wanted to sit in the front row at Shamu. I noticed that there were "soak zone" signs for those rows, and since I'd never been to Sea World before, I asked naively, "How wet would we get though? I don't want to walk around wet all day." To which Danny responded: "You won't get very wet, it'll be ok." (We had 2nd row seats...)

Well, to anybody who has ever been to Sea World, you know that sitting in the first few rows at Shamu does NOT equate to a couple of drops in your hair. No. You literally get as wet as you would be were you to hop into a pool. I happen to HATE getting wet if I am in anything OTHER than a swimming suit, and I spent a great deal of time that morning trying to look cute. Because Danny had been to Sea World previous to our Honeymoon, he knew full well that we were going to get soaked. His original plan was to play a joke on me, but right before the show started, he knew that he would be in SERIOUS trouble if I walked out of the arena sopping wet. So, in an effort to save himself from a night on the couch during our honeymoon, he bought me a pancho :-) Oh, it's the little things that he does that show me how much he loves me :-)