sans snowsuits

Megan requested pics of the girls without their snowsuits and what Megan wants, Megan gets. Allison got her digital camera back yesterday and took a couple of pictures and I stole them.

Whitney showing off her two teeth:


Malarie playing:

Snow Day

yesterday church got canceled on account of snow. we got AT LEAST a foot yesterday. the snow was too soft to build a snowman or sled, so we just played. and i finally took some pictures!



this is a tree in the front yard...there is a trunk under there somewhere


malarie and me in the backyard



see how deep it is? there is no snow angel-ing, just snow flopping



malarie has a rockin snow suit



whitney just looks like a marshmallow



in the front yard... the snow is up to my shoulder


sitting on the snow pile

proof that i can shovel snow... i have to earn my keep :)

malarie watching as i work... to bad it snowed again and covered up my path

One Week

I've officially survived one week of Boston. Lindsay and Steven showed me a really good place in chinatown yesterday to get pho, which makes me happy and we walked to Macy's to shop during lunch, which I just find weird. Sometimes it feels like I've been here a year- mostly because the Williamsons treat me like family- but then I get confused all over again and realize I'm still a tourist. Since I've ridden the train/subway four days in a row I think that technically makes me almost a pro (besides the fact that I can really only get from home to work to back home again). Even though I freeze my bum off waiting for the train-I need to buy better gloves- I definitely like sitting and reading for a half hour better than sitting in my car and yelling at people. I take the express train in to work so I don't have to remember stops, but going home the train makes about seven stops. Normally the conductor announces which station you are at--you REALLY don't want to miss your stop--but the first night he wasn't announcing where we were and I started to panic a little. But, I sucked up my pride and asked the lady next to me who pulled out a map and told me where I was and how long before I got off. So, there are a couple nice people here in Boston.
Despite the thermometer reading 0.0F (meaning the temp is somewhere in the negatives) I am going to make my first trip to the mall today. I was wearing high heels without tights yesterday and my manager informed me that I need to buy some stockings to keep warm. I will also be buying some batteries for my camera. As far as work goes, I'm still pretty overwhelmed and feeling pretty useless. I'm starting to learn the basics of the applications and doing some really some projects. Hopefully someday I'll feel intelligent again. I was in a meeting on Wednesday and some lay asked me where I was from. When I replied "Texas" her response was "but you don't have an accent." Ummm... not everybody who is from Texas talks like a hick.
Happy Three Day Weekend!

i'm officially a desk jockey

i survived my first day of work... barely. really, once i got there it wasn't too bad. the commute was horrible, so from tomorrow on i will be taking the train, which everybody at work assures me i will like much better. i think i will like my job once i know what it is- i am working in the information systems division and the financial systems subdivision and the revenue cycle sub subdivision. the thing is, within revenue cycles there are tons of different categories/specializations and i don't know where i will be yet. for now, i'm getting an overview of all of them and how everything works. two other people, steven and lindsay have both gone through the healthcare academy before me, so they are showing me the ropes. it is nice to have a couple people my age who can relate. here are some observations/lessons from my first day:

1. DON'T take the pike to work
2. everybody here wears tights/pantyhose, even with pants
3. it is not sufficient to wear your snow boots to the car, you need to take them all the way to your desk so when you walk to lunch you don't ruin your shoes/pants
4. wear flats... in my defense i attempted to buy some flats before i moved but nobody carries my size
5. the bathroom key opens both the men's and the women's bathroom
6. when you eat in chinatown, keep your order simple
7. everybody here drinks dunkin' donuts coffee

i'm sure there are more, but i can't remember them all at this moment

the forecast says that the temperature thursday thru saturday is supposed to be a high of like ten degrees with a low in the negatives. i may die.

random story: about a month before i moved i had emailed my pastor in plano and asked for a church recommendation and he gave me one. however, when i moved in with the williamsons they told me that they had a really good church so i didn't look up the church my pastor recommended. then, when we went to church on sunday the name sounded familiar so i looked up the email from my pastor again and the church that the williamsons go to is the same church that my pastor recommended.

boston day 1

after a long three days in the car, dad and i finally made it to boston last night. it is COLD! today was the first and last time i will ever forget my gloves and hat. we spent today driving around, figuring out where i work and the best way to get there. i have two choices: pay a ton for the tollway and parking at the hospital or pay a slightly less ton and take a little bit longer/colder public transit. i learned today that downtown boston is crazy driving and people have no manners. i was going to take my camera with me today and take pictures, but i can't find it at the moment. i will try to find it tomorrow and take pictures since malarie and i are supposed to go sledding after church.

God is good!

I am moving up to Boston on Wednesday and as of yesterday I finally have a place to live!
Since I am just going to Boston for thirty days and then coming back to Plano for 6 weeks I figured that I could just live in an extended stay hotel or rent a furnished apartment for the first month and look for an apartment while I'm up there to move into when I go back. After some research I realized that I could not afford corporate or extended stay housing, but I found a furnished apartment really close to where I'm working for a semi-decent price that I could rent for the month. However, after a getting some more information about the place, I figured out that it wasn't a real apartment, just some guy wanting me to send him $1,000 cash. CRAZY! Anyway, it's 1 week before I'm supposed to move I'm stuck with no place to live (I had thought about sub leasing but most of those people have cats and it is kind of scary when you don't know the people). But, God is good. On Monday and Tuesday, I worked at the Pantego basketball tournament and I told my story/predicament to Meg Flint. Come to find out Michael's (Meg's brother-in-law) sister-in-law lives outside of Boston with her husband and two little girls and they might be willing to let me stay with them. After talking with Allison yesterday, she said I could live with them for my first month. YAY! Also, she said that they have a really good church, which is something I'd been worrying about since apparently churches up there can be kinda kooky. And, she offered to let me store my car in their garage while I'm down here for the 6 weeks so I don't have to put it in long term parking at the airport. I'm very relieved about having a place to stay and now I can get excited about moving.

God is good #2: my laptop has had a terminal error for a while now (which is why there have been no pictures for so long) and hadn't been working. I didn't think it could be fixed and didn't want to pay a professional to tell me that I needed to buy a new one that I can't afford. So, my mom asked Ray Mitchell to look at it for me and... he fixed it! Now, not only do I have a laptop again, it is much faster than before.