Nevada trip.

Kate took Charlotte out to Nevada with Grandma to see Scotty's graduation. I stayed here to hold down the fort, or something. Anyway, they're back now, so I get to spend my mornings watching Chuck again, which is nice. Not much else has happened recently.

Except, oh wait. I lost my job. So I'm back to a regular sleep schedule. And I cut my hair and shaved hoping to look presentable to potential employers. Still looking for work, and waiting to hear back from the Navy.

Job/Baby/Air Force/Navy/Accident/Overdue Update.

Alllllright. So, its been awhile since we've updated. Apologies. But its for good reason, promise.

To start things off, I have a job. w00t. I started at Wal-Mart in early April. Been working graveyards, met a bunch of cool people, (which is surprising, considering its Payson) and some not so cool people (which is not surprising). Working graveyards has its pro's, but its also got a lot of cons. We'll touch on those later, but so far I enjoy the work, and enjoy (most of) the bosses, so this should work out much better than previous jobs.

I was offered a position at Pinnacle doing Tech Support, but they wanted me to work 30-something hours, and on that would be on top of the 40 hours a week I was working at Walmart. Eek. So I had to turn that one down. They also wouldn't guarantee the position would last longer than 4 months, and I didn't feel comfortable with that.

Also, we mentioned before that Kate was pregnant? Well, she's not anymore. We have a child. A CHILD. How cool is that?

Adorable, isn't she? We named her Charlotte Stowe Brady. She was born April 16, 2010 at 1:01pm. She's definitely a handful, but definitely worth it. Me and Kate are absolutely thrilled to have her. Kate will probably litter this page with pictures of her as she grows up. Kate has a photo album on Facebook for pictures of her, that she updates pretty much every other day. My dad bought us a little point-n-shoot, and Kate takes advantage of it, and takes oodles of pictures.  

This next part needs a little bit of prefacing. Karolynne had the baby on Friday afternoon. We went to the hospital at 5:30am Friday morning. At that point, I had been without sleep for about 48 hours or so. I didn't get any sleep at the hospital at all, due to the sheer anticipation and excitement (understandably). By that evening though, when everything kind of died down, I was waaay tired. Kate suggested I go home and get some sleep, and her mom came to spend the night with her. The thought of staying at the hospital didn't even occur to me (dunno why). I got into the car, and started driving home, dozing off a little here and there, but I figured that it was only a 20 minute drive, I should be fine. OBVIOUSLY, it was a stupid idea. About halfway home, I fell asleep at the wheel, and rear-ended a nice little old lady's RAV4, causing lots of damage to both vehicles. I was fine, and so was the little old lady. No injuries to report, thank goodness.

Our car (the Stratus) had a salvage title, so it was not worth very much money in the first place. Her car was a few years old, but still in pretty good shape, so it was worth a sizable chunk of money. Through a bit of bad timing, we were caught between insurance companies on the car. It had been insured by Kate's mother for quite some time, but she informed us that she was not going to pay for it anymore, and we had to take responsibility for that. We had planned to get insured with either my first or second paycheck from Wal-Mart, since we had very little money since we hadn't had any work since January. The accident happened the night after I got my first paycheck. It hadn't even been cashed yet. So, we didn't have insurance on the vehicle at the time of the accident. Luckily, the police didn't know that, so we didn't get hammered with a huge fine, and a night or two in jail. But that means I'm responsible for the damage to the other vehicle. Which could run as high as about $9,000. Ouch. Still waiting on word from her insurance company exactly how much it is and how they want to make me pay it. Because I don't have 9 grand.

In other news, with this accident and a few small speeding tickets I've gathered, I can't join the Air Force until they're taken care of. Also, I heard back from the Air Force that they didn't want to give me a waiver for my ears. Remember, this is the waiver I didn't need in the first place. So, Air Force is out. Whatever. Navy, here I come. Soon, hopefully.

So that's a lot. You can kind of see why we've been neglecting to update this. We've been busy. Sorry, we'll get better, promise.

Have you looked at the barbies lately? They are not nearly as pretty as they used to be. I was talking to a friend about it and she said, "well you don't want your daughter growing up with unrealistic ideas about beauty do you? She'll have low self esteem." Hopefully my daughter will be smart enough to one, not base her ideas of self worth wholly on physical appearances, and two to know that there will always be women that are prettier than her. I don't care what you look like, someone somewhere is better looking than you. It's the plain and simple truth. To waste time wishing you looked a way you simply don't is ridiculous. So why can't my daughter have pretty dolls to play with? 

I am so mad that everyone blames the media and barbies for these girls with low self esteems. It isn't the model's fault that you can't understand that you don't have her legs. Besides, I don't need to look in a magazine or go to the the movies to see women who are more physically attractive than I am. I just need to look around the street or room. But I don't see how that makes me any less pretty or any of my other qualities less appealing either. I am not the best at anything, but I don't dwell on that, I just work on making mysel happy and accomplishing my goals. I have sense of worth,  accomplishment, am perfectly happy, and I grew up with pretty barbies.

So quit blaming pretty pictures and figures for your insecurities. If you can't find a reason to like yourself as you are, you're not trying very hard. Everyone has something to offer and is of great consequence. Not to mention that everything has both negative and positive things about it, so if you just would tilt your head you'd see that the benefits often outweigh the detriments. Focus on that and not the length and shape of your legs being less desirable than a freaking doll's legs.

Job Update: Again.

Well, after 5 interviews this week (3 w/ Pinnacle), I got offered a job outright at Wal-Mart working as a Graveyard grocery stockboy. Just gotta wait for my drug test to clear, and then I should start the following Monday (3/29 is my guess).

Pay isn't great (just over 9/hr), but it is full time, so that'll be good. I've never worked a graveyard shift either, so I guess we'll see how this goes.

Crib and Other Such Goodies

So I have been looking online at baby stuff since we found out that we found out that we were going to have a girl. I have seen so many different cribs and liked a great many of them. There was one crib in particular  that I absolutely loved, but it was a bit more expensive than we could afford. So I pretty much wrote it off and moved on to the more practical and unbearably plain crib at IKEA. 

When I was told to register at a couple places online for the baby showers I put it on the registry even though I believed that there was no way anyone would spring for the crib. I was wrong. Tonight I found out that mom and dad Brady decided to get it for us and it's due to arrive soon! I am so excited. I cannot wait to set it up.

We got a lot of other cute stuff as well such as a few new outfits, some bibs, bath stuff including a little yellow tub, a changing pad, some blankets and burp rags, a teddy bear, pacifiers, a wipe-case, hand made booties, afghan and sweater, baby sunglasses, and a little mini fridge for the bottles when we have long trips. We also got a diaper bag, but it wasn't quite what we were looking for so we went to take it back and couldn't find anything that fit the bill. We then realized that we had some money from my grandparents that was for the IKEA crib. So we just got store credit and bought other things for the baby with it. (Little black Mary Janes.)

My mom and sister got us some books. Hop on Pop and There's a Wocket in my Pocket! by Dr. Seuss and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig!

Job Hunt Update:

Got a call from Wal-Mart for a job interview on Monday. Richard said that he turned in my resume to a couple higher-ups at Pinnacle, and they sounded like they were interested. He said I should anticipate an interview or two from them, so we'll see how that goes.

Trevor Joins The Air Force! Or...The Navy!

Alright, so here's a quick timeline of how my attemps to join the Armed Forces have gone up to this point.

Sept 09: First contact with AF recruiters. Talked for a bit, and was told I would have to take care of all my speeding tickets (I had like, 6) before anything else could happen.

Sept - Dec 09: Paid off all the speeding tickets (Just barely short of $2000 worth). Went back to the recruiter (to his surprise), and found I needed to get a bunch of paperwork together for him. Birth Certificate, SS Card, Marriage Certificate, and the like. Started gathering paperwork.

Dec 09: In my search, I found I lost my social security card, so I had to wait 2 weeks for a new one. Finished gathering paperwork.

Jan 10: Received replacement SS card in the mail. Brought it to the recruiter. Was advised that I also need medical records from all past ear surgeries. Okay. Would've been nice to know earlier...but okay.

Late Jan 10: Turned in medical paperwork to recruiter. Recruiter turns paperwork over to MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station...or something like that.)

Feb 10:  Heard back from MEPS about the medical documents. They requested additional medical documents about the surgeries (not unusual). Went back to the doctors office, told them I needed a letter saying that they didn't have any additional documents, which is S.O.P.

THREE (3) WEEKS LATER

They still didn't have it ready for me. After repeated phone calls to the office asking the status of the letter, and saying it was not ready, I finally went down to the office myself, and bam, 5 minutes later, they had it for me. Gave it to the recruiter, sent it to MEPS, and they (finally) CLEARED ME FOR PROCESSING! w00t!!!

Now, that's exciting for a few reasons. The Air Force put a freeze on ALL processing for new recruits NATIONWIDE, effective 22 Feb 2010, so the last day to process would have been 19 Feb 2010. I was able to process on 18 Feb 2010, so I was stoked. I had just barely made it.

EVERYTHING WAS GOING PERFECTLY.

AND THEN..

During the physical evaluation, the Chief Medical Officer said that I have tubes in my ears. I had tubes put in my ears when I was a baby, but they were supposed to fall out after like, 6 months. I didn't know if I did or not, but assumed the Doc knew what he was talking about, so I didn't argue. The problem is, tubes are an automatic disqualification. Which means I can't join any branch of the military, the CIA, or the FBI. BUT! A waiver can be had for them. Which basically means they send the paperwork to the Surgeon General of the Air Force, and composes a letter saying "We know this kid has tubes in his ears, but we're going to let him in anyway." And THAT process takes awhile, which would definitely push me past the freeze date for processing. But! I was already processed, so I should be able to get the waiver (in a month or so), and then continue on with processing and job selection. Riiight? Well...I guess we'll see.

Still Feb 10: In the meantime, I decided to pay a visit to my regular ear doctor, an ACTUAL otolaryngologist, and he took a look and said "nope, no tubes". Ran some tests (timpanogram) to show that I, in fact, don't have tubes, or any holes in my ear drum at all, and composed a letter to any branch of the military that'll listen, saying as much. Brought the letter back to the recruiter, and he told me that he'll submit the letter, but I'm on hold, so I can't move on to job selection. I'm frozen. lol wut, right?

That's what I said to the recruiter, and he informed me that the AF is not going to finish processing anybody who didn't finish processing before the cutoff (me), they just have to wait until processing is opened again. And no one knows when that'll be. F.

So...because a practicing physician of 40+ years THOUGHT I had tubes in my ears (when I obviously don't), I now can't join the Air Force until they start processing people again. Which could be a month or two, or as much as 6 - 12 months from now. So...

March 10: Talked to the Navy. They advised me that all they would need to do is send me up to MEPS for job selection, as soon as the Air Force hands over my paperwork. Piece of cake, right? Well...the Air Force already sent the paperwork to the Surgeon General, and they can't just get it back. I have to wait for that process to finish, which could be until mid-April before its done. And THEN I get to go to the Navy and go to MEPS, and all that. And that's how March got filled with doing nothing.

More to come later, I assure you.

About Kate

Hey I am Trevor's wife Kate. I don't understand why there is a need for an introduction as I am pretty sure that if anyone does read this blog, they probably know us already. But Trevor asked that I write one so I am.

I am almost twenty and am eight months pregnant with our first child.  The doc says we're having a girl and I am pretty excited about that.

I love people and hope to someday be a cultural anthropologist, but school has been put on hold for obvious reasons.

Um, that should be enough for now I am sure.

O hai.

Let me introduce ourselves.

I'm Trevor. Kate's Kate. She'll add to her intro later, I'm sure.

I am 21 years old, currently unemployed (but looking!), and married. I played trombone, still play drums (7 years), dabble in guitar and bass, enjoy paintball, am wicked good at poker (Texas Hold Em anyway), and very much enjoy watching and reviewing movies. I love cars. I don't really have a favorite type, or make, I just love cars. I am an avid debater, and will argue about just about anything, even if I'm not that informed on the issues. I love music (most kinds), and can talk for hours about favorite bands, and musicians, but I'll try not to here.

Kate and I got married on Sept 20, 2009 in Provo, UT in a cheap, small ceremony attended by family and close friends.

We (kind of) honeymooned in Salt Lake City. We've got more pictures of it, (the wedding, not the honeymoon) but that one is pretty good. She looked absolutely ravishing, and I looked like a dork, as per the usual.

So that's it. That's my intro. I'll try to get Kate to get an intro figured out for her, and she'll put it up soon. Hopefully. I guess we'll see.

Cheers,

Rico