Caitlyn's Birthday

Caitlyn turned twenty this year! We no longer have teenagers...it's so odd. Luckily, we are able to have her home to celebrate this year. Terry and Jackie drove out to celebrate with her. Ty was able to join us as well. Marian couldn't make it but sent her some birthday money. She also got a gift card from my mom.

As usual, we were also celebrating Terry's birthday.

Since he missed Emily's birthday in March, he brought cards and presents for both of the girls.

Caitlyn requested lasagna for her birthday meal this year. So we had that, along with some fresh baked focaccia bread and salad. I made an Italian "love cake."

Her actual birthday was during the week though, so Emily could not be here, but Ty drove back down for the occasion. They spent the afternoon together. He took her out for poke for lunch and then they went to Round One to play games. 

Afterwards, they came back to open Ty's presents.

Christian made a really neat 3D printed chess set for her. The chess pieces are mushrooms and they all roll up into a log. It's really complicated and took a lot of time and filament to do. Actually, we caved and gave it to her early too...I think it was shortly after she came home. I did save a few pieces to give on her actual birthday though. 

She got some additional acorn tops to use at checker pieces. Some more ducky tire valve covers (since she actually lost one when she got her tire replaced. And a new camera bag. It's not super protective but it is more convenient and fits a bit more stuff. She's been pretty careful with her camera, so we aren't too worried about it.

After Christian got back from work, we had one of her favorite meals, Indian Butter Chicken, for dinner. And she requested a carrot cake for dessert.

I think we watched a movie afterwards but we've been so busy lately that I can hardly remember all the details.

April

It has been a pretty busy and stressful month, but the kids finally made it home from school. We planned a welcome home dinner for them and then Ty's mom drove down after work to pick him up from our place.

The girls basically had one day to get settled and rest and then we were off again. I took them to visit with my mom and sister since my sister was flying back to Pacifica that evening. I had been talking to them about the possibility of the girls staying with my mom during their internships because the drive would be brutal, but also so that they can spend some time with their grandmother and there would be someone checking up on her and somewhat keeping her company.

Emily had not only found out that she got the internship, but they kind of wanted her to start as soon as possible. However, they were limiting her to 29 hours a week so that they would not have to give her benefits or things like that since she is just a temporary employee. Plus she is supposed to be helping them get cost estimates or something like that which isn't exactly what she was hoping for but from what she could gather, she would still get enough experience to satisfy her internship requirements. Although, getting specific information from the HR lady still seemed to be like pulling teeth. Regardless, she would have exactly the one week off before starting her internship.

Wendy wanted to clear out the downstairs office so that she could have some space for herself but found that she had way too much stuff in there and not enough time to do it. In the end, she cleared out some room in Jared's bedroom. He lives and works up in Northern California, so he isn't home in Southern California often. If he comes back at all, it is only for the weekend and Emily would be coming home on most weekends anyway. We went to visit to see what we could do to lend a hand. There wasn't too much left to do, but we got a chance to catch up a little and we also stopped by to visit with my brother.

His condition, unfortunately, hasn't improved much. He is still doing physical therapy, so hopefully it will improve in time. It was nice to be able to stop by to visit though. Debbie was exhausted though and took a nap. On top of everything else that is going on, her mom has been diagnosed with colon cancer so she's been taking her mom to the doctor as well. It's just a lot.

We spent the rest of the week going shopping and getting Emily ready for a work environment. She really doesn't have many clothes that are appropriate for the most part. Aunt Wendy was able to give her a few items that seemed to fit well enough and we went shopping around for the rest. They wanted her to go in on Monday to fill out some paperwork, get the required drug and security checks, plus a physical. But again, the HR lady was vague about when she wanted her in and where she was supposed to go so Emily was still pretty nervous about the whole situation. When she went in, she mostly just dealt with the clerk or secretary in the front who told her what she needed to do. The HR lady said hello in passing but didn't really interact with her.

The rest of the week went fairly well though, she started working the next day. The CEO spoke to her about moving her to full time if she signed some paperwork declining the health benefits and stuff since she still has health insurance through her dad. Everyone seems very friendly and casual at the office for the most part. I think we were a little confused as to the status of Marian's friend who referred Emily for the position. We thought she was still working there but when Emily went to search her out, she found out that she was no longer working for the company and had actually moved on.

Meanwhile, Caitlyn is taking some online classes while waiting for her internship to start. we are also taking the time she has home to take care of some dental issues we have been putting off. She needed her annual cleaning, but mostly she needs her bottom wisdom teeth out.

I also needed to go take my mom in for her colonoscopy. She is afraid of the pain and has opted to be put under, so I need to be there to take her home afterwards. After she went in for them to get started, I left to go visit with Norman again. They said they would call me when she starts to recover for me to come pick her up. The clinic is basically nearby, so it wasn't too big of a problem to leave. Caitlyn stayed home to work on her classwork and to make dinner for her dad when he got home, so that was very helpful. I didn't have to worry about getting home in time and I could stick around long enough to make sure my mom didn't have any bad side effects. Plus, I got to have dinner with Emily, so that was nice.

End of Winter and Internships

The girls have been looking into getting internships for the summer. They actually need it in order to graduate. Caitlyn only needs one but Emily will have to have two of them. Marian actually got recommendations for them to a couple of companies here in California. Caitlyn's is where Marian is currently working at this time. Marian also used to work with a lady that has connections to a company in an industry that Emily is interested in. It's been hard to manage because BYU-Idaho's schedule is so weird. Their Spring semester starts late and ends late so if they want a summer internship, they basically have to take the spring semester off in order to prepare...but at the same time, they had to renew their housing contracts a semester in advance in order to get a spot. It's very frustrating.

Technically, they interviewed back in March but no one got back to them until just before the end of the Winter semester as they were preparing for finals. 

Since Marian actually worked at the company that Caitlyn applied to, we had heard at the beginning of April that the hiring managers gave the green light to accept her, but she didn't get the actual acceptance until later but with no details about hours, dates or pay. Luckily, or unluckily, she was sick of her living conditions there in Idaho and was super stressed about whether she would be getting an internship or staying in Rexburg for the Spring quarter. On top of that, I guess her boyfriend decided that he was going to come back to California as well if she was so she had lot of pressure about what was going to happen without much choice in the matter itself. When an opportunity presented itself, she jumped at selling her housing contract to someone else. They still lose some money in the process but at least she won't be paying for housing that she won't be living in. She figured that she would just take some online classes if the internship didn't pan out. But along with all that, she then had to get a storage facility for all her stuff. It is way too much stuff to be dragging back and forth and none of us have room for it all.

Emily's situation was a bit weirder. She got a call from the HR lady at the company she applied to but they played a bit of phone tag originally. When Emily first got the call, she was either going to class or in class...I'm not sure. She called back but then the HR lady was busy and said that she would be in touch with her and then she didn't hear back for a while and Emily would contact her again. When they finally spoke, she mentioned the dates of the internship and that the CEO liked her resume but there was no interview. In the process, Emily was inquiring about the dates of the internship and seeing if she could arrange for it to start in the summer and continue into the Fall or not since she already had the housing contract for the Spring. Meanwhile, apparently Marian heard from the grapevine that Emily actually declined the internship, which was a bit of a shock to say the least since she never even had an interview or any official offer but was in discussions with the HR lady about some of the details of the internship. In fact, Emily got even weirder communications from the HR lady but she was addressing it to someone else other than Emily. She was very confused about what was going on. If Marian didn't have an ex-coworker that actually worked there, we would think the whole thing was some kind of a scam or something...or at the very least, the HR lady seemed kind of unprofessional.

Emily finally decided that she would just accept the internship regardless of the details and was frantically trying to sell her housing contract as well right before finals. Luckily, Caitlyn's storage facility was big enough for all of their stuff and they decided to share it and the costs as well. At the very last minute, Caitlyn's boyfriend, Ty, was able to sell his contract as well. He had all but given up at that point and we were afraid his parents would be pretty pissed for wasting all that money on a place he would not even be living in to follow Caitlyn home.

Anyway, on top of all their studying for finals, taking tests, returning books, they all had to pack and clean their apartments. On top of all that, they still had not received any details on their internships in order to arrange things with the school so that it would be accepted. Plus, they had to make travel plans as we don't want them attempting to drive all that distance in one day. They decided that they would be staying with Aunt Aron since they would be bring Ty with them. They usually stay with their cousin Austin, but they didn't want to do that to him since Austin has two little kids of his own and is pretty busy to boot. Luckily, their Aunt was able to accommodate them all.

While all this was going on, we sent the major part of Caitlyn's birthday present up to her because they would not ship it to California for some bizarre reason. We got her a nicer floor mat for the back seat of her XJ. The previous one she got was when she first got her car since there was nothing in there to begin with but it didn't fit very well. The new one fits amazingly well.

About a week before the end of the semester, when they were supposed to come home, Caitlyn took some time for herself to decompress a bit from all the stress. She drove out to Idaho Falls for a bit but on her way home, she got a flat tire somehow. By the time she got off of the offramp, she had completely shredded her tire. She was freaking out and it was in the worst spot possible, on the left front wheel. She called Emily to come help her. Luckily she was close to home and Emily was able to go calm her down and help her put her spare on. We had to order her a new tire but it would not arrive until the day before they were supposed to leave! Luckily, it did actually arrive when they said that it would and she was able to take it in to get it installed but it was all too much at this point and the kids were exhausted and stressed about it all.