Celebrating our Champion

Celebration at Rainforest Cafe with our great friends Rick, Sandy, Zach, and Ces
I need to learn what ingredient Rainforest adds to their desserts. If you remember last month we went there and I posted a picture of Kyle asleep on the table after eating his dessert and now here is Johnny from last night snoozing away on his kids menu. I must get my hands on that recipe! Okay, maybe it had something to do with the fact that we didn't even get seated until around 10PM!

Just throwing in a cute picture of Kyle- Oh, and the castle doesn't look so bad either!

"The Award"

Yesterday our family received some very exciting and unexpected news. Last week Jim's boss told him that 3 top executives from corporate were coming for a visit and he would like Jim to do a presentation. That parts normal enough until he learned that the presentation was to be about his past work history and what he's been working on since coming to this company. We thought hmmmmm... this sounds like an interview that's not being called an interview. Jim's boss said he wanted the corporate guys to know about him so if an opening comes up in the future they would have Jim in mind for the promotion. Rumors were flying all around the plant that the corporate guys were there just to interview Jim (his boss admitted aftwards that they were there for that reason). The presentation went great. Jim was even given an award for a company wide project he's involved in and has a perfect record at. The award he received was the above pictured shirt. Jim and I were cracking up at it. It's totally not something he would wear. The words in the arch say "Best Practices Champion 2007", and his name is under it. While great to be acknowledged... the shirt...yikes! We joked he would wear it to work and strut around singing "I am the Champion, I am the Champion". Anyone that knows Jim knows how humble he is and this is so far from anything he'd actually do! So anyways... We thought maybe something was up (but had no idea what) or that the interview/presentation really was just for future reference as Jim's boss said, but still we wondered if there was more to it. It sure didn't take long to find out. The very next day (yesterday) Jim's boss came to his office and shut the door behind him (okay, now Jim's really wondering what's up) and not only offered Jim the exact Management position he wanted at some point in the company but asked him to stay right here in CA to take this position!!! It is company policy that for one of these upper management positions you must move to another location. Jim is so awesome that they made an exception to the rule because they want him here!

What this means for our family: We can stay here for at least 2-3 years, spending more time with our family and them getting more time to get to know our new family members, plus we should be able to complete all our adoptions while living here and not have to worry about moving during or right after the process. And of course Jim's pay will increase pretty dramatically right before bringing our children home!!! How cool is God... SO COOL!

This is news worthy of a real celebration so we called our good friends because we know they are super spontaneous (like us) and might be willing to head out for a night of fun with no notice at all. Sure enough they were all for it! They came by and picked our family up and we went to Rainforest Cafe for appetizers and desserts. We left Rainforest Cafe around 11PM which left us only 1 hour to walk quickly to the entrance of Disneyland and then had about 45 minutes to try and ride rides before they closed. Jim and Kyle headed off with Rick and Sandy's family for the more thrilling rides and me, Johnny, and Luke headed to the rides they like thinking we would probably only be able to ride one of two rides... both groups got to ride 4 rides in that short time!! We couldn't believe it. It was late and raining so there was almost no one left at the park and we just got on and off rides until midnight. We made it back home a little after 1AM feeling that we really had a fantastic celebration night and are so excited to see what God has planned for us here over the next few years!

Congratulations to the Hero and Champion of our family! We all love you and are so proud of you (but please do not expect a denim shirt with your name on it).