A week of FIRSTS!!!

So everyone here is what went down last week!! 

Thunderstorms are crazy here. It is a constant weather change. I thought Logan was crazy but Colorado Springs is crazier in a better way. Logan it was iffy day to day. Colorado Springs is sunny in the morning and raining in the evening. It is a real spring. We have had more rain in the short time that we have lived here than I have seen in a while. The rain drops are the size of a 50 cent piece. It is crazy and we have thunder that is crazy loud. The best benefit that comes from all of this is the awesome rainbows. We have seen 3 since we moved here. They are the brightest rainbows ever, unfortunately the Kindle can' t get the picture and we couldn't find our camera. We have found it since but there hasn't been a rainbow since, bummer. It also makes everything green and cool so our house is not hot even though in the afternoon it is usually 70ish degrees. Some days are hotter but it has been so beautiful. Here is a picture after the storm, we tried to catch the rainbow but we missed it. The sun is coming out as you can see across the field. This is what we see in our back window!! SO AWESOME!

I (Leslie) was on my way to visit the LDS Employment center at the beginning of the week and got lost! This is the moment in time that I wish I had a smart phone, curse you basic phone. I called Colby and he navigated me there over the phone. Mind you this was incredibly frustrating (sorry Colby) because I felt as if I was making every effort to find a job and all I was doing is running into snags, UGH! I finally made it and I was trying to hard to make an annoying situation good! I spoke with one of the missionaries Elder Tettley about my resume and he helped me make it better and then the receptionist Sister Wursten gave me a couple of jobs to apply for. She is the nicest person that I have met, she wants nothing but great things for people. I got a lot of help from those people and really appreciate them more than they will ever know! I went straight home and stayed up so late getting things all figured out and changed. I also applied for as many jobs as I could through a bunch of websites. 

Craigslist? What? This is something to get used to around here. Apparently, Craigslist is the Colorado version of KSL.com. We have a lot to learn about Colorado Springs. I have been on it everyday to find jobs, oh and an electric dryer too! Don't get me wrong Craiglist is not bad, I just don't know how to use it very well. Tuesday was my job hunting day from somewhere bad!! I was on the computer for at least 10 hours and I was about ready to punch the screen and cry! My eyes were so tired I just didn't even know what to do but I applied for a lot of jobs, so hopefully something will come from it! Everything comes through SACRIFICE!! 

On Wednesday, I went to a workshop at LDS Employment. It was about networking and I really learned quite a bit. During the workshop the secretary came in and told me that I should take a call from someone looking for an administrative assistant (I was the only one there) so I took the call and it was sort of a phone interview. The job sounded great and I accepted an in person interview for Thursday. Colby and I then decided to go to campus and get his books and look around campus to get a feel for what it was like a little more than just driving by.  We are now officially MOUNTAIN LIONS, Black and Gold are our colors! It is going to be really fun. The campus is beautiful, very green and they really take care of all their facilities (at least the ones we saw). It was a fun adventure. 

I did have 2 job interviews this last week! Good news right! They went really well and I really liked both places a lot. One was at a real estate office- which I have never done- he needed someone quickly but he told me that he was worried about hiring me because he didn't want me to take the job and then go looking from full time work and the job he was offering was only part time with no ideas if or when it could become full time. It was also about 30 minutes away from where I live! I couldn't let him down so I was completely honest and I turned it down because I knew that I would be really strapped with money so I most definitely would be looking for a position that was full time. The other job interview was at a Physical Therapy office. I really love the idea of working there. It is almost exactly what I am interested in. It follows along with my degree pretty close and it also includes the office work that I really love. This would be a perfect job in my opinion but it also depends on whether they think I am the perfect fit. I will just keep hoping and praying for that. I really enjoyed the interview as well. The therapist that interviewed me was so nice and I could really see myself getting along with her. 

Colby had his Orientation on the 5th for the Graduate Program and so he was gone for a good portion of the evening. He had such a good time meeting the professors and also some of his classmates. He is now getting very anxious for school and to get into the swing of things.  That evening I was tired of sitting home alone and worrying about the interviews so I decided to take Percy for a walk. He was so excited to get outside too since he is stuck inside most of the day. We went outside and saw that there was little league baseball going on in the field outside my apartment so we walked over and sat in the grass and watched for a little bit. I wonder if anyone looked at me as a creeper. I promise I am not a creeper, I just love sports and being outside. Needless to say I didn't stay long. We walked around the rest of the park and then as usual Percy started biting his leash and pulling me home. This is his way of saying "OK I am done, lets go home". 

We have been randomly getting out of the house to adventure around town and see what it has to offer!! This has been really fun for me but for Colby, he is not so fond of the traffic! It is crazy here all the time, there is no such thing as rush hour here, it is rush hour all the time. That is going to take some getting used to. A trip to the grocery store now takes at least a half an hour when in Logan we could be down and back in 15 min tops. Back to the adventures in town, we have 4 major shopping areas around town, the only thing is they all have basically the same stores! They are all within about 5 miles in every direction from where we live. It is shopping mecca here. I like it except for the part where shopping costs money and money comes from jobs which I don't have yet! We have seen all of these shopping meccas that include things like Target, Home Goods, Ross, Hobby Lobby, Best Buy, and a billion others. But, we have not seen a shopping mall with clothing stores. I thought this was incredibly weird so I took it upon myself to find a mall or something. Guess What, I found one. It is along the road where I was traveling to the LDS Employment center. So during Colby's orientation he was having a small talk conversation with someone and they said oh that mall is the run down one. It didn't look run down to me and it was near the Olympic Training Center so I thought for sure it was nicer than it looked from the outside (mind you it looked like the Logan mall on the outside). I have yet to go inside but we traveled the other direction to the mall this girl said was the better one and low and behold it was huge!! It had all sorts of stores, including Colby's favorites- H&M and Burlington. Life could not be any better for him. We walked around for what seemed like forever. There is one difference between our malls and Utah malls. A store called "All Things Catholic" I thought it was really interesting so I took a picture. I am so used to having Deseret Book that this caught me off guard. We went in and looked at some of the statues that they have. This was a very interesting reality that we are not in Utah anymore folks. 

The next milestone is that we finally emptied 95% of the boxes!! there is still a little bit more to do but I have put it off because I just didn't know where things are going to go!! We still have to put back up all of our pictures which is a feat in and of itself but that will be done soon. I also have a coffee table to finish. We have projects but our apartment is turning out to be very nice. We are finally feeling like we are settled in. The maintenance guy that lives upstairs is such a cool guy. He is going to come and paint an accent wall in our front room since it needs to be repainted after the patch work he had to come and do. He is our only friend in the complex. Except for the 11 year old boy that lives next door. He comes to visit often, he really needs attention. He came over and told me that his mom was too shy to come and talk to me but that she wanted to be my friend? Weird, considering I had already gone over and introduced myself to her? I figure that if she is too shy to come and talk to me, after I had already talked to her, then I am not convinced that she really wants to be friends. I still say hello but I don't think that it will ever become a hang out friendship or anything. 

Colby had his first day of school today!! He was so excited to begin he made this sign for me to take a first day picture like when we were in elementary!! It was so cute, so here it is...

A couple of funny things that happened but I don't know how they fit in the mix of the blog:

First, When we first moved in Colby got an awesome scare by my brother in law. I told Colby that the refrigerator didn't smell good and he should go check it out so he did. This is what he opened up to find.......

My Brother-in-law Charlton saying RAAAAAARRRR!!!!! It was the best house joke ever!! Thanks Charlton. 

Second, We saw a license plate from Arkansas and I asked Colby why they say it without the "S" at the end and his response was obvious, that the "S" is silent. My response was that if the "S" was silent then why isn't it silent in Kansas? They are the same words and there is not a vowel or anything else to stop it from being an "S". We laughed and then I said if the "S" is always silent then it would be "ilent", get it no "S" in silent. I thought I was pretty funny. I don't have funny things to say all that often but we laughed for a really long time!! 

Third, We were driving in a car and talking about all our friends at Aggie Village and doing some reminiscing and he asked me if Tien was Korean or something and I said no and I was trying to spit the word out and Colby jumped in and said, "Oh she is VietMaNese, I knew that" I said yes since that is what I was about to say. I then asked him to say it again because I thought I heard the "M" and "N" mixed up. He said it again the same way "VietMaNese". I told him that it was Vietnamese, the N comes first. He laughed and said that he has always said it that way and that the real way to say it sounds wrong. It was pretty funny. I love you honey!! 

We will be posting every week until we forget so.... Until next time!