September 2003 Archives

Seth in his Blessing outfit

Saris Reunion View more pictures from Seths blessing day View more pictures from the Saris Reunion

09-21-2003

These last few weeks have been filled with some great events. The first weekend of September was the Saris family reunion. That's my mother's family. We spent the weekend doing things in town so that more of the family could join in. We watched the movie SeaBiscuit on Friday night after having banana splits at my Aunt Wendy's house. Saturday we went up to the Brighton ski resort and had a picnic lunch and hiked around a little nature preserve area. That night we had a catered BBQ dinner at my parent's house. We also got out my Dad's telescope to take a look at Mars while it is so close to earth. It was pretty amazing to actually see the polar icecap of a distant planet!

Sunday the 7th was Seth's Blessing. James gave him a wonderful blessing to start his life with. He will be a great influence for good in his life and in the Church if he chooses to allow these blessings to manifest themselves. We had many Family members and friends come and celebrate with us at a potluck lunch after the meeting. Seth was the darling of the day! He was so cute in his little white outfit and was pretty good about having people pass him around. We are grateful for the gospel and the priesthood that allows us to give blessings with the power of God.

We have been able to get back to work on the house now that Seth has settled down into a schedule. James and John put up what drywall we had left over from the office in the other corner basement room, we will have to buy some more drywall when money isn't so tight and finish it up. I have been working on painting our upstairs hallway. There is still a little more to do on it, but it is well underway. James was able to borrow a chainsaw and chop up the two trees that we had cut down in our back yard into more manageable pieces so we can haul them away. I also went to my sister's house and helped her paint her dining room this week. It seems that working on someone else's house is more enjoyable than working on my own. I was glad to help her though and we had a good time doing it.

This week James finally found a job. He will be working for a company in Provo as a Perl programmer. I think this job will definitely be something temporary for him. The owner seems to be kind of underhanded. When he went into the first interview the person doing the hiring told him that the job paid 20.00 an hour, but at the second interview the president of the company told him that it was only supposed to be 15.00 an hour and then made a "compromise" with James for 17.50 an hour. James thinks the guy knew that he needed the job and took advantage of his desperation. The working conditions are not ideal either, James will be wedged in between the two programmers that are currently working there and they are all in a cubicle environment with a loud call center on the other side of a 7' tall makeshift wall. So while he has no other choice than to take the job, he will continue to look for something that is more to his liking.

Seth is getting so big. He will have his two month check-up sometime this week and will get some of his immunization shots at that time. I think that he had a growth spurt last week because I had to loosen the straps on his carseat two times that week in order to get him in it. He has started to wear 0-3 months clothes instead of the tiny preemie ones. He also smiles at us now. He's not very consistent yet, but two nights ago I was tickling him while I was changing his diaper and he broke out in a huge grin. It's so fun that he is starting to be more aware of his surroundings. He has also cut down his feeding time to 20 mins or less which is a big relief for me. He is looking more and more like his Daddy as he gets bigger. We will have to start calling him Mini-James. We can't believe how fast he is growing and developing.

Well that's it for this installment. Thank you to everyone for your prayers and thoughts as we have been struggling with James being unemployed. I know that Heavenly Father heard all of our prayers and has blessed us at this time.

Love, Miekka and James