Friday - Friday - Friday

Friday was great!!!!! James woke up in the morning, refreshed and ready to go. He went down to the kitchen, made his cup of coffee and came to talk to me about all of the jobs he was going to apply for that day. I don't want to say too much about the jobs until one works out, but for now let me just say that we are surrounded by the best friends, family and co-workers ever. We had many people offering help to us and putting us in touch with other people that my have some leads. It's amazing hown an ironed a shirt and pair of slacks can increase confidence and self worth. Friday proved to be a very good day and brought with it 3 strong leads for jobs that James is qualified for and would do a great job with. The best part is, that these aren't just jobs....they are careers. There is a positive outlook for the future and we are excited that this unfortunate turn of events has resulted in James being able to make a better career move. More to come, hopefully good news.

Thursday

Thursday brought the depression. I left for work in the morning (which is usually after James) while James was getting his game plan for the day. I talked to him throughout the day and it didn't appear that he was having much luck with the tasks on his list. The list started with job hunting on the Internet. This is where the list was held up. In looking at the jobs that were posted, James became depressed. He will be 35 in October this year and he was dealing with the fact that he was having to start over....again. This was when the realization came for him. This was not just a vacation, he was unemployed. This again brought emotions onto both of us. James is never depressed and is very rarely in a bad mood. How do I motivate him without having him feel like I am on his case to get a job. It was a quiet night, but I decided to give James his space for the day. Friday should be better.

Wednesday

While the week started out relatively well with the normal stuff, I am finding myself very behind at work. Just when I feel like I am getting ahead, I get buried again. I have worked from home every night this week and again in the mornings before leaving the house to put in another 8 hours actually in the office. I am very fortunate for having a very good boss that allows me a little flexibility with my work (because he knows that I work on average 50 hours a week). He has given me a laptop and Blackberry, both for work use that I find myself using ALL OF THE TIME....I admit, I have become a member of the crackberry club. I am addicted and I love it. While I feel like I have too much to do, James has been feeling like he doesn't have enough to do. He worked (more to come) for a company called Ferguson Ent. They sell the in-ground plumbing and irrigation supplies to contractors for commercial and residential building. Well, obviously things have changed in that industry and his company has not been billing any jobs. About 3 months ago they laid off 3 people. We were worried, but they reassured us that they cut deep so that they wouldn't have to lay more off again later. We decided to go ahead and get the remaining credits that James needed to renew his teaching certificate for another 5 years just in case. While has not taught since receiving it (due to the significant difference in salaries between the job he had and the teachers salary) we have made sure that he would always have that option to fall back on if needed. Two weeks ago, James was called into his boss's office and was given a raise. This brought with it, more than the money a sense of calmness that things must be picking up in the industry for them to hand out raises. And not only that, it reaffirmed that they wanted to keep James on the team and valued his hard work. Wednesday brought with it a call that I was not expecting. James called and told me that he had bad, bad news. I'm thinking that he's gotten another speeding ticket, lost the keys to the car (again), or lost his wallet. I was not prepared for him to tell me that he had been laid off. We knew it was possible with the economy the way it was, but after receiving the raise were feeling better about our chances of avoiding it. That is when I was hit with so many different emotions. Frustration, anxiety, stress, regret, thankfulness, anger, angst, remorse, and more. Frustration and anger that his company would give us the false sense of security in his job by giving him a raise. Anger that I fractured my ankle this year, the year that I changed my health plan to a low premium, high deductible plan because I never got sick and never went to the doctor. Anxiety of what was to come. Regret that we had purchased new vehicles (new to us) and a motorcycle in the last year and a half. Regret that we had just used money from savings to go to Australia this year. Thankfulness that we were able to go on the trip this year, because now next year's not looking so good. Thankfulness that I still have a job and that we kept James's teaching credentials up to date. Thankfulness that he was laid off on Wed. and not Thurs. because that is when the workers were coming in to pull up our carpet in a few rooms and lay more hardwood. Remorse for the man who was also laid off that is 55 years old and has worked for the company for 22 years. Stress and pressure of not letting my husband see my upset or worried so that it didn't add more pressure and stress on him. The sad thing is that with all of the emotions that I was feeling, I know that my husbands were twice as intense as mine.

Bam Jam Boise 2008

This weekend brought with it the first annual Bam Jam Boise 3 0n 3 Basketball Tournament. This is a spin off of the Hoop Fest that takes place in Spokane, WA and is a fund raiser for the Boys and Girls Club Of Ada County, Big Brothers Big Sisters Of Southwest Idaho, The Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, Idaho Select Basketball. They shut down a couple of streets in BoDo (Downtown Boise) both Friday night and all day Saturday for the event. The teams varied form kids under 12, women, co-ed, men under 6' ft. and then three other men's brackets. They had elite, competitive and recreational.

James asked three of his friends from Pocatello if they wanted to come over and play in the competitive league. After a disappointing loss on Friday night, they had to come back on Saturday and play 5 games in 6 1/2 hours. The games were 25 minutes long with only 1 time out per team. Our team consisted of Brandon Pieper, Chris Pieper and Ryan Zweigert. They started at 9:00 am and won each game on their way back until 3:00. It was their 3:00 game that was their second loss, leaving them to take third (out of 20 teams) in their bracket. At 2:00, they held a dunk competition. One of our players, Ryan wanted to enter, but they had a game at 2. As soon as the game was over, they headed down to see if he could still enter the contest. They begrudgingly let him enter telling him that he had better show some good dunks. They had already completed one round of dunks but still let him take take two dunks. I was still three blocks down as I was volunteering as a score keeper for another team and I could hear the crowd roar. I was so surprised to find out that they were cheering for Ryan as he won the contest at only 6'0" tall. They were so exhausted for their 3:00 game that I don't think they could have played another one if they had won. I was so excited to see how well they all did and especially to see Ryan win the dunk contest. Here are a few pictures from the event. Our Offense..... Ryan Zweigert & Chris Pieper Our Defense..... James Lambert & Brandon Pieper Our Slam Dunk Champion (With the windmill dunk)

Catch Up

Well, I have a little catching up to do, because a lot has happened in the last week. I guess first I should start by letting you know that I took last week off of work (for the most part, I worked a little from home in the mornings) to babysit my nieces while my older sister Janelle went to Oregon. It was definitely an experience and while we had a good time, I learned that I will never have more kids than I have adults to take care of them. So unless I get another husband, we will be having at most two kids! (No mom, I'm not pregnant, just looking into the future).

Anyway, the first night they were here, I thought it would be fun to take them to the Movie In the Park here in Meridian. I had heard about it before but thought we'd check it out. Cableone inflates this large screen and plays a movie in one of the parks every Friday night. The movie that is played changes but is always a kid / family friendly movie. Here are some pics of the event.

The night was starting out to be a good night. The girls were excited for the show and were dancing with Uncle James listening to the music they were playing. There were probably 100 kids running around this park waiting for dusk to come so the movie would start. The park had a play area, so while we were waiting my niece Kristen (pictured in the center above) and her friend Alexia (on her right in the picture above) decided to go play on the toys. It wasn't 15 minutes later and they came running back to us crying in hysterics. It took 5 minutes to even calm Kristen down enough that we could find out what was going on. What we were told blew my mind away. They told us that one of the teenage boys came up and asked them if they "wanted to touch his baby maker".... I just about died.....I took one look at my husband and he knew what was coming next. I said "you need to go handle that" and before I could even finish my sentence he was walking over with Alexia to have her point the kid out. We were thinking this "teenage boy" was going to be about 16 or 17 and just being dumb. We soon found out that this kid was 13 years old!!!

What in the hell is happening in this world that a 13 year old would approach a couple of 9 year olds and ask them a question like that. My husband was successful in getting the boys attention (I think he may have scared the SH*T out of him) and after listening to him deny it, let the police officer that was patrolling know what had occurred. The rest of the night was filled with Kristen clinging to me as if she was terrified for her life. As angry as I was, the boy should have been terrified for his....

my name is abbey

Well hello everybody looking at this posting right now. You are looking at the coolest thing in the world>

yep that's me Abbeygail Christine Armstrong

I am one of the neice's of jolie and james lambert.

I am 11 years(and 3 quarters)now i am going to tell you a little bit a bought myself.

1.favorite sports

basketball

soccer

tumbling

football

flagfootball

2.favorite animals.

dogs

horses

cats

3.favorite colors

pink

green

blue

purpel

4.favorite star

emaily osmen

5.favorit desighners.

american eagel

aeropostle

abercromby and fitch

and that is all my thing i like and today (8/1/08) my aunt jolie got me some chalk that looks 3 d it is awsome!!!!!!well that is all i have to tell you and remeber me by the pic that I put up!!!!!!!!!!!!bye