The Woods Family Website

One of my favorite things to do is to go out dancing with Matt and Shelly! We have a blast. We went dancin’ at the Garden. Josh finally got to come with us! We dance around to Britney Spears and have a freaking awesome time and a wonderful workout.

Josh came home for the best American Holiday! We had friends and family over and celebrated 4th of July in Ames! We had a blast.
Jeff and Melissa
Noah and Denise
Justin and Candice

Well I know I haven’t updated in quite some time, and I certainly haven’t put any pictures of Isaac’s birthday up…   Here’s an attempt to update everyone on what has been going on.

The summer went really fast.  Living in Des Moines has been a great experience, but a huge burden in it’s own right.  There is so much to do here, and so many people to spend time with that juggling our nights and weekends has been a challenge.  This summer we really tried to see everyone and do all of those things that you HAVE to do each summer.  We really enjoyed hanging out with everyone and having our friends (Jeff and Melissa) move back has been awesome.

From a housing perspective, we lived with my parents all summer long.  A couple of weeks ago, I talked to our Realtor and discussed the likelihood of our house selling.  The situation in Fort Dodge looked grim so I did some research and learned we could rent our house even though we got an FHA loan.  So, with the plan to rent in mind, and the understanding that we’d need a few months to get the house ready to rent, I leased an apartment for 6 months.

We have moved.  We’re living in an apartment on Park Ave, west of Fluer drive.  We’ve got everything but the back room and garage cleared out from our house in FD.  Once we get those things and the storage unit emptied, we’re ready to go.  The last piece of the puzzle is to get things situated in the new apartment, and start living with the space we’ve got.

On that note, last night we got an offer for the house.  Great timing right?  Well, it’s not all peaches and cream… what they offered would leave us with a short sale (meaning we’d lose money).  Gotta love the economy.  We buy a nice house in a great neighborhood in FD, live there for 5 years, pay our mortgage every month, and end up having to pay someone to take it…  The upside is we’ll be able to get out of the monthly payments and can eventually buy the house.  The downside is the short sale will require we use the little money we’ve saved up for a down payment.

Considering all of that, I’m very thankful we’re doing as well as we are.  Not everyone is fairing as well as we are in this current crisis.  I know we’re in God’s hands with this one, and I trust he’ll lead us in the right direction when the time is right.

Well, Isaac had his 2 year birthday party.  It was really nice seeing everyone and I know Isaac had a blast.  The theme was Elmo, Isacc’s favorite.  The kids spent most of the time playing outside.  Isaac had a pinata that all of the kids enjoyed.  He received many nice gifts.  Thank you to everyone who came.

I’ll post pictures as soon as I get them off of my camera.

I made ribs for the family last weekend.  It was quite the experience.  I started off with applying a rub on Saturday and letting them sit over night.  I started smoking the ribs on Sunday just after noon.  This was by far the most difficult part of the whole process.  I couldn’t seem to get the right mixture of heat and wood to keep it smoking the whole time.  After 4 hours or so, I turned up the heat and started basting and cooking.  Most of my time at Hickory Park in college was spent working on the grill so I was right at home.  By the time it was all done, I had ribs that were probably a 3 or 4 on a 10 point scale.  I have a lot of work to do to get where I want to be with these.  My goal is to be able to make ribs for tailgate parties, but I think I need a bit more practice first.

So I started my job this week.  Candice had a “Go Live” this week which means she is out of town the entire week. Had I been thinking ahead, I would have taken this week off.  Taking care of the kids while I’m adjusting is more stress than I’d planned for.  We’re really getting a taste of what the other person went through the past 4 months.  She’s away from the family, and I’m without her help.  Wow… I really appreciate what all she’s been through now that I’ve had to do it.

As far as work goes, well it’s still too early to tell.  So far I love my new job.  The atmosphere is great, people are excited to be here and actually strive for excellence.  What a huge change from my last employer.  My boss is a great guy and the other people I work with seem like we’re all aiming at the same goals.  I’ve already started taking on some tasks and have plans for bigger work down the road.  I think this is going to be a fantastic experience for me.  At the very least, it gets me close to my family and support network.

I will post again in a few more weeks and let you all know how things are going.

I had my exit interview scheduled with FDAH at 2:30 PM on Thursday.  At the absolute last minute (they asked me to stay until 3:15 PM so they could write it up) they made me a counter-offer.  I was extremely flattered.  It turns out they had been working on it all week and the request went all the way up the ladder (the president of the company had to give it a “thumbs up”).  Unfortunately, the offer they presented was not enough for me to stay.  Basically, I had to quit… again…  When it was all over, I met some people at Sports Page after work and got to say my farewells.  I feel so much better now that I’m done. J

I accepted an offer with Almaco on Tuesday.  I will give my notice at Fort Dodge in few days.  I will leave FDAH on May 15^th and start on May 19^th.  That doesn’t leave much time for me, but it’s wise financially.  We’ve talked to the realtor and will have a sign in our yard next Monday.  Now it’s time to start shopping for houses in Des Moines!

Last week I got a call from Josh Smith at Manpower and he scheduled an interview for me with a company called Almaco.  They are a manufacturing company that makes agriculture equipment for research.  The market is good and they are looking for someone to help drive continuous improvement in the facility and increase their capacity.  I drove down their plant (in Nevada) on Monday the 7^th to interview.  Things went well and on Tuesday they asked for my references.  So it sounds pretty promising.  As far as my interest, I really like this opportunity.  The company is basically a job shop and it will require me to stretch my LeanSigma muscles a little.  The biggest excitement is that this company isn’t nearly as regulated as my previous employer.  Having the ability to walk out to the production floor and immediately implement change is very nice.

I’ll keep you all updated as things progress.

Wow… words can’t describe how awesome this weekend was.  I didn’t realize how much I missed being together as a family (Candice, me, and the kids).  I mean, I feel lonely pretty often without them with me, but I had so much fun I didn’t want the time to pass.  We met up in Ames on Friday night because Cameron (Candice’s youngest brother) was in town to see Marcus.  We got a chance to chit-chat and enjoy Cameron’s company before we headed back up to Fort Dodge.  That night was pretty tame; we put the kids to bed and called it a night.  The next day was absolutely gorgeous.  The sun was shining and there was a nice breeze.  We got the kids dressed early that morning and spent as much time outside as humanly possible.  I got a chance to clean up my car and the boys played outside all afternoon.  Around 5 PM, John brought over his two nephews and his niece to play.  The kids were a lot of fun to have around.  I got a feeling of what it’d be like to have a large family.  Candice did too, and mentioned that we should consider having 5 kids… yeah right!  We grilled out, had a few beverages, and let the kids play until it got late.  John had to drag the kids out… they wanted to stay the night.  Sunday was pretty lazy.  Candice helped me with the laundry and we vegged for most of the morning.  In the afternoon they packed up and headed out.  It was painful to see them go, but hopefully we won’t be doing the long distance thing for much longer.