It's In The Bag

My title is in reference to the fact that I am off work for the next 7 days. The picture above is Riley after the Santa Parade last year... it expresses nicely how I feel at the moment. I return to work the day after Christmas. As I said before, my co-workers are going to be gone during that time and they will not return until after New Years Day... when the new quarter begins.

Since this was my last day with them until after the new year, I came up with some way to celebrate our successes together in the past and in the future. You ask, "How did you do that Danna?" Well, after Christmas cookies to the max and all measure of holiday glee, I decided to focus on what we would do at New Years. I bought at Fred Meyers (a local store like Target only with a grocery store in it) last night some flute glasses for $2.00 each and some Sparkling Cider. I sent an Outlook meeting request to each of them for 4 o'clock, a half hour before people went home. At 4 pm I poured the cider in the glasses, explained that I felt we should take a moment and reflect on the year past and all the accomplishments we had during the year. I wrote out a "toast" to read out loud. I also told them in the toast that they were to keep their glass so that we would toast to more accomplishments in the future year. We "clicked" our glasses and drank our juice while we talked about our adventures last summer at the summer fairs and an event that we put on for the community in September. I am very fortunate to work with such great co-workers. They are very talented and will go far.

One of the people that I am writing about is Phillip. He is going to get married in June. One morning he came in to work and put before a beautiful and expensive diamond ring. Our eyes almost popped out because we didn't even realize that he was thinking of asking the "big" question. I think the element of surprise is something that Phillip rather enjoys using on people. He was very creative himself and used a puzzle to ask her to marry him. He tells us stories about how all his weekends are about planning the wedding. :-)

I have mentioned Lindsey before in my blog. She just obtained the position of Outreach Specialist and is very enthusiastic about her job. She is a pleasure to be around and work with everyday. She's going to San Fransisco to be with her mom and dad for Christmas. They moved down there a year or so ago and her brother is away at college, so she is on her own other than a boyfriend and us. I hope she thinks of us as family.

Phillip is now a director but above him is Bill. He was someone that I had been told would be the hardest person to work with and would hate it etc. I didn't know what to think but it turned out that Bill is really a nice guy. He is confident in his ideas and the changes he makes... and that makes people nervous. He is a great dad and loves to joke around and kid.

We also have student workers that work with us. We will be hiring when we get back a new person to fill Lindsey's old job. So there are more changes ahead but we look forward to in 2008.

Renee worked with us until last August. She went back to her old position doing what we do for Central Washington University. Today I am meeting her for "coffee" before she heads over the pass to Ellensburg, where Central WA University is located. She is going there for holiday fun with her co-workers. I am so excited that she will be having a baby this May. I will have much to write about then.

Check out my idea of the funniest YouTube video below. All you moms will love it. And don't forget to vote on the poll too...

Have a wonderful Wednesday!