How many Spences....

How many Spences can you fit in a Smart to-go car?

Or how green is too green for a car color?

Never a dull moment with the Spence Ohana and our Hertz cars. :)

Stephen just celebrated his 3rd year anniversary with managing for Hertz! It's been a great ride, no pun intended!

Smile!

A friend on my Facebook shared this on his profile this morning. It made me smile and realize that our society focuses so much on the negative and it's hard not to get caught up in all that negativity...I know I do at times. So I just had to share this and pass on the message.

Psalm 118:24 (New American Standard Bible)
This is the day which the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

We had a pretty mellow weekend. It rained a ton on Saturday. Which led to a humid Sunday. But that's okay, it good for my flowers and grass. Madeline had her first schoolmates birthday party to attend on Saturday evening. It was at the Inflatable Party Place in San Marcos. One of those warehouses with those huge jumpy things to jump and bounce on. When we arrived we found out Madeline was the only classmate that showed up, all the others that had rsvp'd got sick and didn't want to come out in the rain. Madeline and James had fun though playing with the birthday boy and all his cousins.

Stephen has been working a lot of hours. They are back on mandatory 6 day work weeks which = hardly any family time. Hopefully that won't last for much longer. His boss also put a restriction on the company cars the managers can take home, only compacts until they get their NPS (customer service) score back up. I was sort of excited because that means Stephen would maybe bring home that Honda Fit or VW Beetle that I've been wanting to test drive (Stephen thinks a lot of the compact cars are too girly). Anyhow, the good news is they recently made their quarterly bonus which means Stephen will have the money to buy that HD flat screen TV after Thanksgiving.

We're looking forward to tonight's Monday Night Football game - Brett and our Vikes take on the Packers! Should be a great game!

Lets be positive here...

Earlier this year Stephen along with the other managers at Hertz took a pay cut and they took away quarterly bonuses. I guess due to the economy, it was a bummer but at least he still had a job! Well we just found out they re-instated their normal pay and bonuses. So that was great news!

Do you notice how people always take the time to complain, especially if they've received poor service (which in case they should complain), yet rarely do people take the time to leave a comment of good recognition or props? Well yesterday Stephen's boss forwarded him an email from a customer that left him a great comment about his service. Stephen remembers the guy, his flight was delayed and Stephen stayed passed 1am (when they're officially supposed to close) to wait on this customer and rent him his car. The guy was super thankful and even told Stephen that he was going to submit a good comment about him. Yay for the customer for taking the time and following through with that.


Lots of house projects going on while still unpacking. We bought hardware for our kitchen cabinets. I have so many (28 cabinets! and 9 drawers) that I always get confused when trying to open them and which side to grab.


So while Stephen was at work last night and the kiddos were sleeping I installed all the hardware on the bottom half cabinets. I love how it makes the kitchen look more finished!

Still on our list:

• repaint a section of James bedroom wall, they had to cut out a hole to get to our master bath to fill it with foam to prevent it from making creaking sounds. Unpack and decorate his room too.
• paint the pink border on Madeline's bedroom walls. And apply the floral and butterfly stencils.
• finish painting the remainder of the garage walls. We got 2 cans of gray colored "oops" paint from Home Depot for $5 each. It makes the interior of the garage look cleaner and finished.
• paint the children's loft area. Stephen wants to hang all of our Red Sox and Viking paraphernalia in there. Make it our sports themed area.
  

Want to try and accomplish this all by this weekend, we shall see!

Day 13...San Marcos River

So today was the first day off Stephen had after working 12 straight days (10-12 hour shifts). Thank you everyone who has been praying for him on this promotion at work and checking in for updates. His boss has had several meetings with him, complimenting him on his efforts and hard work, implying that he's really been proving himself...and he even just gave Stephen the new duty of taking over the CSR (Counter Service Rep) Dept. This is a good sign as ultimately the Level 2 Manager position Stephen is gunning for oversees this dept. He thinks this is the last straw his boss needs to see if he can handle this. Stephen's very confident, focused and dedicated right now. He has a really good feeling that he could get this promotion. Although last night he got wind from a visiting San Antonio manager that his brother who is a Level 2 in Louisiana was approached about this position in Austin (we think by Stephen's boss' boss). That was a downer to hear, as this guy has more experience than Stephen. But Stephen's boss did say that he was looking to fill this position from within the location and it would be between Stephen and 2 other level 1 managers. So keep PRAYING. Pray for God to continue giving Stephen the endurance he needs to get through this proving time. Pray that God helps Stephen say the right things to his boss (he has a meeting with him tomorrow, go figure on his day off).

So late this afternoon we decided to venture out and check out the San Marcos River (about 15 minutes South from our house). After all it was 4 in the afternoon and in the 90's outside! We found a great recreational park right on the river. It was so much fun! About a mile up from where we were there's a Tube Rental place that you can get tubes at, float down river for 1-1.5 hours, and then be bused back to your car all for $7! We want to try it next time we have visitors...who wants to go!?

James checking out the rocks in the park.


Daddy and Maddy swimming in the river!


They had small cascading waterfalls here where people in tubes and kayaks went down, even swimmers!


My beautiful Ohana. :-) (P.S. Stephen made me promise to crop his pepperoni nipple out of this picture LOL!)


Madeline dipping her toes!


Back in the water again...isn't my husband absolutely gorgeous!?


Me and my boy...a stranger offered to take the photo.


James loves being thrown up in the air (notice the tubers in the water passing by).


After the river we got an appetizer at SaltGrass. Kids on top the Ford Edge (Stephen's been bringing this car home a lot, I really like it - sorry I didn't get a better shot of the car).

And if I didn't already post enough photos on this post...I just got my haircut again!

Here's the before (excuse how awful I look with no makeup and desperately needing my eyebrows waxed!)


And this is after! :-) Got about 3 inches cut off the back with an a-line cut to the front with longer layers. How does it look?