First days

Oh my gosh this last couple of days have been very very busy. It started on Monday when we went crabbing off the pier in Bellingham with all our friends. Here is the list of people that we had down on the pier. David W, Jordan, Ken, Marty, Stephani, Erich, Summer, Jay, Lily, David S, Michelle S, Melanie, Darren and myself Michelle W. We had a great time spending all day together trying to catch us some crab. I had only planned on staying there until maybe 2 or so. But every time we pulled up the nets I thought well lets try it one more time. Then one more time after one more time before I knew it, it was 4:00pm. We caught a total of four keepers, but not enough to feed us dinner. So David W decided that we should go to The Waterfront for some fish & beer. The Waterfront is a bar and of course minors are not allowed in the bar so we eat outside on the picnic tables. Since we eat outside there was to be no beer….sorry guys. I think the good conversation made up for the lack of beer. I have posted the picture of us outside the restaurant.

Melanie, Ken’s Aunt and her boyfriend Darren came back to the house after dinner to spend a little more time with Ken before they had to leave home. It was a wonderful visit with them. It sounds like their trip to Seattle with Ken was a success. Both Melanie and Darren are very warm and caring people.

Tuesday was a day of adventure for the Willoughby family. The kids had their first day of school and I started my first day at my new job at Regence Medical Insurance. Here is a break down of our days.

Jordan: Had a good day, her desk is next to her buddy Tala. They had a new PE teacher this year and it is a boy teacher. She says he seems like a nice teacher, but he is very young. She says he looks 12 lol. She knows that is my expression when I see a teacher that looks younger then me. It was cute to hear her say it.

Ken: Had a good first day as well. He said he enjoyed the freedom that he got in the classroom. Such as the teachers asking the students their opinions on the subject, as well as eating or drinking in class. He said he wasn’t able to do those things in Vietnam. Another thing he enjoyed was switching classes every period. In Vietnam he said that the students stayed in the classroom and the teachers would switch classes. He did however come home very hungry. He didn’t eat lunch in school because he had early lunch and he wasn’t hungry at that time.

He and David meet with the school counselor to discuss more on if Ken can graduate at the end of the year. It is looking on the bright side that he will be able to get his diploma. He has some work cut out for him between now and then. One of them is passing the WASL in the spring. This of you not from Washington the WASL is Washington State assessment test that every student must pass in order to graduate. Another thing he must do is some sort of big project that is due at the end of the year. He is going to speak to his counselor about that as well. In the meant time we have him in all the classes he will need toward a diploma. We are just waiting to hear if he will get credit for the English classes he did in Vietnam. I will keep you posted on that as time goes on.

On Ken’s second day at school a fellow Vietnamese student asked Ken if he was Vietnamese. He then showed him where he and his friend hung out at the school. I am hoping this is a new link for Ken to make some new friends.

Michelle: I too am in school, Regency University. For the next 13 weeks I will be in a classroom along with 14 other new hires at Regency. They take the training at Regence very serious. They want their employees to be well prepared before they put them on the phones. I work for the Boeing division. The goal is to have enough people in customer service so that no one has to wait on hold. Regence is doing their best to change Medical Insurance. I am very impressed with all that they are trying to do to make this change. The trainers are doing their best to make sometimes a boring situation to not be boring. The last couple of days have been good.

It is only day two at my new job and I am trying to work out a schedule for how I am going to work things out at home. I get home an hour later then I did when I worked at Mustang. I need to get organized with what to do for dinner and making sure homework gets done. I am sure this will all work out soon. In the mean time please understand that I won’t be blogging every day. I will try my best to keep everyone caught up on stuff.