D&D Update (Sept 2009)

D&D Update -- Projects, Promotions and Culinary Competitions

Wed, Sep 9, 2009, 11:44 AM

Hey All,

I think we're due for an update. The longer I put an email like this off, the more likely I am to get the following threat from Mom: "You know honey, if you don't send an email to the family about Danielle's promotion soon, then I'm going to have no choice but to send it myself." 

Danielle was recently promoted at her work. She is now the Assistant Director of Huntington Learning Center. With this promotion she once again has the coolest title in the family, and manages more people than I do -- which means that whenever I feel the need to be more secure in my role as "Masculine Provider-in-Chief" I have to challenge her to an arm-wrestle. I always win. :) I'm proud of her for being such a great employee. Her job is going well, and while now she doesn't get to teach unless she chooses to, she is enjoying the new position. My job is also going well and keeping me very busy. I'm managing about 25 new Visitors' Center Kiosk projects, and I'm enjoying my responsibilities. We feel unbelievably blessed to have secured such great jobs in a down economy.

We're steadily chipping away at the projects surrounding our new home. We finished our crawl-space trap-door and pantry project, and recently knocked out a closet wall and refinished our hardwood floors (with the help of Grayson and Danielle's brother Jake). I'll try to attach pictures. We're starting to work on the yard now, and spent labor day planting 20 small shrubs along one of our back fences.

A couple weeks ago we staged a cooking competition at Danielle's parents house called 'Chopped.' (There's a show on the food-network with the same name and game.) Three cooks competed against each other in each category (Appetizer, Entree, and Dessert). The cooks were not told the 'secret ingredients' they needed to incorporate into their dish until right before, and then each had 30 minutes to finish their dish and have it ready for the judges (family members) who judged the meals on taste, creativity and presentation. I'll attach some pics of this as well. I was so impressed with everyone's creativity! The secret ingredients for the appetizers were: Wheat Thins, tomatoes and eggs -- for the Entree they were: biscuits, yogurt and chicken breasts and for dessert the ingredients were: peaches, Graham Crackers and orange juice concentrate. I competed for the dessert and Danielle for the appetizer -- neither of us won, but I thought every dish was delicious! 

The neighbor who lived right next door to Danielle's parents died a couple weeks ago of some chronic health problems. His wife was nice enough to offer for us to look through his closet to see if there were any clothes that we might like. I inherited two almost new, full suits that fit perfectly. We were so grateful for her generosity -- I wear a suit and tie 6 out of 7 days a week and was in dire need of new suits but couldn't afford to buy them. 

In other news, we would like to solicit your faith and prayers on our behalf. It turns out, after 27 years of being on this earth, we feel that we have so much to offer this world, in terms of "good-looks, humor, athletic ability and humble wisdom" that we feel bad keeping it all to ourselves -- in short, we'd like to create little Derek's and Danielle's to grace future generations as we have this one. However, things haven't happened as quickly as we had hoped they would and we'd very much appreciate any prayers that you might send upwards in our behalf. 

Thanks everyone! We hope all is well for you. :) 

Love,

D&D&R 

P.S. To those who we've borrowed tools from: We very much appreciate the Chop Saw, Shop Vac and Nail Gun and can return them whenever you need them -- We promise to do it soon!

PPS (actually was an additional email days later but ...)

So, I used to play the guitar and the piano – usually in an attempt to get girls (it worked out well for me). As a side effect of all the guitar-playing, I wrote and recorded a few songs years ago, which I discovered this morning are now available on iTunes.

Since the money from downloads apparently comes to me, please feel free to download my songs to your heart’s content. :) However, I desire to make it known that I am not a singer, so I’d appreciate it if you’d approach my music from a Paula Abdul perspective and not from Simon Cowell’s point of view. :)

Anyway…FYI! You can find it by just typing 'Derek Westra' into the search bar in the iTunes store.

Thanks Everyone,

Derek

P.S. I realize that I'm sending this email to a few of you whom I haven't caught up with in a while, so to summarize the past year, Danielle and I moved back from Hawaii in December (where I got my MBA at UH). We recently bought a cute little red brick house in Salt Lake City, Utah, where I'm working as a Project Manager for the LDS Church's Audiovisual Department, and Danielle is working as Assistant Director at a Learning Center. We have a little dog Roxy and we couldn't be happier. I hope everything is going great for all of you!