And we're done.......

Whew! Christmas has come and gone, and (aside from the usual family drama) it went very well. We enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner w/ Scott's parents and then came home to get ready for church. We went to the midnight service and then came home to finish up our parental duties. We finally got to bed around 2:30 and at 6:30, Kate was at our door whispering "Mommy...Daddy...SANTA CAME!!!" We held the girls off from the presents until Grammy and Pop Pop arrived and then the race was on! The girls ended up w/ just about everything they asked for, Scott and I received some fabulous presents, and everyone enjoyed being together for the special day. I think Katelyn's favorite presents were her Hannah Montana box, her bed tent, her Gameboy Advance, and her Splatster. Abby is still checking all of hers out, but enjoys her 'busy ball activity center,' her music-making kangaroo, and her new blanket from Aunt Erica! Scott got the GPS watch he really wanted, some new jeans, and new shirts, among other things. I got new sneakers AND new boots (!!!), the new Harry Potter movie, some wonderful new shirts, and a new Foodsaver (since apparently mine stopped vacuuming not long ago and no one told me...so when I removed the wrapping paper, I am looking at it like "they are BOUND to know we already had one of these...what is going on here?" and I ask "what's in the box?"...yep, that was a conversation that led to me being teased relentlessly for the rest of the afternoon. All-in-all though, we really couldn't have asked for more!!!

Parenting is such a fun job sometimes. Abby, a.k.a. "The Toddler Tornado," was her usual self yesterday and managed to get ahold of a cup of coffee and pour in into our laptop...yay. I immediately pulled the hard drive out, took the case apart, dumped it all out and have left it in an upside down "V" on our kitchen table w/ hopes that it will dry out. I just hope for one more boot so I can recover my stuff. We shall see...I'll check on it when I get home this afternoon. I did see a new laptop online today for $197, so hopefully we can replace this one as soon as Scott gets a job.

My dad left today to return to Virginia, where he probably still has snow on the ground, and we will leave tomorrow at some point to spend a few days with my mom and her new husband. I'm hoping that THEY still have snow too because I know my girls would love to see (and play in) some snow this winter. I also hope to see one of my best friends while I'm in VA - MEGAN!!!! :) We haven't seen her and her fiance since I was approximately 6 weeks pregnant with Abby, so it will be nice if we can find a time that works for all to get together. We'll return to Wilmington in time to ring in the new year and, of course, watch the Hokies play on New Year's Eve!

I hope that you all enjoyed your Christmas holiday and that we can all get some relaxation in this weekend and this upcoming week before everything kicks back into high gear after the first of the year!

All my love,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

So here we are...2 days until Christmas...NORAD will start tracking Santa tomorrow and I can't wait to watch him make his journey around the world and see the wonder on Katelyn's face!!!

The hotel that I work at is in dangerously low occupancy territory. There are plenty of extremely smart people on the management team here, yet no one seems to quite know how to fight the recession. I continue to expand my work in social media, and pitched to the other hotels in our group for me to do their social media too, but have heard nothing back and am unsure as to where to go next. I have had several interviews w/ other hotels, but nothing that's a "great" opportunity for me to grow in. There's no way I can earn anything close to what Scott was earning, and we need him to be blessed with another job or we WILL lose everything, but I also feel like, even though I can't earn anything CLOSE to what he was earning, I would like to explore my career options. I have toyed w/ the idea of forming an LLC and marketing myself to different hotel groups for social media services, but with us not knowing where we'll be in a month even, it's tough to make a decision and then stick to it.


In better news though, our girls are getting VERY excited for Santa to come tomorrow night. Let me reiterate, they are SO BLESSED. Our families have made sure that from Day 1 of Scott's unemployment, the girls have had no inkling that financial disaster is looming for our family. I have multiple bags and stacks of presents in my garage and in my closet to prove that.

I did tell Scott that he'll have it easy for his New Year's resolution - all he needs to do is find a job at some point during 2010! :) I applied the other day to be a JDRF advocate and assist them w/ their goal of finding a cure for Type I diabetes. I love this cause and plan to spend a lot more of 2010 raising awareness of (1) the disease itself and (2) how VERY close we are to finding a cure.

I hope that you all are ready for the Christmas holiday! We have made all of the major preparations and will now just focus on what's truly important - spending time with our families and cherishing every minute of it.


All my love,



Jessica

Pulling from every resource

So with the holiday season being upon us, and Scott being out of work, we've had to GREATLY scale back our Christmas budget this year. We are not exchanging presents with any adults and our giving to our children has been threatened as well. Thankfully, we have lots of wonderful people in our lives who love our children and who are helping to keep the magic of Santa alive, but we still wanted to get a few things for our kids. Last night Scott and I went out on a date and did some Christmas shopping and here's what we did (and how we did):

Applebee's Dinner - $20 gift card from the hotel where I work at that I received on my birthday; roughly $15 out-of-pocket for beverages and tip
GameStop - $20 for 3 Gameboy Advanced games (which is the platform we're moving Katelyn to because the VSmiles have been the WORST purchases ever - not durable whatsoever; got a GBA on gamestop.com for $19.99)
Gap Kids - Matching hoodies and socks for Katelyn and Abigail - $25 gift card from Wachovia Rewards; $3 OOP
JC Penny - Scooby Doo pajamas for Katelyn - $10 coupon from the mail; $4 OOP
Barnes and Noble - Lift the Flap Danny Dozer Christmas book for Abigail - $10 gift card from Wachovia Rewards; $.50 OOP

TOTAL OOP - $42.50 ($62.50 if you add in the GBA from gamestop.com)

I had gone to Goodwill earlier and purchased a Hannah Montana shirt for Katelyn ($2.49) and several books for the kids (ranging in price from $.25-$.75/each).

Also, I made my first Amazon.com referral fees yesterday and have started collecting SwagBucks in hopes of trading them in for gift cards for use in Christmas 2010. We're tapping every resource this year to make sure that, to the best of our abilities, our kids have an awesome visit from Santa!

Bringing it all together

In this fast-paced, multi-outleted internet world that we have created, I hope to use this blog to just keep it ALL together. I will talk about things ranging from my wonderful family to my job to my famous coupon tips!!!

I am a 25-year-old mom of 2 beautiful girls. The oldest, Katelyn, is 4 and she is a great companion and we have had many great adventures together over the years. She is currently into all things Hannah Montana and can't wait to start kindergarten next fall. My baby, Abigail, is now 1 and I'm enjoying seeing her personality develop more and more every day. She's just starting to walk and has developed quite the vocabulary (much more than I remember her sister having at that age). I have been married for almost 5 years to my soul mate, Scott. We met in September, 2002 through a mutual friend and have been inseperable ever since. We both graduated from Virginia Tech and thoroughly enjoy every minute we are lucky enough to be in Blacksburg these days. We love to travel, play board games, hike, try our hands at gourmet cooking, camp, watch Harry Potter, and just have "family time."

With Christmas coming in less than 20 days, this is a very special time of year for our family to reflect on being truly thankful for the gifts that we have been given - our good health, a loving family, great friends, & opportunities to grow and succeed in work and in life. I have spent the last 5 years puttering in the hospitality field and have recently gone back to work full-time following Scott's layoff from S & ME, Inc. I am very blessed to have a job that I love and it's amazing to be the one trying to stay on the cutting edge of new technology (like figuring out all things Google Wave - jessicawdowell@googlewave.com). Older technology is still fun (http://www.twitter.com/portcityhokie ... http://www.facebook.com/jessicadowell ). And things I don't have access to yet (http://www.foursquare.com/) are a beacon on the horizon - constantly reminding me of why I love being in social media. I am hoping to get the opportunity to manage multiple hotels' social and internet marketing programs; stay tuned for details on that.

I also am a pretty thrifty person and 110% believe in the old motto - "watch your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves." I LOVE to use coupons when grocery shopping and would never, EVER, make a purchase online without searching for "promotional codes" first. I also enjoy making great finds on the side of the road on garbage day! I'm not likely to buy the latest trend just because everyone else is buying it, and when the money runs out, it's gone. We live within our means and that means no cable TV, no fancy new cars, no new wardrobe every season, no replacing appliances just because a better version has been developed, etc.

I hope that you will enjoy following us on our journeys through this blog. It's always fun to see where life will take the Dowell family!