In January, my parents were driving up to Oklahoma to visit my grandparents and I didn't want to miss out on an opportunity to see them, so the boys and I came along for the ride. I was SOO scared to try going on vacation without Mike (he was in his last semester at A&M) especially with Mason only being 2 months old. On the way there, Mason slept almost the entire trip! Jasper on the other hand had a rough start. He through up at least 2 times within the first hour, but once we got on the straight highway, he was fine. They both did amazingly well, took great naps, and had fun playing. I was so blessed that they behaved so well!
My grandpa Ruggles had recently had a bad fall and was in the hospital (that was the reason why my parents were going to visit) so we spent some time visiting him and trying to make his stay in the hospital not too terrible. It was the first time he had met Mason (the only time he ever saw him actually) and Jasper even crawled up in to his lap. I am sooo grateful that we went because that was the last time I was able to see Papa before he passed away.
We got to spend a lot of time with my other grandparents too and that was the first time they got to meet Mason also. We stayed at their house and it was fun to see my grandma get down on the floor to play with them. My grandpa even took us out to get Jasper's first ice cream cone! My cousin Aubrey brought her boys over to play and they had a blast with Jasper. And of course Grandma and Grandpa Ruggles (my parents) had a ball playing with their grandbabies.
February that year was fairly uneventful. Mike was in his last semester at Texas A&M and was finding it very time consuming. We prayed about it and felt like it was best if he quit his job at Wal-Mart (he had worked there for 5 1/2 years!) and focus all his time on his studies. In January we had started seriously looking for job opportunities and by February, we had probably applied to over 100 different jobs all over the United States. At the end of February, Mike finally got a call from Duke Energy for an interview! They were located in Charlotte, North Carolina and so Mike set up a time to go and interview. Less than a week later, Mike got another call from Entergy for an interview. They were located in New Orleans and so Mike scheduled a time to go in and interview with them too. The Duke energy went really well and Mike felt fairly confident that he did a good job, but had the attitude that at least if he didn't get the job it would be good practice for the second interview. They were only a week apart, so Mike went in to the second interview not knowing if he was going to be offered a job with Duke or not. His second interview also went really well and he felt like the guy he interviewed with was really impressed by him. The very next day Entergy called him and offered him a job. They gave his 72 hrs to accept or reject the offer. We prayed hard and even called Duke to see if they were going to offer Mike a job, but because of "legal reasons" they couldn't give him a yes or not. Our first choice was Duke, but because Mike had had so few interviews we didn't want to risk possibly ending up with nothing, so we accepted the job! Mike would start 2 weeks after graduation. A week later, Duke energy called back and offered Mike a job making almost exactly the same money, but would be in an office and mean less travel (which I appreciated). Now we were super confused. We really wanted to go to Charlotte, but Mike felt obligated to stay with Entergy since he had already accepted the job. Mike even called Entergy to see if they would offer him more money to stay with them, but of course they couldn't. Even though Mike felt bad, he told Entergy that he had changed his mind and accepted Duke's offer instead. We finally knew where we were going to live and what we were going to do after graduation!!!
March was spent looking for homes online and Mike trying to make it through school. I was staying home with the boys and just enjoying our last little bit of time in College Station. The weather was starting to get gorgeous so the boys and I spent a lot of time at the park or in the backyard. I was getting more used to having the 2 little guys and enjoying their sillies. Since Mike was going to be out of town house hunting for Easter, we spent Easter with my family the weekend before. I was also down at my parent's house making a cake for my best customer Melanie Ashcraft. For years I had made her girl's birthday cakes and this was the very last one I made for her. Made me so sad!
For Easter weekend, Mike flew out to Charlotte to go house hunting. I had called several people that week to see if they would be available to show Mike houses on Friday and had several things set up. When he arrived, 90 percent of the places that told me they were available Friday were closed because it was good Friday! Mike couldn't go in half the homes because no one could let him in, but spent time driving around at least looking at the outside seeing if they were in good communities. We quickly found out that the renting scene in Charlotte was RIDICULOUS and you had to jump on things fast if you wanted them! So his weekend was pretty much pointless, but luckily I was able to go later and look at more homes.
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