His last day is June 19. There is a severance package that should help a lot. Next steps for us? Getting our house ready to sell because there's a 99% chance we won't be able to stay in Wichita. He has a phone interview with a company scheduled and has been looking at jobs for a few weeks. Next few months should be interesting.
Many have asked what Andy's current job situation is so I wanted to let you all know what we know. Included in the inquiries was Blake saying "Dad, are you losing your job?" which was especially interesting since we don't watch the news and don't discuss these things with him until there's a reason to. Guess he's more aware than we thought.
On Thursday, Andy's company announced 1,300 more layoffs and also extended the required time-off in July from 2 weeks to 4 weeks for everybody. In addition, 700 more layoffs are expected to be announced in June. Andy was NOT affected by Thursday's layoffs but there's a much better chance he'll be affected by the June layoffs. We'll see what happens.
In the meantime, we'll be discussing what we'll do either way. Job searching is almost certain to be included regardless of what happens.
We knew today was Layoff Day at Andy's work but I was still shocked to get to work and see this headline right off:
BREAKING NEWS: Cessna Wichita just handed out 4600 layoff notices this morning.
We expected 2000. It increased to 4600. At the end of the day, Andy hadn't been notified he was one of them so we believe he's ok for now. We expect more to come.
Full story
I have a lot to talk about from the holiday break but it seems only fitting that my first post would address Andy's Superman status. We have an older house and older cars and he has a crazy wife who sometimes breaks things so everything seems to be breaking lately. Things that have broken and needed repair within the last month:
Andy broke the passenger side mirror on the van recently and was frustrated by it but then remembered a quote from Blake.
Blake: Dad, there are a lot of cars that are broken and still driving.
Andy: Yes, that happens and since the cars still work people drive them instead of paying for new cars.
Blake: Most of those people deliver pizzas.
It just cracked me up, because it is so true. Every car we passed that had a big dent was either pizza hut or papa john delivery drivers. I may have to start delivering pizzas.
Last night, Andy and Blake went to a Wingnuts game (local minor league baseball team). On Tuesday, Andy said he'd like to take Blake soon and on Wednesday, I got an opportunity to get free tickets from work to sit in a skybox at the game. Andy and Blake went and sat in the skybox with some of my co-workers. Blake had a great time, my co-workers said he was hyper (maybe due to the cupcakes and Coke he was being fed by dad?) and everybody seemed to have enjoyed themselves. 
One part of the game made CNN today. Andy left this part out when he was telling me about the game!
Today is our 10 year anniversary...yea for us! We were married pretty young and although it isn't something I recommend to our kids (the divorce stats aren't so good when you get married young!), it is nice that we've kind of grown up and melded our lives together. It's just so much easier and more fun now than when we were struggling at the beginning with finances, jobs, babies, etc.
Here are some pics of us over the years....
1997, the year before we got married
1998, the year we got married
1999
2001. I'm pregnant in this photo but not that pregnant. I start to question Andy's decision to remain married to me judging by the looks of this pic.
Later in 2001, Blake is born.
2002 - I dropped half a person in size and grew twice the amount of hair.
2003. Andy used to do all kinds of things to cover up his teeth issues including making silly faces. 
2004
Later in 2004 when we went to Vegas...
2005 at a club in Disney World...
Early 2006 in Thailand...
Later in 2006
2007 in New Orleans...
Later in 2007...
This was the bag used for Andy's Father's Day gift. He loved it. The card the kids gave him was also Superman-related and allowed the kids to record a message followed by the Superman theme. We've had to hide the card from Blake because his desire to keep recording new messages is just too strong.
We are lucky enough to have our lawn mowed every week by Andy's dad but since he's out-of-town for two weeks, he left his mower for us. And because I'm a good wife, I wanted to document Andy's first time mowing our lawn.
I can't tease him too much...I've never cleaned our house. I leave that to the experts.
With work slowing down finally and the dreadfully long winter going away, I'm finally ready to post to the blog again. Here's what we've been up to...
Andy
Keeping busy with work and getting ready to transfer to a new work location across town next week. He's been looking into getting one of the fancy RC airplanes and earlier this year, he mentioned that he was going to take advantage of the flight lessons that Cessna will partially pay for. He's also recently been helping Payton with her tennis practice and trying to workout more.
Me
A few months ago, this happened to my car:
Blake and I were on our way to his daycare when I slid on ice right through a stop sign into oncoming traffic. I had some minor neck issues that lasted a few days and the car was totaled. We're buying Andy's dad's 2nd car that he had to take the place of my car.
Work has been good but intense. I hired a new guy which has helped take some of the burden off of me. I'll probably be hiring somebody else w/in the next few months to help even more.
I continue to plan trips for us and we'll make it to Colorado later this month (Casey, be ready for us!), Mexico in July for our 10th anniversary and back to Disney World in September.
Payton
Friends, friends, friends. She's always doing something with friends whether it's walking to the movie theater to meet for a movie, taking a walk or having sleepovers, the friends are pretty much what she does. She's also continuing to do quite well in school and will be put in some advanced placement classes next year in the 8th grade.
I've signed Payton up for several things this summer (with her approval of course) including tennis lessons. Since she's a teenager now, she's in the category with all teenagers including 18 year olds which has Andy kind of nervous. Andy and Payton play tennis a few days a week to practice before her lessons begin in June.
The only way to capture Payton on film - from far away when she's not looking.
Blake
Blake has changed the most of anybody in our house recently. Not only has he grown 2 shoe sizes, 1 clothing size and lost 2 teeth but he's also grown increasingly independent. He learned to ride his bike recently without training wheels (2 weeks ago he was on training wheels and now he's so good, we're going to take him on bike rides through the neighborhood). He's also signed up for baseball this summer (on the same team as Mia) and we've been practicing with him a few days a week. He's a good hitter, a fast runner and is doing better on catching the ball.
Blake's also finishing up kindergarten and just had his music program yesterday. The nerdy boy who has an easy time in school is a HUGE fan of his music class. When we were buying some clothes for summer, his only request was that he have a shirt that says "I love music."
Blake at his kindergarten music program (he was very serious!)...
A random recent pic - notice the two bottom teeth. The permanent ones are half way in.
We have other things going on that I'll post about soon but this should get us caught up from last time!
Sorry so dark - they looked lighter on my camera.
Funny...
Cute...
