Growing up is totally optional

This weekend, I was blessed with the opportunity to go visit Cole and Luke Smith.  Technically, I was babysitting them while their parents, Rob and Lisa, were away...but I don't really see it that way.  I enjoy my time with them so much that it's more like I'm just hanging out with them.  I've been fortunate enough to have been able to watch these boys grow up, and I've enjoyed every minute.  Cole has the biggest heart of any kid I've ever known and an amazing memory that I'm pretty sure surpasses that of my computer. (You gotta be careful what you tell him, or it will come back to bite ya later!)  Luke may be ornery at times, but when he experiences a moment of true happiness, his smile could light up the world.

The boys were excited to show me their 3DSes that they'd gotten for Christmas.  Of course, I had to bring mine as well so we could all play Pokemon together.  :)  We also fought with lightsabers, played Rayman Origins on the Wii (really fun game if you haven't tried it; I have it on my PS3 and absolutely love it), and we ended the night by watching Star Wars Episode II.  Sure, I could act more mature, but what's the fun in that?  Growing old may be mandatory, but growing up?  Now, that's totally optional.  Life's more fun when you can act like a kid every once in awhile.  And hey, we're all children of God, right?  So why not act like them?

I often refer to Cole and Luke as "the boys I babysit," but that simply isn't true.  They're family.  I'd do anything for them.  These boys will always hold a special place in my heart. <3

Why you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking, NERF HERDER!

Remember that line from The Empire Strikes back when Princess Leia chews out Han Solo?  Well, my co-workers asked me to come up with a few Star Wars names to add to the possibilities for our team name...I came up with quite a few, one of which was the "Nerf Herders."  To my surprise, that's actually the name my team liked best (although I suspect that it has more to do with the fact that a few people on the team thought we might be able to bring Nerf guns to work as a result than anything else).  I'm just excited we have a Star Wars themed team name, even if it was meant to be a derogatory term.

Last Friday, a group of friends from high school and I went to watch our friend MacKenzie Westcott play basketball at Drake (she plays for Bradley, a school in Illinois).  Bradley lost, but it's always fun to watch Kenzie play.  It was great to see everybody again.  We were talking after the game and we realized that it won't be too much longer before we have our 5-year reunion.  That seems so strange to me; it's hard to believe that high school was that long ago.  (Happy, Lindi? I blogged about it!)

Now...back to Nationwide stuff...this past week at work has been a lot of fun for me.  I was actually able to start writing code and committing it to the project.  The ADC (Nationwide's "Application Development Center") uses the agile style of programming, which means that we don't use a lot of documentation and changes are easier to implement and occur more frequently (that is my majorly oversimplified definition of it, if it doesn't satiate your curiosity enough, you can go Google it).  The work is divided into "user stories," which are simply smaller pieces of work.  These user stories are put on cards, and developers go and take the cards and write code for them.   This week, I finally got to do that.  It has made my time at work fly by, and I've really enjoyed it.  I've gotten so many of them done that my co-workers are starting to tease me about just letting me do all the work for this iteration (an iteration is a 2-week period of work for the project).  :)

Richard hasn't been getting many hours at work lately, so he called Securitas this week and asked if they had any openings.  As it turns out, they have a new contract with the Maytag company in Newton.  It sounds like he'll be able to start working there next week.  He's still looking for policing jobs, but something like this will be a good job for now.

Um...can't think of much else that has happened to me in the past few weeks.  But I do think I hear my PS3 calling...tootles!

Happy Friday!