Just so you know- Union county, just east of Vermillion, SD was voted one of the top rural counties in the midwest to live in by Progressive Farmer magazine. But you probably know this since you have a regular subscription to it...
Click here to read about it.

No news on jobs- I leave for South Dakota this weekend. BUT, I thought I'd leave you with these emails I got today from Rachel.
This morning:

We pulled into the garage, I was getting Lucas out of his seat and he said, “What’s Ben doing?” I could sort of smell peach yogurt and I looked over when I heard Ben throwing up. Not just his normal throw up, but actually everything he ate for breakfast. I don’t think he has the flu but that his breakfast didn’t sit well with him (Prunes with Apples followed by peach yogurt). Needless to say, his car seat, blanket, clothes, and car seat cozy are a mess! I took him up for a bath just as I smelled the workings of Lucas’ bowels. After getting Ben clean and dressed, I came back down stairs to an explosion of poop in Lucas’ pjs. Now that Ben is down for a nap and Lucas is changed and now engrossed in Veggie Tales I am going to clean the vomit off myself and take a shower. I hope your morning has been a little less…messy. Rachel

And then, this afternoon:

Lucas exploded again all over his clothes, all over the rug down stairs, up his back when I took his shirt off…. Thus, both kids have been bathed today. Two baths in two days, not bad! J

Rachel

Wasn't invited for a campus interview at Dayton... The hunt continues!

Dayton phone interview went well- of course that's what I thought about the others... so who knows? They'll let me know next week.

I have a campus interview!!! January 28-29. University of South Dakota!!! Nuff said...

Dayton interview- Tuesday at 9:30am...

I keep forgetting to grab photos from the other computer- so here is a video of the boys playing trains (taken on my phone).





And a photo or two (also from my phone):

Once again, bad news good news. Apparently, Channel Islands emailed me on the 4th (it went to my spam)- "not one of the finalists." University of Dayton finally got back to me though, phone interview with them sometime next week- they have selected 11 to phone interview and are bringing in 3. The fun continues...

Job update: LMU has deemed me too much of a behaviorist... one can only hope that bodes well for my Cal State Channel Islands application. I am still waiting to hear from them. They said they'd let me know in January. So... the waiting continues. University of Idaho has also passed me over- although I thought I was stretching that one anyway. On the good news side, a pretty neat school- University of Dayton is interested. I have a phone interview with them soon. They are a small catholic school, but have a PhD program- so best of both worlds! We'll see what happens.

In other news, I have been asked to serve on a panel to review grants for the National Science Foundation. This is a pretty big deal and I am really excited about it. It requires abandoning my wife the week of Valentine's day, so that is no good- but perhaps it'll help influence me in landing a job and that is the best Valentine's day gift I can give Rachel... HA!

Also, Lucas and I built our first (and second snowman) this past week. Sunday, we went sledding in our yard. It was all fun and games until Lucas lost his boot and put his foot in the snow. Mess! I'll post some pictures when I can get them on this computer.

Happy New Year!