To start, David received his green card back in March! It only took a few weeks after our interview to receive the actual card in the mail. It was such an exciting time! But meanwhile during this whole process David had been taking ESL classes at Seattle Central Community College. Right after he had finished the Winter quarter during his two week break, he got a job! He still was planning on taking ESL in the Spring quarter but changed his schedule to be at night 6-8pm. That way he would work during the day and go to school at night. After a few weeks of working 7am-5pm and going to school 6pm-8pm, he had to make the choice to stop taking ESL class. He is speaking English at work and is learning a lot there! You would all be so surprised with how well his English has gotten! I'm so proud of him. Now 4 months later he is still working at Al Van Equip and loving it more and more. He gets to work with metal, weld, bend, punch and measure (in inches). It's a super small company and his boss and co-worker (boss's brother) are super supportive and understanding so we couldn't be any happier with how this all turned out. Oh and I almost forgot the most important news...He got his Drivers License!!! That means I ride the bus :( haha oh well.
I have been doing the same ol' same ol' at my work. I've been super busy with loans, we've had a surge of applications in the past month. It seems that around this area the economy may be picking up or people are feeling more comfortable in their financial situations because they are applying for car loans like crazy. Also I've been working really hard for a Kiva Partnership. A part of my "job description" was to help get the small business lending underway. We've gotten the policy written and are starting to feel out small business lending. We've done a few, we've had a lot of inquiries and applications and slowly but surely are getting further along in our lending. Small business lending is hard in a regulated institution such a Credit Union and its hard trying something almost completely blind. I am really happy with my work. I'll be teaching a loan readiness class at the end of July to a class that is full of future small business owners. The people taking this class are all in the earliest stages to starting a business and all have or had had credit issues and are trying to get back on their feet. I'm excited to do my first "charla" since the Peace Corps.
Summer has finally arrived to Seattle. It kindly graced our presence on the 4th of July! Since then we have been on the go. David plays in a soccer league every Tuesday evening, we bought a bike rack and are able to take our bikes out for long rides, we started a beach volleyball league every Monday night, we also bought fishing licenses and all the gear so we've been out fishing a few times already and got a gym membership where we take yoga classes every Saturday and are planning on doing zumba there as well! So I guess the theme of our activities is, get fit, have fun and enjoy the sun! This Saturday we are going Whale watching at Deception pass. David is super excited to see the Orca's up close!
We are very excited for some camping adventures that we have planned as well. Camping with the family at the Olympic peninsula in late July and also camping at the Ellensburg Rodeo in September!
