Collections of the Black Family Halloween

Halloween was such a blast this year. From school parades, trick or treating and having a party at Jake and Melissa's it was a day to remember. Pictured above are: my kids transformed into a Barbie fairytopia, Batman and Indiana Jones. The rest of the pictures are of the Smith, Bingham and Black kids showing off their costumes. If you notice the last picture, we had a surprise visit from Sarah Palin and John McCain. We were very honored to have them at our party. Melissa and Jacob put on another great Halloween party with: mummy dogs, chowder, eating donuts without our hands dangling from a string, playing Canasta, watching "Monster House" and Jacob scaring all the kids with his hunchback, pig-faced, black wigged creature. We also enjoyed meeting Marissa's friends and boyfriend! Uncle Matthew was sure fun with all the kids. They all love having him around. Thank you for all the fun memories everyone in Utah. We would love to hear and see everyone elses Halloween memories! Love you all!

Jacob Smith Family Update

Well, unemployment is over and I am now working my tail off during a week of budget cutting for the current and next fiscal year. I got a job as the Commerce and Revenue Analyst in the Governor's Office. What I basically do is review the current and proposed actions and requests of several Utah agencies and provide recommendations based on the Governor's policies to the Governor. Sounds boring, it is, but everyone who works for Utah are extremely nice and well-mannered.

We are currently closing on a home in Centerville which will be nice as it is only 20 minutes from the Capitol Building (where I work), 20 from the airport, and right between the Binghams and the Blacks right now. Also, the school that the kids will be going to is the best elementary school in the state as far as test scores are concerned.

Melissa is rocking and rolling with her Xango distribution. A lot of people are seeing the benefits of drinking this mangosteen botanical. I have been surrounded by sick people and have been perfectly healthy by supplementing my diet with the drink. I don't know how it works, but it does. You should all try it. It's a little tart, but tasty.

Rebekah started kindergarten and we feel bad that she has to change schools, but she was not being challenged at all in Malad and it worried us. We know that Centerville will be a good thing for her.

Sapphira is Sapphira. She is becoming more and more articulate, independent, and a show-off. She is definitely our physically able child and will excel at anything she does.

Zachariah is still growing and getting teeth. He holds his own and has learned how to take the girls down if they bother him. He is beginning to communicate with us very well.

Hope all is well with all of you. I will send an email out as soon as we have our new contact information.

Jacob Smith Family Update

So all of you know, I am currently unemployed. I was laid off in June due to a "budget deficit" of about 3.5 million dollars at the City of Saratoga Springs. The real reason I was laid off was because they did not like the Assistant City Manager and in an attempt to get rid of him, they asked the City Manager to choose either his position or my position as well as one other. The City Manager chose the Assistant out of loyalty and my position became unfunded. Saratoga Springs' city council were the most radical I've ever seen in their approach to balancing the budget. In most cases, this job is done by city staff and the council approves it, in this case we had a BYU MBA student on the council who decided to tackle the problem and his solution was slashing staff (similar to the private sector model - very unethical). I lost my job as well as 16 others (out of 60 employees including police and fire).

Enough about that, fortunately and unfortunately we were building a house and had saved up enough money for the downpayment and closing costs, so we are living off of that as well as unemployment for the next little while. We are living in Malad with Melissa's parents until we can find a rental here in town. At first, the small town was an annoyance to me, but after being here for a couple of weeks, it is kind of refreshing and stress-free. I enjoy it.

In the meantime while I look for a job, Melissa is doing odd-jobs and I have accelerated by writing career. If any of you ever have any ideas for a novel, let me know. I am always open to ideas. Right now I am working on a piece dealing with Constantine (has never been done).

We look forward to seeing all of you, especially the ones we have not seen in a long time. See all of you at the end of July!