HE IS RISEN.... HE IS RISEN INDEED!

We hope you and your family had a wonderful Easter! I realize I am a bit behind on my Easter post, but I have been waiting on getting some of our cute Easter pictures from my mother. I now have the pictures so here is the post!

The Saturday before Easter we spent house hunting in Grand Prairie with the Campbells and Roberts and actually made an offer on a house. Unfortunately, the seller did not want to meet us in the middle as far as pricing is concerned, so we decided to continue looking. Easter Sunday we went to Wedgwood Baptist for a wonderful service, followed by lunch @ Uncle Walt & Aunt Karen's with the extended Smith side of the family (Dad's Mom's side). Sunday evening Mike headed back to San Antonio while I stayed behind for a job interview during the week. The interview was for a position in the mid-cities with Merck doing the job I have been doing the past 3 years, but with the New Commercial Model. While I was not selected for the position, I was appreciative to have the opportunity to interview and thankful to past managers and colleagues for their wonderful words of recommendation to the hiring manager. I believe I made a positive impression which can only be good for the future.

Thursday of last week Mimi, Mom and I drove to San Antonio after stopping to shop at the outlet malls in San Marcos. It was Mimi's first trip down to see our house, which we found rather funny since we are about to leave. We met Michael and his Dad, who was in town for business, at Pericos for dinner. On Friday, the ladies headed to Fredericksburg for some more shopping via the Willow City Loop aka "bluebonnet loop." We were disappointed to find that due to a fire and late-blooming there were hardly any bluebonnets on this previously "famous" loop. The view was wonderful of the cliffs and we saw lots of wildlife; deer, sheep, cattle. We actually saw more bluebonnets on the trip home on the main freeway. Saturday Mom and Mimi headed back to Fort Worth and I stayed here with Mike.

On the strike front- no news yet. Seems the union may not be choosing to strike, but simply work while they are negotiating the contract. In my opinion this is probably a good idea since AT&T could probably find enough people without jobs in this economy that would happily take over their jobs. It has also come to my attention that the workers lose their medical/life insurance while striking and it would be rather pricey for them to get on their own or pay for COBRA. Hopefully they will reach a compromise soon and we won't have to continue wondering when we might be hitting the road back to Fort Worth.

Monday of this week Bob (Dad-in-law) came back to San Antonio for business and stayed with us. We enjoyed a tasty dinner at The Olive Garden and an action-packed episode of 24.

Wednesday we enjoyed our first and possibly last FIESTA event. For those of you who are not familiar with FIESTA, it is a huge celebration that happens each year in San Antonio and lasts about a week and a half. We have always wanted to go to a few of the events, but never seem to make it. So, this year we attended "A Taste of the Northside" which is the only official event that is held up in our area of town. Basically, all of the area restaurants come in and provide food tastings such as small entrees, appetizers, or desserts from their restaurants. You also have wine or beer tastings. We received a book with our ticket for 10 food tastings each and 12 1oz wine or 3oz beer tastings. There were 3 live bands and it all took place at the Club at Sonterra which is a nice golf course in Stone Oak. We ran into some of my old Merck colleagues and ran around with a TCU alumni group. We had such a great time! We actually got so full that we didn't even use all of our food tickets. Some of our favorites were Pericos- tacos, Kona's- sushi, La Hacienda- quesadillas, Kirby's-steak and espresso dessert, Melting Pot- chocolate fondue, Chuy's-nachos, Sea Island-coconut shrimp, Maggiano's-custard dessert, and BJ's-pizza. There were many others there as well, but these were just some I remember. The location was packed and after awhile you spent quite a bit of time in the beer and wine lines. This is definitely an event I would love to come back to San Antonio for. We got several coupons from the restaurants and hope to visit a few of them that we hadn't been to before we leave for the Dallas area.

Lastly, this morning I had a phone interview for an Inside Sales position with a company called Study Island in Dallas, TX. They are a quickly growing educational publisher and are responsible for many of the programs that teachers use to help prepare their students for the TAKS exams. (State standardized testing) While this job would be quite different from what I've been doing the past 3 years, I feel pretty confident about the opportunities that I could have there and believe that the work environment would be very fun and uplifting to have supportive people working around you everyday. Also, a great friend Mara works there and we would work on the same floor! :) I have been invited to an "in person" interview the week of May 4th and hope to learn more about the work environment then. I will keep you updated!

That's it for now, sorry it was so long- I had 2 weeks to catch up on. Here are the pictures! :)

Love, Emily

Michael and me in our Easter outfits

3 of the 4 Roberts ladies after church- Maggie, Mom, & Me

My wonderful parents after the kiddos' Easter egg hunt