Back From Arizona

Justin arrived home from Arizona on Thursday (yes, I'm slow), and the kids absolutely loved going to pick him up at the airport. I was fascinated by the technology at the airport that enables you to stick a credit card in at arrival and departure, and you are charged for how long you've been there (which is usually zero, since we try to be as quick as possible), and also whatever device makes it possible for them to be able to tell you how many parking spots are available on each level of the parking garage. Pretty cool and very useful! (Yes, I'm thrilled by weird things-- and we obviously don't go to the airport much.)

Justin brought home little gifts for each member of the family, one of which was a scorpion encased in resin for Christopher, which he got a huge kick out of! He took it for show-and-tell on Friday! Justin was going to get himself a t-shirt with a picture of a skeleton on it that said, "It's only a dry heat," because he's a humidity fan, but he didn't.

Justin's favorite activity of yesterday, before coming home, was at the F1 Race Factory in Phoenix. They divided everyone into teams of five (with people they didn't know well) and had them compete in fun things like changing all the tires on a real race car and racing in these cool race cars that were low and wide so you could go fast and not tip over. Justin ended up on a team with three women, so after he and the other guy raced, their team's possibility of winning slowly went downhill (I'm sure some women wouldn't have been so timid, but I guess these gals were). Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun! Justin says someone took pictures, so hopefully I'll be able to post them later. (These are just from the F1 website.)

Justin is hoping that Caremark takes them back there next year! (His dad used to race cars, so I guess he got a little of that gene in him.)

So, in case you're wondering, we are NOT moving to Arizona (at least for now), and, so far, it seems like Caremark will keep RX America as just another one of their locations. Every time they've bought a company, they keep the buildings and many of the employees in whatever location the acquired company is in. They have offices in many different places, and the company seems to function well that way. They have a lot of teleconferences, fly where they need to, and it saves them the exorbitant cost of moving all employees to either Rhode Island (where CVS headquarters are) or Arizona (where Caremark headquarters are) and trying to accomodate all the new employees at one of those locations (buying or leasing more land, building more offices). We have uttered a small sigh of relief, but are keeping in mind that nothing in life is certain but death and taxes, so we will keep one figurative leg on moving on with life and one in the possibility that Justin will need to transfer to a different department, look for a new job, or continue with the new company in (gasp) a new location. RX America has actually acquired new plans this year, and is growing even more, while Caremark, like most other companies in this lovely economy, has lost revenue, so that could be very positive for them. Also, Justin's rebate team (with only five employees) has managed to process as many rebate submissions as the rest of Caremark's rebate arm (pretty impressive, though very stressful!). In addition, when Justin gave a presentation to the Caremark execs after the merger, they told Justin that the rebate database he built himself was very similar to their big, expensive database, and one of the VPs likes Justin's submission process better than Caremark's! (Yes, yes, I am very proud of my husband--I am sorry to brag!) But hopefully these things will help him in the future.

I am just so grateful that Justin's hard work and perserverance are paying off in little ways here and there. So many times, he has reminded me of George Bailey from It's A Wonderful Life (one of the best movies ever!) in the way that he has plugged along where he's supposed to be, doing the best he can, even though other opportunities would have been so much more satisfactory in so many ways. I am so grateful beyond measure that he has kept doing what he should and that little by little opportunities have opened up for him along the way. Now, with the economy so uncertain, things could still go a different way. But I am so grateful for the tender mercies!