Saturday, April 26, 2008

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to OHIO



After only 3 ½ months in Tulsa, Kipper has been offered a HUGE promotion. The title of the job is "Divisional Vice President and Senior Counsel"...sounds impressive if you ask me!! The Company is with Mid-Continent’s parent company, Great American Insurance Company.


The catch...the job is for Great American’s home office, located in Cincinnati, Ohio. This is a huge career deal and promotion for Kipper -- Great American is a fortune 500 company and had $4 billion dollars in premium last year, where Mid-Continent is a great successful company, it was just over $300 million in premium last year.


So obviously it is a MUCH bigger role with a MUCH bigger company.

Perks are good..... big raise and increased benefits are certainly great things, the much more important is that this is a long term position with excellent opportunity for growth and advancement.


In this new position, Kipper will be responsible for the creation and growth of a Claims Counsel office within the Great American organization. He will be responsible for growing the Claims Counsel office to appropriately serve the needs of the 25 or so different business units. Of course, this means nothing to Mommy extraordinaire, but it does sound impressive to me, right!!!!


So he told me this part, actually he typed this part....."the position with Great American, he will be primarily responsible for proving legal analysis, advice, and counsel with respect to insurance coverage issues as well as bad faith issues facing the various business units. He will also oversee the coverage lawsuits involving Great American pending in jurisdictions across the country. The policies written by the various business units are also extremely diverse, from things as common as construction related policies, legal professional liability policies, trucking related policies, and worker’s compensation insurance, to things like insurance for social workers, equine mortality policies (think race horses), crop insurance, executive liability policies. Kipper says the work will be diverse, challenging, and interesting. " I really do not know what all that means!!!!!!


SOOOOOOO....after a few tears and "NO I WON'T MOVE AGAIN PERIOD" this morning, the girls are excited already. Talking about the snow and Zoo and Ohio River and living near where Gigi grew up and Granddad went to college!!! It is all good, they are excited and ready to go. Really! It was so much easier this time.


I am flying up tomorrow till Tuesday to spend two days with two Realtors looking at schools and homes in N. Kentucky and Cincinnati. When I return, we will decide what area we wish to pursue and look in more. I will continue to search the Internet for every little detail on the schools. I feel confident we will find a great school in a great community that will not be an hour for Kipper to drive each day.


So, even though the prospects of packing and moving again are daunting and not something I look forward to, the prospects of a much brighter future and career for us all are far more promising! I am excited for Kipper but even more importantly, I AM SO VERY PROUD OF HIM.....he has done a great job in his career. He is a great lawyer, a smart guy and will make Great American so very proud to have him on their team. I am sure proud to have him on my team!


Pray for us.....that we make this a smooth transition, with few hoops and hurdles to jump through and over. Pray for the girls, that they find new friends as easily as in Tulsa.


We will see you all in San Antonio as planned....we are looking foreword to the visits. Hopefully a few of you will plan a trip to Ohio someday.....like you have Tulsa....we will miss you all.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Visiting Texas



May 27th to June 8th
Well, there are only 23 more days of school! Hard to believe. Good thing about the move, we get less days!!!

After school is out, we will take our first adventure home to Texas. I say Texas because we will have three or four stops on this first trip.

Tuesday May 27th we will go to American Girl in Dallas for an evening dinner and shopping and hair salon for dolls! Wednesday after breakfast, we will drive to Houston. We will visit Campbell's Godmother for two days, celebrating their birthdays which are a day apart! Then on Friday, we will head to San Antonio.

While in SA, we will visit as many of our friends and family as possible. We will Celebrate Campbell's "real birthday" with her old class at Woodridge, she is sooooo excited about this!!! We will visit our dentists, both children's and adult and see other Dr.'s for follow ups...no we have not found a single Dr. in Tulsa!! Kipper may even get a haircut!!!! We will likely venture off to the Hill Country or to the Beach or to Leakey for an overnight too.

I will even have bookgroup on June 3rd too, my old group has agreed to let me back for a visit!!!!!! Even reading a book I already read!!

Then on the way back, we will spend a night in Austin, visiting our friends there and one from Hamilton Texas!

We are packing it in and trying to do so much in a short time. We do not know where we will sleep at night but I am sure that will work itself out!!!

So, it would be great to plan a poker night for Kipper and a girls night for me.....if you are interested, let me know!!!

Mark your calendar, we want to see you!!