Wedding Bells & Christmas Bells

So, Jolie and Rob got married. It was a hectic few days but everything turned out great! We went down to DC the night before where I spent some time riding up and down in the elevator with Alli and Madison. Fun times. We woke up to a rainy wedding day, but the photographer managed to get some good pictures of the two love birds despite the inclement conditions. Jolie had her wedding reception in a big converted barn with a huge fireplace and wood floors. It was very pretty. The little girls, Nate and I went exploring and found Santa's sleigh on the top floor. Madison didn't understand why we couldn't open the presents that were in the sleigh. How do you explain to a three-year-old that someone would wrap up empty boxes and put them in Santa's sleigh? All in all the night went off with a bang. Jolie looked very beautiful and Rob looked okay too.

The craziness of the wedding was followed by Christmas. On Christmas Eve Bruce took everyone to the Wilmington club for a very fancy lunch. The lemonade was delicious. The food was pretty good too. Everyone got to get all dressed up and it was a lot of fun. That night we spent at the Slaughs house. The food was great and the kids put on a cut Christmas pagent. It was great to see everyone.
On Christmas morning we all slept in because there were no small children waiting to see what Santa had brought them. Around 10 we all went downstairs to open presents. Nate had already opened his big present from me. He got a Tom Tom so he could find his way around Richmond. I opened my present from Nate and was confused to find a stuffed panda bear. I thought maybe he meant to give it to Madison, but then I noticed a jewelry box on the back. Inside was a very beautiful necklace. It was a very nice surprise. Presents were followed by breakfast consisting of lots of foods I couldn't eat because I'm pregnant and the food smelled bad. Not fun. Nate says the breakfast was delicious.
Most of the vacation was just spent hanging out. We spent a lot of time with Skiffington and got to see two really great movies, Valkyrie & Marley and Me. Now we are back in Harrisonburg not-so-frantically-as-we-should-be trying to pack up before the movers come tomorrow. Hopefully we get everything done!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

Gradaversimas

We are celebrating a newly founded holiday in our lives. Because graduation, our anniversary, and Christmas were all blended together this year, Kenzie and I decided that we would celebrate gradaversimas instead of all three smaller events. I got 2 presents for gradaversimas – a new BYU jacket and a Tom Tom for finding our way around Richmond. Kenzie’s present was a trip to see stomp, although the weather was really bad and snowy on the day we were supposed to go to New York but they are coming to Richmond in February so we are just going to go see them down there.
Graduation was a blast! We managed to finish all of our finals and pass our classes just in time for Kenzie’s parents to fly in from Utah. They were joined by uncle hillbilly willy from up in Pittsburg. My parents arrived the night before with Loni, Jessie, and babies. Skiff and Kyle came down for the actual ceremony and later Matt, Brandon, Liz, and Tyler came for lunch to celebrate. It was a packed house and a really fun day.
In trying to describe what a graduation was to the 3 year old Madison, I told her that she was coming to a dress up party in which I would be wearing a giant purple dress. She was very excited upon hearing that and asked if she could dress up too. They got a little less excited when they had to sit through a 2 and a half hour ceremony where they called 700 names. Ali saw us afterwards and she explained to grandma that the graduation was “really really really really really long”. I agree.

We had a fantastic time hanging out with Kenzie’s parents and it was good to have them on the east coast. They left on Sunday just in time for us to pack up our house and get things ready to move to Richmond. We went to the doctors on Monday morning and got to hear a tiny little heartbeat for the first time. Until now, I was not totally convinced that Kenzie was actually pregnant. I thought maybe she was faking it to get attention. However, a fast heart beat proved that she is in fact 3 months pregnant. It was fantastic to hear the little thing go. It was a fantastic way to mark our 3 years of marriage. An anniversery marked by an ultrasound and moving - how romantic I am!
We got on the road to Richmond on Monday afternoon and got all checked in to our storage unit and went to find our apartment. About a half mile from our apartment we discovered a mall bigger than the king of Prussia mall, a chipotle, red robin, and most importantly, a cheesecake factory. We are very excited to be out of Harrisonburg and near civilization again. We moved a few bags into our brand new apartment and set up shop. It is really nice and has all new furnishings and looks like a great place to crash for a few months. My company is putting us in a furnished apartment for 3 months and giving us that time to find a place to live. It is a great transition! So after getting settled in Richmond we headed up to Delawhat for Jolie’s wedding. She gets hitched tomorrow so we are headed down to DC tonight to stay for a night before the wedding. Life is really fun right now for both of us and we are really excited to be headed to Richmond in January to start real life.

Turkey Turkey

This is where Caleb, Nate and Squatting Bear were mot of our visit (Nate took the picture)

For Thanksgiving this year we went to visit my family in the holy land (Utah). I sat between Nate and a 300 lb lady on the flight out, so needless to say I was miserable, but once we got there we had a lot of fun. Our experience upon arriving at the SLC airport was very different from our usually experience in Philly. We got off the plane, went to the bathroom and stopped to get a drink. When we got to the baggage claim...no bags. We finally figured out that in the less than 30 minutes our little detour had taken us, our bags had been collected and sent to the unclaimed baggage area. This is very different from Philly where you can wait for an hour and half before they even begin to unload your bags.

My dad picked us up and our very first stop was at Cafe Rio, per Nate's request. I think we must have eaten there about 10 times while in Utah. I don't particularly care for the place, so mostly Nate ate and I sat. My family also took us to Rodizio Grill several times. It is another of Nate's favorites.

Mostly we just hung out. Caleb did not skip any school this time (last Christmas he was "sick" for an entire week so he could play the Wii with Nate all day), Anna, however, did. We went to see that vampire movie. Nate hated it. Anna hated it. I have no opinion of the movie, it was just something to do. Although thinking about it, it is a very weird concept for a book/movie. I mean seriously, why would you date someone who wanted to eat you. I don't understand but I'm sure it has something to do with a bad childhood and can all be blamed on her parents. If you ask me, what she needs is some counseling, not a date with a vampire...weird. Anyway, after that we ate at...Cafe Rio. Anna ate, Nate ate, I sat in the car. Okay, so they got it to go and I waited in the car while they ordered. They were nice enough to take me to Jamba juice on our way home.

We did go to Provo where we got to see Sommer and her very cute baby. It's weird to me that she has a baby. I still feel like we should be laying out in her pool blasting country music while her parent are at work and making late night stops at Dairy Queen for a cookie dough blizzard. But, I guess we all have to grow up at some point. It was very good to see her. John is considering UVA Law in the fall and that is where I'm hoping they come. We would only be an hour away and we could see each other more often. We also took a trip to Red Lobster with Sommer's parents. It was good to see them, too.

We took Fa to lunch at CPK where he didn't understand why his chicken alfredo was in a bowl not on a pizza. This was after Nate said to him, while he was ordering, "Did you want that on the pizza or do you want noodles." I think he enjoyed it though. We couldn't leave Provo without a stop at the BYU bookstore where I bought Nate his graduversamas present (graduation-anniversary-Christmas rolled into one). It is a very nice underarmer jacket with BYU stuff on it.

Thanksgiving was great. My mom cooks great food. She even made Nate a banana cream pie which he picked in the night before then covered up with whipped cream. I'm not sure if she realizes that or not. Anna's boyfriend from Columbia ate with us and there was lots of talk of drug/gun running thanks to Nate and my two brothers. He was a good sport and he's a pretty nice kid. Overall, it was a great trip. My mom wants to move back to the east coast and is trying to somehow talk my dad into it. We'll see what happens there.

The trip was topped of with lots of competitive games of Bomber Man on the Wii. Once my dad figured out how to play, we played every day. It's a four person game so we played in rounds. The loser (usually Anna, me, or my dad) had to give up the control. There was one game that my dad won. That means he won four total games. We're still trying to figure out how that happened because most of the time he just blew himself up.

Now we're back in VA. At this point I have 1 class left in my entire college career. Nate has 2. I need to start studying for finals. My grades have been kind of low this semester because I have checked out and don't care anymore. But now it's time to buckle down and make sure I pass. Then it's off to Richmond where it looks like I will be working in an elementary school.

Mooooving to Richmond

Kenzie and I took off late Wednesday night for a trip to Richmond. I am sure that I had been there before when I was 12 or so and my dad took me to some obscure battlefield or something, but this trip had a lot more meaning for me. I was going to an all day interview with Bon Secours health system. I was pretty nervous for the interview because I wanted to get a job with that health system for better pay, better location, and pretty much better everything. So I went and bought a new suit with Kenzie over the weekend and was all ready for my big job interview.

The interview went very well. I spent about 4 or 5 hours interviewing with 6 people and at the end of the interviews sat down with the HR lady who said that they would like to offer me the job. The pay was almost double what I was offered at my current hospital in Harrisonburg so I was pretty shocked with the offer. I broke out in a huge smile and said I would need a day to talk it over with my wife. I sent her an email a couple of hours later and told her that I would love to move to Richmond and start work. I begin on January 6 and both Kenz and I could not be more excited.

I never though that I would be moving to Richmond, but Kenzie and I feel great about it. We are excited to start our life together and think we will be very happy in our new town. We now get to lounge around in Utah for a week and enjoy Kenzie’s moms cooking before we head back to school for a week, then take finals, graduate, go to Jolies wedding, take a trip to New York, move some stuff down to Richmond, spend Christmas with my family, fly to Utah after Christmas to hang out with Kenzies family, and then fly back and get to Richmond so I can start my job. Lots of stuff to do in a few short weeks but we are REALLY excited to be where we are.

PS… I passed my comprehensive exam and I am now ok to graduate. Go me.

Save a Horse, Ride a Duke-dog

We had a fantastic weekend! Cyle Adair, my roommate from college, flew into town for the weekend before he deploys to Iraq. Kristi got wind of this and bought a ticket as well. We started the weekend with the 2 hour drive to the airport to pick her up and got home Friday night at about 1:30. I woke up at 7 AM the next morning to take my comprehensive exam so that I can graduate. I was allotted 8 hours to take the test but I managed to knock it out in 4 hours. I felt pretty good about the test and hopefully I pass. If not, I will be sticking around JMU for another semester and I will try again. I think that I passed though so I won’t bother to flesh out the possibility of not graduating.
After my comps test, the fun got started. Tyler, Amy, and Cyle all came by on Saturday night and we hung out all weekend long. There was a lot of good food, a lot of fun, and a lot of laughs. We didn’t do a whole lot but sit around and enjoy each others company, but it was a really good time. The weekend seemed to fly by and I even skipped my first graduate class on Monday so I could hang out with Kristi and Cyle. It was worth it.


Soon enough we had to make the return trip to the airport and say our goodbyes. We had a great time entertaining our visitors. Since then, Kenz and I have been trying to catch up on real life. School is winding down, which means that papers are due and finals are creeping up. We did find time to go and buy our graduation robes and all of that nonsense. We are all set to graduate in exactly one month! I also got an official job offer from RMH if I want to stay here in Harrisonburg and I also got a really good job offer in Richmond that I am going down to interview for next week. I am really excited about both of the jobs so if both work out I will have some trouble choosing. Time will tell though. Wish me luck!

Virginia is Pretty

We took a hike with Tyler and Amy this weekend. After climbing a big old mountain we were rewarded with this sight. It was very pretty.

We had a really fun weekend hanging out with Ty and Amy, but we had a wierd occurance on Saturday night. Around 12:45 there was a loud banging on our door. We had seen cop cars all around our apartment complex when we went to bed so we were expecting something to happen. A few cops stood at the door when we answered it along with their trusty K-9 companion. They informed us that the industrial complex next door had been broken into and the suspect went fleeing into our apartment complex. They asked us if we had seen a green minivan with a carseat in it. We told them that we had not. They then proceeded to ask us, and I quote "Can you tell me where the hispanics live in this apartment complex?" As Kenzie and I had just woken up, we answered their questions without thinking about it and shut the door. Today I replayed the events in my head and thought about their question..... and realized that is pretty much a textbook definition of profiling....But I don't think that their question really counts as profiling because we are so deep in the south that people don't think it is wrong to ask questions like that. We have a pretty state, but oftimes I think it is full of some pretty ignorantly funny people.

Little Ones Weekend

We had our first visit from my mom this weekend and she brought along 3.5 other vistors as well. Loni, Alli and Madison and the .5 came along with my mom for a weekend tour of our fair city. We had a blast. They arrived at about 12 o clock and the girls spent an hour running around our 2 bedroom apartment. Alli found our bedroom and declared that it was her room and her bed. Madison spent her time finding all the loose change throughout the apartment and shoving it in her pockets. Right then I knew it was going to be a good time.

For our first days activity, we went to the Harrisonburg corn maze/carousel/petting zoo/slingshot place/slide place/game stop/anything else you can think of. We thought we were taking them to a pumpkin patch but it turned out to not even have pumpkins. We did get to enjoy donkeys and goats and cows and all sorts of other fun things. We ended up spending several hours there enjoying all the fun things to do. We even found a slide made out of a giant corrugated tube and decided that if Loni wanted to get that .5 girl out of her belly she could just take one trip down the slide and it would come out for sure.

They gave us this flag in case we got lost

We did manage to find the biggest pumpkin


The girls got pretty tired from running around all day so we got home in time for showers and dinner. Tyler and his girlie friend Amy came up for dinner on Friday night and we had a great time eating and hanging out. The next day we headed over to a local book outlet and enjoyed a great meal at Chilies before mom and Loni had to head home. It was great to have visitors and we enjoyed the little girls very much!.

More Praxis

So, as it turns out I have one more entry to make on the Praxis. The good news is I passed! I scored 160 points higher than I needed (well above the average), so as Bruce pointed out, yes --I did over study. I figured this was better than the alternative of paying another 260 dollars and going through the pain, agony, and embarrassment of more studying to take it over.

I was above average for 6 of the 7 subject categories. Ironically, my lowest category was in the area of clinical management. I think the test was trying to tell me something. Maybe I should look into my backup plan as a personal shopper. Who knows. In any case, a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I now feel much less of a need to study for my classes. So far this has worked for me, but we'll see at the end of the semester.

I would also like to take this time to officially extend a challenge to my husband...BEAT THAT SUCKER!!!!!

The Mystical Elliptical

After a couple months of Kenzie enduring cortisone shots, MRI’s, doctors visits, nurse practitioner opinions, and a complete round of physical therapy, we decided that to avoid putting some more wear and tear on her knees we would bite the bullet and get an elliptical. And that is how our journey began.

Our cow poop-smelling town does not actually have a sporting goods store so the nearest one is an hour away in Charlottesville. We made the journey on Friday night after Kenzie spent several hours reading reviews online and looking at different options. We arrived and found one of the two she wanted was actually 250 bucks cheaper because of a sale and so we decided to get it. However, the sales people said that it would not fit in a car and said they would only load it into a truck or some other large type of vehicle…..

So I called my boss and asked if I could borrow his husband’s rodeo to go pick up this machine. They were fine with it and so we drove to their house and picked up the rodeo and started the drive down to Charlottesville. It was then that we realized that my boss’s car has a lot of equal sign stickers and other gay pride-type of bumper stickers and we thought that it was odd that a straight Mormon couple from BYU would be stuck in Virginia driving a truck with gay pride bumper stickers. Never thought that would happen. We hope no one judged us….

We managed to get the elliptical into the rodeo and then at their house we took all the parts out of the box and fit them into our small car. Kenzie had the whole thing assembled in exactly an hour. Mad props to her daddy because the girl can work with tools better than I can.

So we are happy to report that we now are the proud owners of a brand new elliptical and Kenzie’s knees will no longer hurt when she works out. I decided not to use it after I was on it in the store for a minute with the resistance on high and I nearly died. But I did get to drive a car with a gay pride bumper sticker on it, which I would have sworn would not have ever happened.

Here is a picture of me enjoying the fan on the elliptical

Au Revior Praxis

That’s right - I used my extensive French vocabulary to dismiss one of the most awful intruders into the peaceful life that Kenzie and I enjoy. Its name was praxis and it was the comprehensive test that Kenzie had to pass in order to get a degree from JMU. This was not Mr. Madison’s idea. It is actually a national test that all speech pathology students must pass in order to graduate. So Kenzie has spent the past 2 or 3 months studying for the blasted praxis test and has been continually worried about passing it and taking it. In fact, she was so busy studying for it that she forgot to sign up for the actual test. Lucky for us, that meant an extra fee for signing up late….

We decided to head up to Delaware for the weekend and have Kenzie take the test there at University of Delaware. We had a really fun weekend up in Delaware and spent it eating good food and hanging out with our wonderful nieces. Kenzie got to go take her test on Saturday and I even got to mow my dad’s lawn over the weekend as well. All in all, it was a great time.



However, now that the praxis is over I will miss seeing the familiar sight of all of Kenzies books, notes, study sheets, and other assorted materials scattered across the couch. I hope that she passed and if I were a betting man I would bet that she did.

Life is great though. We keep counting down the days until we can start applying for jobs and counting down the days of school that we have left. Exciting times are coming and we are happy they are knocking on our door..

A Couple Last Firsts

Today officially marks the end of an era. Kenzie and I both completed our last first week of school! We also celebrated a few other lasts as we paid our last tuition, bought our last book, applied for graduation for the last time, bought our last parking pass, and yes – even putting together our last first day of school outfit.

We are really excited that we only have 14 more weeks of school and then we get a piece of paper that will hopefully increase our future marketability. Yet again, our schedules are perfectly conflicting with one another as Kenzie has night classes on Monday and Thursday while I have them at conflicting times the rest of the week. We hope that once we are done school and in real life we will get to see each other a bit more. We end up having to meet at really odd times to see each other some days.

We also decided that we are going to walk in the graduation ceremony on December 13. It should be a great time and Kenzies parents are even thinking about coming out for the ceremony. That’s about it for us though. Kenzie really likes working with all the old people at the retirement home that she is working at and I found out last week that my boss is moving to another job and so I am following right behind him and taking all the responsibilities of his current job in preparation for the potential job in January. Things are looking great and we are happy. We are seeing the lasts of the firsts disappear and are more than happy to see a few of them go.

A Life of Vacations

We just spent an entire fun-filled week with my family and boy did we have some good times. The entire vacation was somewhat ruined by the gloom and doom of school only being 2 weeks away, but we tried to enjoy ourselves. We had some fun activities and loved hanging out with the family. Some highlights included watching Annie slide under Alixa in a head-first slide to home that would have made a professional baseball player envious, a trip to the zoo that included one cheetah, several squirrels, and Chinese kid on a scooter, and intense games of Axis and Allies with the new family member Roberto.

We liked spending the time with the family and had a lot of fun. We got to meet up with a friend of mine from high school, Mike Woodin, and have dinner with him and his wife. Kevie also joined us and we had a great time reminiscing about high school, middle school, and all the fun times we had together. We also got to see Kirstin and Kenzie managed to get herself a nice massage. Well, it wasn’t that nice because Kiri actually worked on her knee and made it so she had trouble walking the next day, but now it feels better!

Now we have one week before our last semester of school begins. We are really anxious for our lives to get officially underway as we get jobs and find out where we will being our life. This semester should be a good one and we will certainly be busy as we job hunt, work, go to school, and basically try to find out what the heck we are doing with our lives. We had a great summer and we are officially tired of vacations and are looking forward to a week or two in our own bed. Life is really a lot of fun for us right now and the next few months will be a great time for Kenzie and me.

Bakin' at the Lakin'

Our trip was a lot of fun but let me just say I think Missouri is the hottest place I have ever been in my life! The fact that the lake is right in my grandpa's backyard worked out well. It was a lot of fun to spend a week with my family.

Nate caught his very first catfish, which until then he didn't believe existed. Of course we spent a lot of time swimming and tubing on the boat, but we also got my family addicted to scrabbable (or however you spell that). It was pretty entertaining. As Nate said, there were a wide variety of spellings accepted and at one point I think Spanish words were introduced. One night even ended with Will and Cristen singing a lovely duet of Light up my life to Nate to entice him to play for a few more hours. That was soon followed by Elvis and an hour of other duets. I haven't laughed that hard in a very long time.

We celebrated Nate's birthday while we were there. He got to spend a fun-filled day at the outlet malls. He wasn't too excited about that but he did get some nice Polos and we got to eat a Outback at the end of the night. We also went bowling and everyone there except for Nate got beaten by my five-year-old cousin, Danny.

It was sad to leave everyone, but we did get to stop by Memphis and see Melissa on our way home. She has a cute little apartment and is studying hard to be a nurse. After Memphis we headed to Knoxville to help Jarom and Alixa move in. By the time we got there they had all the stuff moved in so we just helped them unpack then enjoyed some dinner and a game of Settlers.

We had a great trip and kept ourselved entertained while driving by looking for large, weird ceramic animals. We are very happy to be home and I don't think either of us want to be driving anywhere for a while! Below are some of the pictures we took with Nate's new camera.

Our chauffeur, Uncle Will...

What happened when Nate and I tried to get on the tube together...

Nate, striking one of his famous poses...

One of the weird ceramic animals we found...

Happy Birthday to Nate!!!

Another weird, ceramic animals we found...

What we were swimming with at the lake. We saw this 4 foot long fish floating...

A Journey Of Firsts

We just got back from a fantastic trip to go meet up with Kenzie’s family at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. I figured the best way to describe it would be to describe the new experiences that the trip offered. These are all of the firsts that occurred on our journey.

First time I found a giant chicken in Kentucky

First time I got peed on by a turtle

First time I have ever caught or seen a catfish

First time I have ever been punched by a 5 year old square in the jaw

First time I have fallen off of a tube going 35 MPH

First time I have seen OAR spelled ORR in Scrabble (granted the speller is Uncle Hillbilly-Willey from West Virginia)

Kenzie will give you all the real scoop on the trip, but its enough for me to say that I loved the trip and had a lot of new experiences.