Christmas 2007

We had a good Christmas this year. Got to spend a lot of time with Ryan, Meg, and Addie, but sadly, we didn't get to see Kelly, Sarah, or Abigail.

I'd have liked to have spent more time with my grandparents and gotten to see any of my cousins, but we didn't get as much time off from work we'd have liked, as is always the case.

Megan instituted a white elephant exchange this year, which was hilarious. "What is the most ridiculous thing you can buy for a dollar?" We seemed to have a bit of a gangsta theme going on.

This time of year always reminds me of how blessed we are to have such a wonderful and supportive family. This was mine and Kelly's first Christmas as a married couple and our last one without a baby. It's amazing to me how much can change in a year, and how much never will. My husband will always try to stick some type of wrapping paraphernalia up my nose, my family will always go above and beyond with gifts and make way too much food, and I will always want to stay longer than I acutally can.

I Have Officially Graduated!

Graduation was today. I was told the wrong times, so I was a bit late, but didn't miss anything. There were only about a dozen graduates there, so the whole thing when very quickly.

GRADUATION IS COMING!!!

I finally have all the info on my graduation. I almost had to strangle a moose to get it.

I will be graduating on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 1:30PM in the Eccles Conference Center Auditiorium on USU's campus. This is just a ceremony for my college. I'm not going to the big 2 hour University commencement.

Call me if you have any questions! Here is a map of the campus.

https://extension.usu.edu/files/conference/USUCampus.pdf

Oh, Christmas Tree

We went and bought our first Christmas tree today. It's a real Grand Fir tree. I've never had a real tree before, so this is going to be an adventure.

Our tree. (Yes, we did tie it to the top of the car to get it home...)

Finally, it's upright and in place!

I had no idea that real trees dropped so many needles!

Lighting the tree...

Finally finished...

Kelly laying under the finished tree

Kelly's Tree Topper

Rita's Shed, part 2

I was at home doing homework, so I don't have too much to say about the construction for this bit.

Putting up the sheeting.

How We Met

I've got time to kill, so I thought I'd let everyone know the full story about how Kelly and I met.

In the summer of 2006 I started working at the Best Buy in Logan. In October 2006 Kelly started at the same store. I worked at the desk at the front doors, greeting people and checking receipts. Kelly was in the digital camera department, located directly in front of my desk.

I didn't notice Kelly until November. I was starting my shift and was talking to the guy I was trading with. One of our jobs was to tag employee purchases. Kelly came up with a Coke in hand, and waited for his sticker. Mark and I were discussing something that was apparently important, so Kelly just put a sticker on his coke himself and continued on. Being in the fantastic mood that I was, I snapped at him. "You know that's our job." He looked at me and said, "Yup. It sure is," and walked away. My first thoughts of my husband were: That guy is a jerk! Kelly says he thought I was a brat.

So why are we married now? Curve Cologne.

The employees had to clock in at my desk. I ignored Kelly for the next few shifts, but caught a whif of his cologne one day. He smelled good! I started standing closer to him every shift. One day I wasn't paying attention when he came in and I stepped backwards into him and he scared me, so I squeaked. He thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard and started trying to scare me to get me to squeak again. That turned promptly to flirting, so after Thanksgiving I asked him out. He turned me down. So I asked again. He turned me down again. The company took us to see King Kong as a Christmas party and I sat behind him in the theater. He flirted more, so I asked him out again. He shot me down. Finally I gave him my phone number and told him to call me when he wanted to go out.

Three weeks later, just before New Year's, he was out with his roommates and they wanted some girls to hang out with. On a dare, he called me, and had me bring my roommates with me. We hit it off really well, so he asked me to go out with him on New Year's Eve. After that we started spending almost every day together.

On June 22, 2007 he proposed at first dam in Logan. He said, "I've been waiting for the perfect moment to ask you, then I realized that every moment I'm with you is perfect. Will you marry me?" He was so nervous he put the ring on my right hand and it got stuck. A little over 6 months later we got married in Ogden. Eleven blissful months later, here we are. Still very much in love.

Who knew so much good would come from Best Buy?

Our Thanksgiving Weekend Project

My contribution to Thanksgiving dinner, along with some rolls, a pumpkin pie and a scratch pumpkin cheesecake!

Kelly's Aunt Rita has commisioned us to build her a 12'x12' shed. I didn't get a picture of what it first looked like, but rest assured it wasn't easy to clear the area. After some work with the chainsaw, 3 trailer loads of branches and brush were hauled away, by myself and LeAnn. Brent and I dug the holes for the footings, occasionally being spared by Kelly. We took a break for Thanksgiving dinner then went right back out. Kelly and Brent mixed the concrete while I supervised (mostly I was avoiding his cousins) and filled the footing tubes.

They weren't quite dry enough to build on Friday, so I put togther the joist hangers while Kelly and Brent made trusses. Today we really got things going. Kelly and I mounted the joist posts and then all three of us put in the joists.
















I finished nailing the trusses together while the boys fought to make the whole thing square, then we put on some glue and put down the floor sheeting. Kelly nailed everything down while Brent and I got it into place. Next, Kelly laid out the walls and they just flew up. We got three done today.

Wall #1

Wall #2

Wall #3

Here, Aunt Rita and cousin Hayden came out to inspect the work.

Minnesota Update

Everything is in. I'm going up for an interview and recruiting weekend in January sometime and assuming all goes well, I'll be starting on May 26th. We'll make the move during the week of the 19th. Nothing will be finalized until after the interviews, but it's looking pretty secure. Wow. We're really moving away. Scares me to death!

Wish us luck, and have a great Thanksgiving!

We'll be at Mom and Dad's on Sunday for a little Thanksgiving.

Did you know that head wounds bleed a lot?

I smacked my head good and hard on the metal arm on the big fertilizer spreader at work and cut my head open. It wasn't a big cut, but it bled like mad. My head hurts now. What a great way to start Thanksgiving.

Graduation Update

My graduation will be on Saturday, December 15th at 1:30pm at the Eccles Conference Center. Everyone is invited, just let me know by Thanksgiving if you're coming or not so I can make sure there's seats for everyone. I'm not ordering formal invitations, so spread the word for me. Hope to see you all soon,
Love, Sarah and Kelly

GRE's

I'm happy announce that I've finished my GREs and got a 500 Verbal and 590 Quantitative. It's a little above average for my major, and ought to be enough to get me into the University of Minnesota. Kelly bought me flowers today to celebrate passing my test. He's such a wonderful husband.

He still loves working with Big Horn, and we're both doing really well.

Happy Halloween!!

ARGG!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so stressed out!! My GRE exam is tomorrow, and I've been studying my butt off, to the detriment of my other classes. I bombed a genetics exam Friday and have a weeds exam Wednesday that I haven't even started studying for. Kelly and our families are the only things keeping me sane! URG!

Minnesota Update

It looks like I might have the position. I'm taking my GRE's on the 30th and can put in my application then. If I'm accepted, I've got the job, I think. I won't be able to start classes until summer or fall semester, but I'm going to try to start working before that so I can avoid as much as I can of the November - March slump. I'll let you know whether or not I have the position for sure and when we'll be leaving. Thank you all for all your advice!

Potential Job Offer

Okay, this is really important to us and we need some help. I've pretty much made my decision, but I want to make sure I'm not doing the wrong thing.
As you all know I'm graduating with my Bachelor's in December. I really just wanted to be done with school and start on a career, but then my turf professor brought this to my attention. The University of Minnesota is trying to fill two research assistantship positions in January 2008. They will pay a yearly salary of $20,120, with full insurance and tuition covered. Basically, I can get my M.S. for free, if I'm accepted. The research will be breeding rust-resistant perennial ryegrass cultivars. Perennial rye is my favorite turf species, but I don't have any experience in breeding and I suck at complicated Genetics, as evidenced by my last exam score. Kelly thinks I have a good shot at the position and that I'll pick up the genetics stuff better when it's hands on and applicable to what I'm doing. There's also a good pre-law program for him at the University and then a few good law schools in nearby Minnesota for him to go to after he graduates.
The problem is that I didn't really want to go to anymore school and Minnesota is a very long way away from both of our families. It's a very, very good opportunity for me though. As I said, I've pretty much made my decision, but I want to know what you all think too. I'm putting up a poll for everyone, please use it, and leave me comments if you like too, just remember to tell me who you are if you sign in as anonymous. Thank you all!

Qwest is run by Nazi's!

On Monday the Nazi's at Qwest installed a new program on their employee's phones. Kelly's didn't get installed right and he spent most of Monday and Tuesday with tech support trying to get it fixed, which bombed his availability percentage. On Wednesday his boss told him he had to have it back up to 90% by Friday or he would be fired. On Thursday morning his boss told him that he could either quit or be fired on Friday and she would block unemployment. So now we have no insurance.

Luckily, Deyette and Duren came to the rescue. Kelly starts Monday working construction with Duren. We didn't take a pay cut, but still don't have insurance. I'm going to try to get insurance through the University on Monday, but I don't know if it will cover Kelly too, and it will only last until December when I graduate.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Sunday at Snowbasin

We spent Sunday up at Snowbasin to celebrate a bunch of birthdays: my Grandma Sonia, Aunt Natalie, Uncle Mark, Uncle Tom, and my Dad. There was Celtic music thing going on that was very cool. One of the players had a beautiful wooden flute that made me want to pick up mine and start practicing again.

We had four generations there from my grandma, Mom, Ryan, to Addie. She's such a sweet baby!

Meg said Addie had an upset tummy, but she hardly fussed at all and let us play "pass the baby" all afternoon.

We took a ride up to the top of the mountain on the gondola with my Aunt and Uncle. Kelly's really excited to start the ski season. We have high hopes of going to Snowbasin a few times and Beaver Mountain a lot. Any skiers or snowboarders that want to go, let us know and we'll make a day of it!

Kelly and I had a beautiful drive down. Anyone who's close enough to Sardine Canyon, take a drive this week, it's gorgeous!

I definately got a workout at work today. We were fertilizing an acre or two of turf, so I got to stand in the back of the workman (it's like a golf cart with a dump bed) and lift 50 lb bags of fertilizer from my feet to chest hieght and then pour them into the spreader, all while moving. Only took about an hour and we went though about 15 bags of 19-3-19. Whew!

I Need Weeds!

I was asked to be more diligent in my blogging, so here's update from the past 2 weeks:

I HATE GETTING UP EARLY!!

There it is. That pretty much sums up mine and Kelly's lives.

One thing I did learn from just today was this:

+

=

I have Uncle Tom's fingers now.

Anyway, school's being going well. I have to collect and press 50 different weeds by Oct.12. I have 30 drying right now, but I'm starting to stretch for the last 20. Let me know if you have any cool weeds. Send me a picture so I can see if it's one I already have too.

I had a Genetics exam today. I did pretty well on it, which gives me hope for getting a good grade out of that class. I'm going to topdress the green next week. It's a pretty interesting process if you've never see it done before, and if you're not the one doing it. I'll take some pictures so you all can share in my joy. That's all I've got right now. My life is pretty boring, just sleep, school, work, school again, work again, homework, dinner, not enough sleep, and then it starts over. We've got a busy weekend ahead of us, so hopefully we'll have something new to share.

Just for Ryan and Meg

Addison Linda Spiers

Kelly and I spent Sunday afternoon and Monday evening with my parents, Meg, Ryan, and baby Addie. She is the sweetest thing EVER! Meg let me feed her and burp her. I never knew that you have to smack them that hard to get the bubbles out. I always thought it was a gentle pat. She is absolutely beautiful, even when she goes cross-eyed from trying to focus. :) Ryan is so cute with her; he'd come over to me while I was feeding her and help me to hold her at a better angle, and showed me how to hold her to get a good burp out of her. She does this darling little head butt thing to your shoulder when she's hungry. I love my niece and hope I get to see a lot more of her as she gets bigger and easier (sort of) to travel with.

I hate being sick

I've been feeling icky for a few days and stayed home from work yesterday in an attempt to sleep it off, but of course didn't ever get a chance to sleep because I ended up running errands. Last night I crashed around 10 while Kelly watched TV, and didn't actually get up until about 3pm this afternoon. I feel a little better, but am still stuffed up. I don't recommend sleeping for that long all at once. My whole body hurt when I woke up, whether is was from being sick or sleeping that long, I don't know. I did manage to put both my arms to sleep somewhere in the process. That was wierd. We found these shower tablets at Walmart during cold season last year that work really well to clear out you sinuses, they're called "shower soothers." I'm gonna go lay back down now.

Glacier National Park

Kelly and I took a vacation to Glacier National Park in Montana with my parents over my birthday. The week long vacation was just what we needed! We passed by the Testicle Festival in Rock Creek on our way there, but elected not to stop and "have a ball." Upon entering Grizzly Country we were beset upon by a multitude of signs such as:

We did see some grizzlies, but were too far away to get a good picture. Whew! Kelly, armed with a "Best Hikes of Glacier National Park" book became the tour guide. He was promptly demoted to "bear bait" after taking us on a 12 mile hike.

We had some close encounters with mountain goats, one huge hoary marmot and learned that dutch oven chili doesn't agree with Dad's or Kelly's digestive systems. All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better birthday though!

Fall Semester 2007

I started my last semester of college at USU on Monday, August 28. My classes are as follows:

• Weeds (plus a Lab)


• Plants and Civilizations


• Senior Seminar


• Landscape Management (plus a Lab)


• Genetics

Weeds is going to be a very interesting class, albeit very time consuming. I despise genetics, as it is human genetics and isn't doing anything for me except bombing my GPA. Landscape is interesting, senior seminar is just an exit course and only once a week. Plants and Civilizations has the potential to be interesting, but as of yet is just basic review and is horrible boring.

14 weeks to Graduation!