28 May 2008

Camping in Carpenteria

So we have established a new family tradition, I think. A week before we were married, we went camping on the beach in Carpenteria, CA. We had a blast, and this year was no different.

Now, when you think of camping, you might think hard-core, out in the wilderness, survivor-man type--this is not Carpenteria.


Chopped our own firewood




Scavenging for food



But it really is fun. Our tent was literally 100 feet from the sandy beach. When the weather was particularly nice, we soaked up the sun and played in the ocean. Building sand castles and spending time with family. It was really great! Thanks to all those people who contributed to our camping gear.


Our wedding gifted tent!



Unfortunately, I've come to discover that vacations sometimes aren't really vacations. Life goes on around you, and Brittny and I are still trying to catch up in work and school, etc. Oh well, wish us luck!

18 May 2008

Moving woes

Yesterday we spent the entire day moving. Our whole storage closet is now cleaned out — yay! We couldn't really move too much else since we're still living in our current apartment for another week, but it felt good to get that much done. Of course... at the end of the day we were pretty wiped out, and didn't even want to make the effort to clean off our couch to watch a movie. So instead we blew up our air mattress, ordered pizza and vegged all night. It was great :)



Ok, so we took the picture the next day... so we're in Sunday clothes... you still get the idea, right?


We're moving this week into Cody & Amber Phillips' (really good friends of ours that we made through Eric's ISYS group this year) apartment for the summer. We're really excited about this because it gives us a chance to help out some good friends (they can keep their contract without having to pay double rent while Cody's on an internship) and puts us in an awesome location for both of our jobs, along with several other fabulous benefits.


First of all the location is ideal for us. Right now it takes me about 10 minutes to get from our apartment in Wymount to the bus stop in Orem. I timed how long it will take me from the place we'll be living this summer it takes 3 minutes — 3!! It also puts us a mere 8 blocks from Omniture where Eric works. Moving to Orem makes a lot of sense for us right now.


If the location weren't good enough we're also upgrading from our beautiful cinderblock walls in Wymount to real live walls. Ok, so that's not the big excitement, but having a washer and dryer in the apartment is. The biggest excitement (and really the stimulus for us leaving Wymount), is having a dishwasher. If that doesn't seem amazing to you, you've never tried living without one. Currently our dishes get done once a week... maybe. I'm so excited to not have to look at the insurmountable task of washing every dish we own by hand. And yes, I do realize that I will still have to actually do the dishes, but having had experience with dishwashers in the past, I feel I can safely say that I can in fact place dishes in the dishwasher.


Of course, the one downside is that while we are moving... we're also house hunting. Even though we're only going to be in Amber & Cody's apartment for the summer we're still planning on moving to Orem semi-permanently. So we're looking for places that fit a rather odd set of requirements. Because we are both such tech nerds (hence our blog title) we need to find somewhere with awesome internet capabilities. Also, somewhere with white walls so that we can use our projector. We know that we never want to go back to not having a dishwasher/washer/dryer so those are also requirements. Oh, and the requirement that is currently the most difficult of all, we don't want to move in until August :P We know it will work out eventually, and we're probably just looking way to far ahead, but hopefully by keeping on top of the listings now we can find exactly the place we want when the time comes :)

16 May 2008

New cell phones

Click here to read the full review on the SCH-i760

So we ordered new cell phones today. Let me just say that I love being married to a wonderful wife who appreciates technology like I do. Believe it or not, she was the one to suggest that I work on getting a new phone.

We have Verizon, mainly because both our families use Verizon. I also get a 20% discount through my work, which is always nice. I've generally been content with the don't pay anything free phones that come with the service agreements, but as of late I've been wanting to consolidate my PDA with my phone. Simply carrying around all these electronic devices is no fun. Besides, I have the perfect excuse: my PDA is dying...

This guy knows my pain.

This guy knows my pain



And so I call Verizon to see what kind of deal I can squeeze out of them. You see, every two years I was eligible to get a upgraded phone, but my upgrade date wasn't until June 9, and so I thought I would have to fight tooth and nail to get this to go through tonight. Surprisingly, the guy on the other end (a BYU alumni--Woot!) was extremely helpful to us. He got me the phone I wanted...for $200 less than retail! And then he threw in a case for half off and a nice $120 phone for free for Brittny. That definitely raised Verizon's customer support in my book.

I would rant about all the cool new "specs" and features of my new phone, but I think I will spare you and post it on my upcoming tech blog. Enjoy the pictures instead.

The Samsung SCH-i760

My new baby



Brittny's new phone



Click here to read the full review on the SCH-i760

12 May 2008

Creating the Archives

While we are in the process of really getting our family blog going we decided that we would start by creating an archive. Anything posted prior to this are actually back-dated posts from while we've been married. We've pulled content from both of our personal blogs as well as some other sources. We really wanted this to be a fairly accurate record of our married life that we can share with our friends. We'll be posting real updates soon enough!