Two Transitions Too Soon

So, as you can tell by my writing this entry, I have survived through the past week. After taking my History 202 final last Monday afternoon, I began my History 201 class later that night. From that point onward, I did little else but study and work on this class. I worked through the night to complete the lessons and quizzes for the first half of the classes. On Tuesday afternoon, I went into the testing center and took a three-hour long essay written midterm. That night, the studying continued as I finished the remaining lessons and quizzes for the class, 14 in all. It took me until Wednesday evening before I started on the class project, a 2,000-word research term paper, complete with bibliographical references. Last, but not least, I had to take another three-hour long essay written final on Thursday before going in to work. It was a crazy three and a half days, but I am finally done and graduation is now around the corner!

During all this mess, I took solace in the thought that soon my family and I would be moving into a house and settling in to a nice life, or so it seemed. For those of you who don't know, I recently applied and was interviewed for an internal promotion to an Technical Services Engineer. I felt I did rather well during the interview process, and that is why we decided we ought to buy a house. This past Tuesday night, however, I discovered another potential job opportunity that might take me to China. So now we have until this Friday to decide which offer we will pursue and consequently decide where we will be living for the next few years, at least. We'll be sure to post an update as soon as we have this next big mess is figured out.

Sam's Preoccupation with Dying Monkeys

This is a video of our baby Sam, who apparently finds the death of monkeys to be absolutely hilarious.

One of the Hardest Weeks of My Life

This post will be a short one, and then I doubt you all will hear much from me until next week. You see, this week I will attempt the impossible: complete an Independent Study course from start to finish in four days. That includes all reading and writing assignments as well as two major exams.

I may end up taking time off of work to make sure I can get the coursework done, but I really really want to be done with my under-graduate education. So wish me luck, and hopefully I'll see you all on the other side :)

Hanging out and Haircuts

Well, it is about time that I wrote a post and actually contributed to the blog. If you enjoy Brittny's style of writing more, I am sorry. You will just have to make do with me :)

So while a lot has happened (Taylor's wedding and other fun stuff), from what I can see, Brittny is planning on posting about that. One of the joys of having me write a post is that my concise nature generally means I can get the whole thing out in one sitting. Since those other topics are already reserved, I figured I would write about our recent vacations.

It just so happened that our family reunions coincided around the same beginning weeks in July. That made it really nice for me to get a good break from work. Omniture offered an incentive where you take 4 days off in a row and get a 5th day for free! I know, it sounds weird, but who am I to question more vacation time?!

So off we went to Bear Lake, UT for three days of fun in the sun and in a gianormous three story cabin. Imagine a house that can fit 48 people. Yeah, it was big and awesome. Big 65" TV screens so we could hook up the Wii and play games, a theater room for movies, a playroom with astro-turf and an indoor basketball court, a pool table, a ping-pong table, and even an air hockey table. It was every little (and big) boy's dream. We had a blast hanging out with the family at the beach.

Our nieces are so cute!

We also rented a wave-runner, which Brittny had never been on one before, surprisingly enough. The family warned her that I was a dare-devil with this things, but I promise I was nice. Besides, the ancient machines couldn't even go fast enough to have any real fun!

Oh so cool!

So after three fun-packed day, we headed out to Wyoming for the wife's side of the family. While on the drive up, we encountered the amazing country-side: a rainbow, full moon, and the sunset on the mountains beside it.

Beautiful!

We went to Jackson Hole and Star Valley, WY. After a crazy stormy night on the fourth of July, we spent a lot of time with the Anderson family. We played water-slide kickball, ate popsicles, and went geo-caching.

Sliding into home plate!

Sam's sticky sweet-tooth

Geo-caching and mis-spelled road signs

All in all, it was an excellent week and a half of family fun and bonding! After we got back, though, we realized that Sam was overdue for his first haircut!

All Business up front

Party in back! MULLET!

Here's the after-shot:

Much better