A New Toy!

We successfully made our first major purchase tonight, found out we both have really good credit and fulfilled Jared's life long dream. . . we got a new (well technically "certified" used according to Jared) car, and not just any car, but a Subaru!! We've made it two and a half years with only one car but now that Jared is commuting back and forth to SLC everyday and given that we'll need another one when I start teaching full-time next year, we decided now was a good time to start looking for a deal! We found the Subi (like Sewbee, pretty original nickname eh?!) this past weekend at a dealership up in Salt Lake, it's a Subaru Impreza Wagon. We both like the look of the hatchback, plus it'll give us more room for all of Jared's mountain man gear. He also likes it because it is a stick shift and he thinks it's pretty cool to go fast through roundabouts and sharp corners, figures. . . Anyway, here's a few pics.

 This is the face you get when you 

ask for a "cool guy" pose baha

 He's so happy!

Demonstrating how the trunk cover thingy works

Ha, this is fitting, we just watched a commercial about a guy who talks about how his Subaru "saved his life" blahblahblah, so Jared looks at me and says, "It's perfect, his Subaru loves him like our Subaru loves us!" haha what are the odds?!

Cute Video

Wow I've been on a bloggin roll the past couple of weeks!! I was on campus today and I walked passed a little toddler that looked so much like my sister's little son Drake. Whit emailed me this super cute video of him the other day. He's about 2 1/2 years old now and he's been working on saying all of his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles "real" names because he's called most of us by our nicknames. I've always been "B" to him and Jared has always been "Bah" (originating from Whit always calling Jared "Jare-Bear" or just Bear) Anyway, he knows that my first name is Stacie and I'm pretty sure he knows "Bah's" first name is Jared, but he thinks he's pretty funny in calling Jared "Bear" as well!

The beginning of the video is him telling us that he calls their dog a sneaky bugger, haha and that dog totally is a sneaky bugger, pretty sure my bro-in-law wants to drop kick him off their deck!

Today I got observed by my "mentor" faculty lady while I was teaching my class. She's super nice and I really like her, but it's a tad bit intimidating having somebody there watching your every move and you can see her scribbling crap down on her notebook out of the corner of your eye! And my lesson?? Totally did not go how I was originally expecting. Gotta love those times when you have absolutely no idea what the students are saying, I probably looked like an idiot up there but oh well, that's teaching for ya haha!

Another funny note. . . Jared told me that he dreamt he was Harry Potter last night, baha! He went on some mission to kill bad guys and right before he woke up he heard a voice (his reenactment made it sound like a mix between Dumbledore and Snape) say "Well done Harry Potter." haha, so random but hilarious at the same time!

Workin Man

Jared had his first day of work today! I probably should have packed him a lunch, but lets face it, I'm not a morning person and I had to get to campus early to prep for my class this morning! He had to do some sort of new employee orientation thingy for a while but then got to spend the rest of the day designing, so it was a good day overall. We spent the entire evening filling out a bunch of paperwork for taxes and insurance, but it's kind of fun to do it when you know you will actually be getting steady income from now on, it's pretty awesome! 

 First time ever having to fill out a W-4 for a real job!

The cool garage clicker he gets so

he doesn't have to pay to park

We got a nice little surprise tonight. We got a check back from SRAM (the company in Colorado Springs that Jared interviewed with) and they reimbursed us $630 dollars for our gas and milage from when we drove out for Jared's interview!!! We had only spent $170 dollars on gas and stayed with family the whole weekend, so we made out pretty well with these people! I might feel about 2 seconds worth of guilt considering he didn't take their offer, but if they're willing to give us that much for driving out there, then I'm more than willing to swing it by the bank and make a big fat deposit into our account. Ha, Jared asked if he could buy something with the money and I said no way considering we are now responsible for paying back a fairly significant amount in student loans, but oh well, at least we don't have to worry about 630 dollars of it!

Some Great News!!

No people I'm not pregnant let's just get that out of the way right now :)  But, we do have some really great news to share. This. . .

 Nose Picking. . . 

 Tent building . . .

(in the family room no less!)

 Lego Loving. . . 

 Hardcore Hiking. . .

Super cute 

(I kind of like this picture, so I threw it in there)

dude just accepted his first "real man" job (I like to call it that because it sounds cool)!!!!! He'll be working full-time as a designer at a advertising/design firm called Axis 41 up in SLC. We are seriously so excited and relieved that it all finally came together. This summer has been a tough one for us, we've learned a lot about patience and faith through this whole job hunting battle, but we are grateful that everything always has a way of working out in the way that it needs to. Thank you to everyone for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers, you don't know how much we appreciate it.

For now we will be staying in our apartment here in Provo because I have to be on campus to teach and we only have one car, but we'll probably end up moving further north in either December or the end of the school year.

In other news, teaching has gone great so far this semester. I was super nervous for the first week, but now that I have gotten to know my class it's really been more fun than anything else! I teach a math class that Elementary Ed. majors have to take, so all of my students are girls. I honestly feel more like their friend than their teacher because I'm only a few years older than most of them, but I think I've done a pretty good job in helping them learn the concepts they need to while keeping class enjoyable at the same time.

Anyway, just wanted to fill everybody in on the good news! :)

Things that make me smile. . .

This pictures makes me laugh!

After yesterday's little rant, I'm in a much better mood today and have decided to compile a list of things that make me smile.

-Having my mom go grocery shopping with me when she's in town, she always buys us junk food that I refuse to buy on my own because I'm too cheap! :)

-Going back to Target and finding the blouse I wanted in the right size, then coming home and modeling the new outfits I could make with that blouse to Jared and having him tell me I'm hott!

-Facebook stalking into a couple who just adopted a baby boy and looking through their pictures from the day he was born.

-Listening to Jared sing in the shower haha!

-Watching Melanie on So You Think You Can Dance, I love this dance as well as this one!

-Being able to talk to my Aunt on the phone, she's the best

-Jared having a job interview with a company that he really likes on Friday morning

-Being able to road trip to Colorado Springs with Jared to said interview!

-Singing this song in my car at the top of my lungs! Haha, gotta love middle school!

-Kickin the crap out of my highest Fruit Ninja score!

I could go on and on, but those are the first things that come to my mind! 

Things that bug . . .

Doesn't this picture just crack you up?! Hahaha

I don't know why, but I am in a pessimistic frame of mind this fine day. . . so I'm letting it all out there on my list of "things that bug," which is a list of things that probably bug other people too, so join me in my little rant! (Disclaimer: None of the following statements are made in real anger, mostly with a smirk and shake of my head at the antics of some people! haha)

-Incompetent professionals who say they are going to call but never do, and who don't have the decency to write you an email to say that they need to reschedule. . . idiots! (Who then email you back several days later to "apologize" and see if they can set up another time to talk. . . thanks but no thanks lady!!)

-Seeing girls in shorts so short that the pockets hang lower than the hem of the short, sorry but I don't want to see your butt cheeks thank you very much!

-Crazy back-to-school shoppers at Walmart, I swear they are out for blood!

-The customer service girl at the Orem Target who tells me the American Fork store has the blouse in the size I need, so I drive up there at 9:30pm only to find out they actually don't have it, and that the customer service girl should have told me they only update inventory in the mornings. . . another incompetent!

-Big boobs and a small waist. . . I could have avoided the whole Target fiasco in the first place if my freakin boobs didn't cause the buttons of the aforementioned blouse to pop open!

-The fact that it took over three weeks to get a paid for one of my jobs. . . don't they know that we are poor?!

-Landlords who bark up our tree if we are a couple days late on our rent (we forgot to pay before we spent a weekend down in STG) but who consistently don't deposit our rent checks until well after the 15th every month!

-All of these college girls who create blogs so that they can post pictures of what they wear every single day, along with where they bought every single piece of clothing in that outfit. Yes you have cute clothes, thank you for bestowing your genius on us lesser folks who have no style!

-(This one's for my sister) Crazy old ladies that live down the street who don't know how to mind their own business, who are a bit mean and nasty, and who take it upon themselves to uphold every single detail of the stupid HOA policies . . . thanks for providing an example of exactly what I DON'T want to be like when I'm in my 70's and losing my mind!

-Provo before the start of a new school year. . . the source of all the insane Walmart shoppers!

-Utah Valley highway construction, thanks for making all of our lives a bit more miserable!

-Overpaid athletes who think they are are the shizz, "I'm not going to sign a contract for only 8 million per year, I'm totally worth at least 12!" Wow, only 8 million a year, cry me a frickin river you fool!

-Spilling a glob of peanut butter on my foot. . . don't ask, not telling!

-Seeing a six year old walking home from school talking on a cell phone, come on people, we have to draw the line somewhere!

Well that's a long enough list for now, I'm feeling much better now :) Hope you were able to get a good laugh, or at least that we are in agreement on some!

Quick Update

It's been, and will be quite the week. Best news of all though, we have a brand new niece!! Jared's brother Blake and his wife Sheena are now parents to a cute little girl named Hannah Claire, who was born this past Sunday afternoon. We are so excited for them, although somewhat bummed for ourselves because we haven't seen her yet and we don't know when we'll be able to make it up to Seattle to visit! They are going to be the best parents in the world and we can't wait to get to know that little angel. On Monday, Jared was able to get quite a bit of feedback from different studios that he has been in contact with. He has an interview Friday morning with a company called SRAM, they are a company that makes bike parts like brakes and cranks (I don't even know what a crank is, I've just heard Jared toss the term around and I'm assuming they make those, ha!) and other cool parts that I don't know about! Anyway, their marketing team is based in Colorado Springs, which seems like a fun place to live, and we'd take it over NYC or some other big cities, so keep him in your prayers! He is also in contact with a bigger design company that has offices in NYC, Chicago and Minneapolis. A guy who went through Jared's same program a couple years ago works for them in NYC, so he is helping Jared get his foot in the door. They've been looking through his website the past couple of days, so hopefully he gets an email from their hiring team this week, we will keep our fingers crossed! I'm doing well, just working and trying to get ready for this up coming semester. Right now the plan is for me to stay in Provo for at least fall semester regardless of whether or not Jared gets a job elsewhere. We'd save a ton of money on tuition and I actually make really good money teaching on campus, so we think it might be the best option financially for us, but we'll see if we change our minds if the distance actually becomes reality. I got assigned to teach a math course that students have to take if they are in the elementary education program. I think it should be pretty fun! It covers very basic topics, like operations on multidigit numbers, integers, polygons etc. but it goes into alot more detail with each topic. Luckily our department has already created a curriculum for the course, so I won't have to develop my own lesson plans and worksheets from scratch, but I'll be spending quite a bit of time in the next few weeks preparing for to teach it though. A few weeks ago a good friend of mine named Melissa visited Provo and we were able to get together one of our old roommates Kira for dinner. Melis has been in DC the past few years teaching and has made the move out to California to teach out there. She stopped by on her way through and it was great to get together and reminisce about the good ol' Branbury days! This weekend we are going to help my sister and her family move back down to STG. We are sad they are leaving us, but its a good move for their family. Whit is going to be doing the nursing program at Dixie State, so that will be great for her. It's going to be hotter than crap down there, but we are going to stay a few extra days so we can hang out and take a break from job hunting and working. It's been a stressful summer and we are both sick of it! :) I stole these pics from both Sheena's and Melissa's blogs, but I wanted to post them myself too!

Little Hannah

Kira, Melissa and I

Haha, I compared this picture of the three of us to some that we have from when we all lived together and I look so different! These other two ladies are still as gorgeous as ever (although Kira has a little more grey now, I love her grey hair, it's tight!!), but I've grown up alot in the past four years, I don't even look the same anymore!