Merry Christmas!!!

We hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday!

UTAH!

We have arrived safely in Utah! We left on Sunday morning, and after driving through the night, we arrived in Ogden before noon. The roads were terrible when we got here, but after getting stuck a block from Ben's Parents' house, we finally made it. We haven't seen this much snow in a long time!

Dr. Jensen!

Ben was officially presented with his Doctor of Chiropractic degree on Saturday morning. The school had a lovely graduation ceremony for all the graduates. Ben informed me that I have to refer to him as "Doctor" now.



Up next:


Getting hooded:



We were thrilled to have Ben's parents and brother Joseph in town to attend the ceremony!




Asher and "Papa":


Our family:




Ben's family was also a HUGE help with all the packing, loading, cleaning, driving, and babysitting that came with this hectic weekend. We can't thank them enough!

Ben is officially graduating!!

Not that we were worried he wouldn't. He went and got everything signed off and checked out at the school this morning. He got his cap and gown and everything. He has officially reached all the requirements to take the walk on Saturday.

Only one more day! We're so proud of him!

He's got the look!

I looked up from my email this morning to find Asher walking around with his pj bottoms around his ankles, wearing one of my heels. What a nut!

Busy Weekend

As we get closer to moving, our schedule gets more and more packed! This weekend was no exception.

On Saturday, I spent the day cleaning and cooking in preparation for a big dinner we had at our house. We invited all our Logan cronies over for a turkey and ham feast. It was so fun! I don't think we've ever had that many people packed into our teeny trailer before, but it was so good to be able to have one last get-together with all our friends before we leave. And the food was so yummy, too! :)

Yesterday, we had our last day of church here in the Rockwood 1st ward. We have LOVED this ward and are so sad to leave it.

Last night, Ben's class had their graduation party, so our friend Alanna came and sat with the kids while we went to that. Ben's class was lame and voted to have an open bar for their party. No dinner... just an open bar. It was fun for Ben to see all his classmates again, though. They didn't have any classes this trimester (they only had clinic hours), so some of them he hadn't seen in a while. It was also fun for me to meet his classmates.

We didn't plan to stay very long, as we weren't interested in being there when people started getting really drunk. But, their limo service ended up being a fiasco and we were stranded there until midnight! (We can't apologize enough to Alanna..... we owe you BIG time!) We enjoyed a raucous ride home in the limo, complete with loud rap music, swaying, groaning people, and an ice storm. Luckily, we made it home alive and without being puked on (although that last one was a close call!). What an adventure! The whole thing made me really thankful that we don't drink!

And that was our exciting weekend.

Smarty Pants

Evan LOVES to practice his letters and numbers. He is always begging me to do "school" with him. He is getting so good at writing his letters. He has recently mastered writing his name all by himself!



I think we have a little lefty.

Update

Well, we are officially one week away from graduation!! It's so crazy that we are finally this close to living in the "real world." Neither Ben nor I have known anything but student life.

As we mentioned, our Hawaii plans fell through early this week. We spent about a day being shocked and disappointed and then we moved on to deciding where we would go from here. We went back and forth between still going to Hawaii or going to Utah. We finally decided that, as much as we'd love to live in Hawaii, we just couldn't justify it without a great business opportunity like the one we had before. It's just too expensive there!

So..... We are officially moving to Utah to start a practice. We are liking the Syracuse area (near Layton, about 25 miles north of Salt Lake) because of it's potential for growth, but we have no firm plans at this point.

We are still a little bummed. We love Utah, but we did spend the last year dreaming of beautiful beaches and 70 degree weather. We decided that those things weren't the most important things on our list of considerations, though. ;)

We are absolutely THRILLED that we are going to be close to family again! We've really missed all our loved ones. We are also thrilled at how cheap it is to live in Utah! :)

We are still kind of trying to wrap our heads around this whole huge shift in plans, but we are optimistic and excited. We know that Utah is where the Lord wants us to be right now.

This is SO true....

Tagged

Madi tagged me a little while ago, but I had a hard time coming up with these!

The Rules:

*Mention the rules on your blog.

*Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.

*Tag 6 fellow bloggers

I don't like any kind of plastic lawn ornament. Christmas stuff, gnomes, deer, whatever. I think they are all tacky and borderline creepy. (Although, I have seen a few that aren't bad. A very few.)

I'm a stress case. I worry about EVERYTHING. I am always thinking ahead and I end up trying to think of every possible outcome of a situation and then I try to plan for it. (Which doesn't work very well, by the way. It only stresses me out.)

I once kept a roach in a canning jar for months only because I wasn't sure what to do with it. Have you ever tried to figure out how to kill a roach once you've got it in a little jar? I was too afraid that it would scurry out if I opened the top. That sucker stayed alive in there for a LONG time.

If something is crooked, I have to straighten it. I HAVE to. I think maybe this comes from 5 years of working at Hallmark. Or maybe I have a mild form of OCD. Who knows. Ben gets embarrassed because I straighten things (and put them back where they belong) at stores when we're out shopping.

I love to paint. I don't mean artistically, I mean painting walls. Give me some good music and an empty room to paint and I'll be happy for hours.

I hate moving. Not because of the packing or the hassle or the expense, (although, those are all a pain) but because I hate starting over, and I hate being "new". I've moved 12 times in my life so far. This upcoming move will be lucky 13!

I tag whoever wants to do it. :)

There's another adorable little baby on my picture blog. :)

Hawaii on hold?

Bad news. The opportunity that we had in Hawaii unfortunately fell through. We feel like the chair got pulled out from under us. Until today it was pretty much a sure thing. Everything was falling into place and we felt that the Lord was guiding us. It was the perfect opportunity.

The doctor that I was going into business with decided that he didn't want to bring me into the business. He didn't given us any forewarning or any real reason why. It's been a hard pill to swallow, especially since we're so close to graduation and were given no reason why.

So, right now we are trying to decide what to do. We can continue to plan for Hawaii and simply open our own practice or look for opportunities closer to home ie: Utah. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but we're still reeling from this blow.

We'll keep everyone posted. Hopefully we'll know soon.

-Ben

I caved...

I figured there was no point in putting up Christmas decorations this year since we are leaving on the 20th. Evan is soooo excited for Christmas, though, and he gets so excited whenever he sees any kind of Christmas decorations. I started feeling really bad that he doesn't get to have any Christmas decorating fun of his own this year. So this morning, I got out the tree and we put some lights and ornaments on it. It will only be up for a few days, but oh well.

Despite Chrisie's warning, I didn't check the lights before putting them on the tree and had to re-do them because half the strand was not working. Good thing our tree is only 3 feet tall! The other tragedy was a ball ornament that got broken. I heard Asher say "Ball!" and looked up just in time to see him throw it. Other than those two mishaps, the Christmas tree decorating went quite well.

Evan thoroughly enjoyed himself!


Asher kept giving this snow man kisses.


The finished result... up on the computer desk where no one can bother it. :)

It's beginning to look a lot like...

...we're moving. This is what the kids' room looks like right now:


Basically, the only things in it are the crib and some toys. Evan keeps saying, "I wanna move to Hawaii and get my new bed." :)

P.S. Don't mind the crappy blinds. The kids sure did a number on them.

The lateset from Evan....

I overheard this conversation yesterday morning as we were getting ready to go run errands:

Ben: Let's go!
Evan: Daddy, we're going to the library and the grocery store, and Hawaii!
Ben: How 'bout we take this one step at a time.

(He got very upset when we were done with the grocery store and I told him it wasn't time to go to Hawaii yet.)

------------------------------------------------
Yesterday, we were walking into Walmart and passed under the surveillance monitor. Evan said, "Look, Mommy! It's a TV show about people walking!"

The first snow of the year!

We had a little bit of snow yesterday morning, but it didn't stay. Today, there is snow on the ground! (Even though it's just a teeny bit.) The boys were excited to get out and run around in the snow. Asher was very intrigued because he doesn't remember snow from last year. He put his hand in it and then came up to me (with snow on his hand) all upset because it was cold. :)

Here are a few pics of the boys having their fun.







This is what Asher looks like when he says "cheeeeeeeese!"






"Sniiiiiffff". Cold= Runny nose.