Lindsey Got Married!

So my dear friend Lindsey got married December 17th! I'm so excited for her... but I begged her to still invite me to all her and Rob's outdoor adventures - I don't mind being a third-wheel with them. :)

Me and friends outside of the temple waiting for the happy couple:

The happy couple:

First Semester in Review

I finished my first semester of my graduate program. I survived! Not only did I survive, but I'm pretty sure I excelled! At least, I think I did, but everything is relative to my undergrad where I was happy to get Cs in my classes.

I really loved my Organizational Behavior class. So much of it came naturally for me because it's all the stuff that I and we, the BYU Human Resources personnel, have been trying to get our managers across campus to do for ages now! Dr. Thompson was a fabulous teacher. I think I'm going to end up with an A in the class.

And then my Economics class. It was a beast. Dr. Walters is a great man, very helpful, and personable. I can tell he is very smart. But I think he is still ironing out the kinks in his teaching style and method... because we had some struggles with his assignments and exams. The final exam was take-home and it took me 6.5 hours to complete it - I had to do a cost-benefit analysis and do all the calculations and then make a recommendation. While it was a difficult class, I really learned a lot and my confidence in economics as a topic has been boosted, which is good! One of our text books, Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan, was a fascinating! I recommend it for anyone to read. He writes with a lot of personality and with a lot of interesting examples. Unless I bombed the final, I think I'll come out with a B or B+.

So I love my program! And I really think I made the right choice in choosing the Master of Public Administration program. My classmates are wonderful and have a lot of good insights from their work experience. I definitely think the vast array and amount of work experience we all have adds so much to my learning and makes it mean so much more. Sadly, we did lose one of our classmates to a tragic death. She was a part-time flight instructor for Utah Valley University. She and a student both died in a plane crash in Payson, Utah. It was so sad. It just shows, once again, how fragile life is and how Heavenly Father can bring anyone home at anytime.

As for my team - everyone is great! I really lucked out. Everyone works really hard and does their fair share. Dr. Thompson was always docking us points on our team papers because he wanted us to tell him about our conflicts and how we handle them... but we never really had any conflict! We get along great and we did some great work! We'll remain as a team through the next semester and term. But until then, I'm going to enjoy this Christmas break and get some pleasure reading in! And quilting. :)

Boise for the Weekend

I had a serious need to get out of Dodge this weekend, and when I received the wedding invitation for a good friend's little brother's wedding in Boise that was my ticket! And it happened to be the weekend that my sister Robyn and her husband were moving into their cabin! They aren't literally moving in, meaning abandoning their home in Meridian - they were just moving getting settled into their new cabin from their old cabin. It's beautiful! I'm so excited for them. :) Check out the pictures.

View From My Office!!

Let the season begin!

Imageless Update

I might not have any images to break up this boring post, but at least I'll put the past six weeks in bullet form for you. Ha! I like minimizing my reading lately so I assume others are the same.

• Survived my first economics midterm two weeks ago... I think I maybe passed it. 
• Partied it up at my mountain bike racing team end of season party
• Finally bought a nightstand for my bedroom and it's worthy of a "Glory Hallelujah!"
• Attended my first HOA owners' meeting and found out why I pay such a high HOA fee each month
• Went to St. George with Dave and his family and enjoyed some road bike rides, tennis, two Cedar City Shakespeare Festival plays, two days of sleeping in and lounging in my pajamas, and generally a wonderful time
• Endured three weeks of no internet at home while my internet provider failed to really do anything about it, so I joined the Comcast bandwagon and I'm loving being online at home again
• Discovered that my furnace would not put out any heat, which I think was broken when I had some heating guy come look at my furnace over the summer to make sure it wouldn't kill me via carbon monoxide. Good grief. I try to be a good homeowner and have some things checked out and maintained and then they start giving me trouble! Thankfully, my house was holding some heat during these last few Indian summer days and even more thankfully the heating guy was able to fix it before the cool weather set in this weekend. 
• With Dave this weekend: Played frisbee golf, ate dinner at Magleby's, watched the 12 Angry Men movie - all on Friday night. And then went to The Roof for dinner Saturday night to celebrate the SAERA (Staff & Administrative Employee Recognition Award) I received earlier this year followed by a Temple Square Orchestra concert. 
• This week I have an organizational behavior midterm and an economics presentation.
• And I'm speaking in my ward on Sunday the 31st - about overcoming challenges

Life has been pretty busy. I tell most people that my life consists of work, sleep, school, and spending time with Dave. Four things doesn't seem like much, but they add up and it's worth it!  Hopefully the next post will have some photos and more interesting things to talk about. :)

Oregon, Hydrangeas & Blackberries

My mom and I went to Oregon to visit some extended family and had a wonderful time! I got to meet some of her cousins that I had never met before and also some of their children.

We went a day early to stay with Jodi and see her darling house and it was indeed darling! I follow her blog and she posts pictures of her house so that is how I knew it was darling.

The next day we drove to Seaside, Oregon, and stayed in a darling little beach house a couple blocks away from the beach. Mom was off and on for crying because she was so happy to see and catch up with her cousins. We certainly had our fill of delicious seafood - you have to! You just don't get fresh seafood in Utah like you do on the coast.

We walked along the promenade in Seaside a decent amount. I loved all the houses with the shakes and hydrangeas. And I really loved Cannon Beach, Oregon, which we got to see on our last day on our way to the airport.

Oh and the blackberries.... yeah, I could love Oregon for the wild blackberries. I pay $5 for a cup of blackberries in Utah... whereas in Oregon, I could pick them by the bucketfuls for free! Mmmmm.

Calf Creek

Dave and I, and my friends Jen and Tim, went down to Calf Creek this past weekend. We had heard that Lower Calf Creek was beautiful! And indeed it is!! 

We stopped in Boulder for dinner at Hell's Backbone Grill. The dinner was spendy, but divine! Dave and I shared a crooked squash and corn chowder and a meatloaf dinner. So so good. They cook everything from their own garden. And then we camped just off the highway and had the most amazing views of the milky way and stars I've seen in a long time.   

 

We hiked to Upper Calf Creek falls first thing in the morning and we are so glad we did since it was quite hot and exposed to the sun. And while we hiked, it was only in the 70s and still felt hot during the hike.  The falls was very pretty and worth the hike. 

But I'll say that the Lower Calf Creek Falls was much more spectacular than the Upper. The hike sure seemed longer than 3 miles though - maybe it's because we had to hike through sand the whole time. 

Then we stopped in the Boulder Mountains for an hour and fished at Pleasant Creek. Jen, Tim and I all caught cute little brook trouts but released them as well. And we stopped in Torrey for another spendy and delish dinner at Cafe Diablo.

We had beautiful weather! Couldn't have asked for a better weekend. And! I got my homework done ahead of time. Nice, huh? :)

Oh yeah, and we went a little crazy messing with the Loa, Utah dummy cop and car. Ha!