Christmas Letter 2010

Merry Christmas!

Well, I’ve completed my first year as a homeowner without any major incidents. Only two more years until I’m free of the new homeowner credit commitment, but I’m not counting down (note the sarcasm). I’ll be here at least until August 2013 when I graduate with my masters degree. Yes! That’s right! I started an evening masters degree program this fall and I’m still working full-time for BYU’s Human Resource Development. I’m in the Master of Public Administration program and I’m loving it! I just finished two classes: Organizational Behavior and Economic Decision-Making for Managers.

Here are some of the other highlights from my year:

• The year’s travels included a trip to Blackfoot, Idaho to visit my dad, several trips to St. George for some biking, a business trip to Washington DC with my mom, a hiking trip to Zions and Moab, Jackson Hole for a mountain bike race, California for the 30-50-70 party with my sisters and mom to celebrate some milestone birthdays! Oregon to reconnect with some distant cousins, and Boise for a little get-out-of-dodge weekend.
• Tried my hand at refinishing some furniture and definitely need some help from those with experience! :)
• Joined the mountain bike racing team again and actually won 2nd place at the Deer Valley race! I also rode the Little Red Riding Hood 100-mile Century ride again with my sister Teri in beautiful Cache Valley.
• Went on a couple backpacking trips to beautiful Grand Gulch and  White Pine Hollow. We really tested the filtering capabilities of my water filter when we drank from a pothole that had tadpoles in it! 
• I even went snow skiing at Snowbird on JUNE 19TH!! That was a first and fulfilled all of my wildest skiing dreams. 
• Received an employee recognition award at work which came with a fancy clock, some cash, and a dinner to The Roof in Salt Lake City
• A couple camping and fishing trips in the fall - one to Calf Creek which I highly recommend! 
• Two epic days of skiing within a week of Christmas - 39 inches of powder is hard to ski in!

Well, like usual it’s been a busy, busy year! I love keeping my life full and fun and packed. But I really love that life has slowed down this past week so I can do what this season is all about - visit family and friends and ponder the birth of the Savior and His atoning sacrifice for each and every one of us. I hope all is well with you and your loved ones and that this letter finds you well and happy! Take care and keep the emails, blog posts, and Christmas letters coming!

Epic Skiing!

Oh my heaven!! I have had two awesome days of epic skiing in the past few days. Once on December 18th with Braden* at Brighton and then yesterday with my sister and brother-in-law at Snowbird. I skied in 39 inches of powder at the Bird yesterday. It was so hard! My skis would submarine into the snow and then the next thing I'd know I'd be kneeling in the snow and had a hecka workout ahead of me to dig out my skis. Wowser. We had a great time!

This is what I woke up to: 1 foot of snow at my house

And this is how happy Teri and I were at the end of the epic ski day:

As soon as I get some pictures from Braden, I'll add those.

*And just so you don't think I'm two-timing Dave.... we actually broke up back in the beginning of November. Kind of sad, but ... such is life. I look at this way: I have more time to do my homework now! :)

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. :)