What day is it? August?...

(Photo courtesy of Austin, starting from top left, going clockwise - (1) my beautiful wife at the botanical garden. It looks like a photo for a brochure advertising a tropical resort. (2) Can you see the family resemblance between Sophie, the cute little brown owl, and Cecil, the cute but not quite as little penguin? We bought Sophie from the Zoo in Salt Lake city and we made Cecil. (3) and (4) Shots I took at the botanical garden )

So it has been a long and tiring and partially rejuvenating summer. Quite a bit has happened in the last 4 months as well as quite a bit of nothing.

Starting chronologically, back in April, I (Austin) graduated from BYU with major in Psychology and minors in Philosophy and Business Management. It is hard to believe that I am a college graduate. Now to find something meaningful to do with it :)

(Photo courtesy of Austin - from the botanical garden)

Three days later, with the help of Katie's parents who flew out to Utah and rented a car, we somehow managed to fit all of our earthly possessions into two vehicles from whence we drove all the way down to Oklahoma City. Of course, that excludes all of the things we sold, all the books and boxes we shipped to Oklahoma City and Katy and all the things we gave away or just threw away. The point is that we finally made and fast forward to now and we are all unpacked and settled into our apartment.

We had fun on the drive down to Oklahoma in our Malibu with a malfunctioning (or rather, NOT functioning) air conditioner. We took a leisurely pace because we were in no particular rush.

We stayed in Oklahoma, enjoying some downtime with Katie's parents until we drove up to St. Louis for Sarah's baby shower. That was pretty fun. It is always fun to be with family. I was also finally taken to the botanical garden. It was exciting. It has fish and flowers and botanicals.

We then spent a couple of weeks with my parents in Katy, TX until our apartment here in Waco, TX was available for move-in. What are we doing here in Waco, you ask? We ask ourselves the same question sometimes, especially when the temperature has been over 100 degrees for the last 31 days. But it will be more agreeable in the winter, at least. Well, that is why we bought and installed a ceiling fan. Let me tell you: that ceiling fan was almost more difficult than earning my college degree* (*disclaimer: extensive use of hyperbole). I was scared because the instructions had like 15 different warning labels on it. But I survived and our apartment has yet to become a smoldering pile of ashes. Anyway, I digress.....we are in Waco for law school!

Yes, I will be attending Baylor Law School beginning August 22nd. Well, from the 17th-19th I have Orientation all day long. I am pretty sure it will be something along the following lines: "We are going to work your tails off. If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen." Thankfully, I have a supporting wife to see me through it all because otherwise I am not sure I would make it out of the three grueling years alive.

Here in Waco, Katie and I have been watching a bit of television recently. In Utah, we only had basic cable. Here, we receive a free cable package from Time Warner Cable as part of our rent. So we have been watching things such as American Ninja Warrior, Doctor Who, and The Colbert Report. I, of my own voluntary free will, agreed to watch the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice with Katie since both her and my mom agreed that the best Darcy and Elizabeth are in the BBC version. I liked it. Yes, it was long but we broke it up over a week-long period. I am also currently reading Pride and Prejudice. It has been a fun read. I already read Northanger Abby and I thought it was a jovial read.

That's it as far as updates go. Recently, Katie and I made Rice Krispie Treats except that we replaced the Rice Krispies with Golden Grahams and Cinnamon Toast Crunch knock-offs. So I guess it isn't really a Rice Krispie any more but it is delicious. We used marshmallows that had vanilla flavoring: scrumptious.

Katie's recommend Goodreads.com. It is one of Katie's favorite websites and one of her reasons to for living. It is a site to keep track of the books you have read and want to read. You can review books, see what other people you are following read, etc. It is pretty fun if you have any love of books (and Katie has plenty of love for books; she has read 78 books thus far in 2011).

Austin recommends anime, ceiling fans, and 75-cm exercise balls. Katie got me the exercise ball for our anniversary. I love it! Sometimes I have a lot of energy and just like to bounce on it. It is a shame that I can't balance out the times that I have too much energy and the times that I have no energy....

Time Warp

So, it's March and we've taken a long time to post again. I'm not even going to try and catch up, we'll just cut to the present.

Austin has decided; this fall he will be attending Baylor Law School in Waco, Texas. He is graduating from BYU this April in Psychology, with minors in Philosophy and Business. He works really hard. In addition, he has a job as a research assistant with a professor who has been doing research literacy tests for the last decade. He was able to present their findings at a research conference in Salt Lake City, which was really cool. As for me, I still work with a company called Park City Independent (iInstructor). It's really cool to help people to graduate from High School who, for whatever reason, didn't like or do well in public school. Right now I manage academic plans and transcripts, making sure students know what they need to graduate through us. It may sound boring, but being able to help people and to learn skills about organization and other things helps me stay interested.

For future blog entries, Austin and I will include things that we like to do in our updates. We may talk about recipes we've tried, video games we've played, books we've read, or even something we've learned for found interesting.

Our most recent food attempts (we both love to cook) were smoothies and marbled potatoes. Yum! The potatoes are normal and sweet potatoes baked, scooped out and blended with cheddar cheese, bacon, sour cream, butter, green onions, and a few spices, and then stuffed back into their skins. The smoothie is pretty typical, but the frozen berries we got from Sam's club today looked amazing. If only our blender was as helpful...but in the end it was all delicious.

Katie Recommends: Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork
Austin Recommends: FFXIII Piano music and homemade peanut butter (We'd include a picture of our homemade nutella, but it's not very attractive)

Where on earth (or elsewhere) did Katie and Austin go....?

Wow, has it really almost been 7 months since Katie and I last updated our blog? Lamentably, yes. Katie and I have even mentioned several times in the last few months that we should update our blog, but then we just never get around to it. We would always mis-remember who was the last one to update the blog so neither one of us got around to it. So with all the turn-taking aside, I am going to update our blog while Katie is at a ballet showcase with her sister Sarah.

So what eventful events have transpired in the recent 7-month time span? Well, in a bombshell, Katie graduated, I got a job, quit a job, Katie found a job, I started my senior year of school, and then I found another much more enjoyable (and less morally apprehensible) form of employment. Let me expound slightly on these.....

Katie graduated from Brigham Young University in April 2010 with a degree in Marriage, Family, and Human Development. I am proud of her. Education is indeed important for this world and the next.

Mid-May, still finding myself jobless, I was offered a position at American Income. To be honest, I don't even recall applying for the job; I think I was getting desperate and was responding to job postings on Craig's List. I was given the position as Insurance Agent. To make a long, grueling, deceptive story shorter, I will give you the conclusion: I was unhappy there. I gave it my all for 3 months but not only was I not succeeding financially (as promised) I was not happy. The company endorsed selling life insurance to EVERYone, including people without jobs, poor college students, and even seniors who already have several life insurance policies in place! Short line: they wanted money. This is was only one of many problems so I quit. Money is important but it is not worth the stress and the lack of ethical behavior.

However, I am now working as a Research Assistant in the Career and Counseling Center of Brigham Young University; this is a nice, flexible job that I can feel good about. I am helping a professor develop a reading test for college students, seeing as many are ill-prepared for the heavy reading loads.

Katie is now working with iInstructor. It is an online schooling system. Katie performs all sorts of tasks there in the office on the second floor of the University Mall, including writing curriculum, grading papers, creating tutorials, handling live chats to answer questions, and entering transcripts.

That is basically the most exciting events of our summer/fall. That is not to say that we haven't done other fun things in between....for example, yesterday Katie and I went mini-golfing at Trafalga's because they have $3 Thursdays and today we ordered a $5.99 large pizza from Domino's (delicious).

We have curtains now (with the help of Katie's mom). It makes our humble apartment look pretty classy, I have to say.

We have also entertained ourselves with an exercise DVD we received for free (the best price) in the mail from Special K cereal after we sent in 5 UPC's.

Oh, Katie and I won our Halloween costume contest, thanks to the costumes from Katie's mom. If you can't guess, we were Captain James Hook and Tinkerbell. There were about 3 other little kids dressed as Tinkerbell but Katie was still the cutest.

We are extremely anticipatory of the Christmas season. It will be a blast! See you all next time (which hopefully isn't in 7 months...).