IT'S A BOY!!!!!

In case some of you haven't heard yet, we are expecting a little boy on September 18th. We kept it from everyone for awhile until we could tell both families at the same time. We had planned on telling them at the graduation dinner but we were concerned that they were catching on, so we decided to have a pizza/movie night where we would tell them. We made a DVD out of the ultra sound video and superimposed in the beginning a "warning, do not copy" from a real movie. It took several minutes for them to catch on, but they eventually did, and both moms went berserk. It was great to see their reactions. We are very excited for it! Soon to come are some ultra sound pictures.

BYU Graduation!!!!!

Hey, we finally made it, graduation day. And how sweet it was. It was also very long. On Thursday we had Commencement where all graduates attend. It started at 4 p.m., but we had to be there by three to line up for the processional. What a great experience, and we got to hear from Elder Nelson and President Urchtdorf. The next day Sarah had her graduation at 8 a.m. in the Smith Fieldhouse. Mine was at 2 p.m. at the Marriott Center. After that long day we were ready for a break and just relaxed the rest of the night. Sarah's parents had to leave right away to get Diane back for prom, but my parents were able to be around for the next few days which was nice. We are glad to be done, and are excited for our new life in the San Francisco Bay Area where I will be working for a great company.

Outside Lavell Edwards stadium on the cougar.

Out in front of the main entrance to campus.

Right after commencement.

After Sarah's graduation with her beautiful flowers.

With President and Sister Samuelson. We were the 2nd to last group to be able to get a picture with them.

Both of our families after graduation.

General Conference

For general conference Sarah and I were able to take my mom to her first general conference in Utah. It was a great experience to be there for the Sunday morning session.

All three of us just after the session got out.

Sarah and my mom just waiting for it to start.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir during "Music and the Spoken Word".

A group of missionaries singing outside the conference center.

The Salt Lake Temple. It turned out to be a beautiful day.

My trip to California...

I went to California at the end of March and beginning of April for an event called Student Career Days, where 60+ schools converge at one campus for a few days of competitions, workshops and a career fair with over 60 employees all in the green industry. I made several contacts with some of the companies and I have a few choices for jobs when I graduate. After the events were over we spent the next few days just touring and relaxing in sunny, warm California. I felt bad though, as the whole week I was down there Sarah told me it snowed practically everyday in Provo.

This is the closing ceremonies at the event. BYU took 4th overall out of 60 schools. We were hoping for better as last year we took 2nd.

The Reddings Temple

All of us in front of the Reddings Temple, we came here after church.

It's a beautiful temple.

This is at Huntington Gardens in Pasadena. Those are some mighty big bamboo sticks.

A lot of cacti. The desert garden was really nice.

A long row of bonzi trees.

This part of the Chinese garden.

Sunny day at the beach.

Called the "Springs Reserves Gardens" in Vegas. That is one big cactus.

Searching for a job...

I can tell you this much people, searching for a job, especially within my speciality and in this economy, is downright painful. I'm hoping within a month to be able to post that I have found work and we will be looking forward to moving. It's really depressing when you contact company after company and they are no longer hiring. Wish us luck and pray for us.
-jeff-

Pottery date night, sort of...

Sarah and I found a poster in the Wilkinson Center at BYU advertising a cultural date night in the cultural museum making pottery. We expected it to be where we would get to make a pot on a turn table. We were a little off. It was more for single people on dates than married couples. Some of the games were very BYUish and the pottery portion actually consisted of just a ball of clay for us to kneed. But we made the most of the situation and even won their "pottery contest".

Here is our award winning pottery, a wishing well with a cobble stone pathway.


And these are the shirts we won for our award winning pottery.

Christmas Time

Sorry for getting this out so late, but here are some updates of our Christmas break. We had a good time in Oregon, despite the fact that there was snow on the ground for most of it (we thought we could escape the Utah weather, we thought wrong). Christmas eve we watched a movie that Sarah's family always watched growing up, Christmas in Connecticut. Christmas was fun, just doing the usual opening up of presents, after which we headed out to Dad's in Sweet Home for the rest of the day. We ended up going to Michael Allen Harrison's concert in Portland, we just had to go the day after Christmas due to the bad weather. The rest of the break was just spent relaxing and playing games, including scum. Sarah really liked that game. We finally made it back to Utah a couple of days before school started, and here we are, just one more semester to go.

Driving through Keizer Oregon, we got to look at the Christmas lights Christmas Eve.


Christmas morning. We look kind of sleepy.


German pancake breakfast Christmas morning.


The Tillamook Cheese Factory. So many wonderful flavors of cheese.