Our Arizona Adventure and Life Changes Pt. 1

Hello All!

It has been a rather long time since we sat down and wrote on our blog. Well five months later here we are and boy have we had some adventures. Our first Christmas as a married couple was very nice. We gave each other nice presents. Amber gave me a game and some shirts and would you know it? I gave Amber a game and some shirts! Anyways we were able to become more well acquainted with our our nieces and nephews. I have grown fond of all of them on both sides of the family! I only have pictures of two of them from Christmas little Zeb, son of my sister Anna and Kahlan, daughter of my sister Janna. Amber and I are holding them in this picture.


They are such very cute babies. We don't see Zeb very much, but we do know that he has a very cute personality and is quite the lovable little fellow. He reminds me of a friendly yet slightly mischievous elf. he is as good looking as his parents, especially his strapping father Stephen. Perhaps when he grows up he will exude the same potent masculine aura Stephen Beck does! We do see Kahlan fairly often, and feel that she is a very happy baby who reminds me of a cheerful cherub who has discovered the magic of life. I have a hard time refraining from pinching her cheeks whenever I see her!

Not much exciting happened in January or February. Amber worked full time from the middle of December until the middle of February for her partner who was on maternity leave. I made a few slight adjustments at work to make it more enjoyable and I went with my father in law to go ice fishing and got some cool pictures on Hyrum reservoir.


To explain, when we went it had rained the night before and melted the snow leaving a thin layer of water on the ice, so it appears my father in law is walking on water. I didn't catch anything that day :(

As you all know I am a Social Work Major and had applied to several graduate schools. We had been praying for awhile that I would be able to go to one that would be the best for us and our family. I had applied to The U of U, BYU, Arizona State, and Boise State. I had several issues with my U of U application, what with things getting lost, and other such nonsense. Even though these all got resolved, the U turned down my application in early February. It was discouraging. Luckily in early March, while calling to check on application, Boise State told me that I was accepted into their program. I was thrilled because their program only accepts 22 people a year into their advanced standing program. I was not admitted into the BYU program and the Boise State program seemed more in line with our needs then Arizona's (which I also was admitted into) so we realized late March that we would be going to Boise. As of today we are in the middle of getting ready to move. We will be looking for a place to live this coming Tuesday and Amber is in the middle of finding a teaching job. I start school early June so our schedule is definitely set for us!

On another note, Amber and I took a much needed vacation the first week of April down to Arizona to visit our family. I have a great aunt who lives down there, and Amber has two aunts. We spent most of our time hanging out with said relatives, but we did see a few cool things to show you all.

In this picture we see an ad for "ho made pies". While driving through central and southern Utah, we passed through dozens of "ten second towns". I saw this sign while approaching one of them. Now of course, being married I have no need to eat a pie made by a ho. I just found this sign so weird, but I wonder if it's an older sign where they just said things differently, and in reality the pies were made by someone who had nothing to do with wanton promiscuity.



One day we went to the Musical Instrument Museum. It was huge! At this museum, there are numerous displays on music in countries around the world. Each country had it's own display and guests are given headphones that automatically play the music at a display. It took us three hours to go through it. The top picture is a flute made from a human femur (my Aunt Rayda wants to have one of these made for her grandkids when she passes away). Amber is standing in front of an air guitar, and then there I am in front of a gong. I kid you all not, gongs are one of the biggest distractions/temptations one faces when touring a museum! I highly recommend visiting this museum if you are in the Phoenix area. We will be showing you more soon!