The Call

So, the call from our counselor mentioned earlier...



Primary.




CTR5.

G-Pa

I sure do love my Grandpa Harding. This picture shows his personality well. :)

Huzzah

A long time coming for an update...

Today I am breaking my prolonged vow of silence about the job scene. I'm fed up with missing family time, family events and working weekends - especially working on Sunday. So, I'm doing something about it! Yesterday, I applied for a position at BYU. In fact, I've been applying to jobs since January but this is probably the best fitting job opening I've come across during the past 4 months. Yes, it's a position that I'm quite excited about the prospect of landing! Whereas I currently feel underemployed and underpaid this prospective job would be... "Seeking employment more aligned with my professional interests and inherent talents" (a quick copy and paste from the segment of the online application as to "Why do you want to leave your current employment?").

Enter stage right: My rock star sister-in-law Mackenzie (a.k.a. "Kenz", "Kin", "Mama Kin", "Team Upgrade", "TU"). While not an exact representation, this picture - I feel - depicts her wicked brilliance and the ease in which she could run any Fortune 500 company in her spare time but chooses not to. Her help with the resume revisions, cover letter drafting, and endless questions and insecurities has been priceless and if I do end up getting an interview and a job offer it will largely be due to her guidance.

Of course, I must give a shout out to my lovely wife who has endured well my unending whining, complaining, murmuring...shall I continue?...about being one of Wal-Mart's mindless minions at the moment. I'm grateful for her support and positive attitude especially when I'm not exactly "Mr. Positive Pants" and have contemplated quitting once, or twice, or thrice.

In other news, Brother Alex moved in last Friday after Winter semester ended. It's good to have him with us the next 2 months as he goes to Spring semester. Oriah and I woke up to 33 degrees and snow this morning but were quick to remind one another that in a week's time we'll be in sunny AZ and 90 degree weather for Women's Lacrosse Nationals! We've also started our first home DIY project: Installing shelves in our - I want to call it an annex - living room under the stairs. The purpose is to get our current food storage off the floor and make room for more storage. We went to Lowe's two days ago to start sizing up prices and materials needed to make the shelving. It's gonna be a pricey project but it will be worth it. Hopefully we'll have some significant results in a week or two. *Idea: We'll take before and after pictures!*

Tomorrow will be our 4-month anniversary. And I find myself still working down a list of thank you cards. That's not good. But I committed myself that I would get a few more out today. I'll get them done eventually, I promise. The funny thing is that before the wedding I was the one promoting and determined to get them done the week after the wedding. And here we are 4 months after the fact. Oriah is done and has been. And, for whatever reason, writing them myself has been like pulling teeth. While on the theme of wedding gifts and such...we got another gift last night. I find it funny that gifts are still trickling in so long after the wedding. Not that I'm complaining.

For those interested in all things technology there has been a lot of fallout over Apple's handling of the "lost iPhone prototype" a few weeks ago. I thought this clip from the Jon Stewart show last night was funny. You can go here to watch. I won't post it because of some content (language) so consider yourself warned. That said I do find the title "Appholes" appropriate :)

Oh, while Oriah and I were at sister Celeste's lacrosse game last evening I got a phone call from one of the counselors in our Bishopric. When I saw who was calling I sent him to voicemail and after the game we listened to his message in the car. He asked to speak with both Oriah and I but said no more. We called back and got his voicemail and decided to try again later. Since then we've been speculating as to what the nature of his call is about. Don't worry. We'll keep you posted.

I think that's a good summary of the last little while. Hope everyone is well! Peace & love

C-Dawg

We hope you have a GREAT birthday and get LOTS of hugs!!! hehe

Tulips!

Last night Michael took me to Thanksgiving Point to see the tulips. They were very pretty so we took lots of pictures. Here are a couple pictures from Michael's camera:

What a beautiful time of year! They are also all over BYU campus. I love it!!!

生日快樂

我們愛妳

Buffalos

Dear CU women's lacrosse,

Why won't you come to Utah to play us... EVER??? I have been playing or coaching college level lacrosse for 9 years now and you still refuse to come here. That is really lame. Also I don't appreciate you trying to get my team's bid to Nationals taken away. Can't we resolve this in some other manner? Thank you for involving outside groups and only telling them your side of the story.

I hope we beat you on Monday night and never have to play you again.

Sincerely,
Me

#7 BYU v. #10 Florida

Does that ring a bell? That is how the first round of March Madness started for the men's basketball team. I guess we should follow in their footsteps and beat Florida!

WE'RE GOING TO NATIONALS!!!!

May 5th-8th! Coming back National Champs!

Give Blood

BEAT Colorado State University!

This is Brooke after she got checked in the head during our first meeting with CSU this year (I know it looks fake, but what happened was she had her goggles on so the blood pooled above them on her forehead, then when she took them off it dripped down like that. By the time I took this picture it was mostly dry):

And here is Melissa's thumb after our CSU game last Saturday (you can't tell very well, but her nail bed is showing... a lot, her nail was pulled out... OUCH!):

But both of them would agree, it is all worth it. We beat CSU twice out of three times this year. Brooke scored the goal to tie the game then Melissa scored the game winning goal with 30 seconds left on the clock. We took the trophy away from CSU this year... the first time it's ever been taken away from them! This means that next year we will host the League Tournament... hope we can find a field by then!

Here we are with the trophy!

We find out tomorrow if we will be invited to the National Tournament. We deserve it!

Ps. Here's an update on Melissa's thumb. Yikes! You can see the nail bed better in this. Ew.

Regionals are here!

Our team is heading into Regionals in the top spot! We head back to Fort Collins tomorrow to play two games. This time we are flying! Fly out tomorrow morning then back by tomorrow night at 9. Wish us luck!

Ouch!

Ok, you can't see them at all, but I have two canker sores... OUCH! One is on my lip really close to my gums, the other is on my gums really close to my lip.

Happy Birthday Nikonia!

We hope all of your dreams come true today! We love you!

St. Lewis or St. Clark

Hahaha... one of the girls on my lacrosse team apparently wasn't exactly sure how to spell the name of the city we went to this past weekend. I heard that she posted on her facebook that she was excited to go to "St. Lewis" so of course we made a comment about St. Clark. I like that we can have fun with these girls.

Enjoy a couple pictures from our trip.

This picture is the team on the way to the St. Louis Arch also known as The Gateway to the West.

Julie, Ashley, and me at the Arch. Notice the tiny windows at the top there... ALL THE WAY UP THERE.

Here are the "pods" as we called them, or the doors to enter them rather. It makes me think of Star Trek or some movie like that.

They were a little bit crammed. I hit my head at least twice in there. Here is Emily and me, over exaggerating just a bit, but not too much.

Here's a view from the top. It was a very nice and clear day. You can see where the Cardinals play.

I am afraid of heights. If I feel safe then I am fine being high, like I LOVE sitting by the window on an airplane and looking down at what we are flying over. This Arch though... it is like a triangle with the point pointing down. So when you get up to those windows you can see straight down, like there is nothing at all holding you up. And when you look at that Arch it sure doesn't look like it is too sturdy. When I looked straightdown I got a little scared and was ready to go. :) Here's me showing how high we are, and you can see a little of the window.

After we finished taking pictures up in the Arch we went to grab lunch before our games. We went to Union Station (I think) and they have a place called "The Fudgery." This guy was making fudge as he entertained the crowd. We got to try free samples... that was good stuff and I don't even like fudge.

And now for the real reason for the trip... to play lacrosse. Here are Brooke, Emily, and Nash warming up for the Minnesota game.

And here is Maggie, our fearless goalie, talking to Chris during halftime of the Virginia Tech game.

It was a fun weekend, these are a great group of girls!

Pictures Tomorrow

St. Louis was fun. We played four lacrosse games and won two of them. We got some good competition out there. The field was great! The girls on these teams we play most likely don't know how good they have it. They actually have a place to practice that is theirs. They don't have to fund raise all of their money so they can go on trips. We work hard to be a team. We should find out next week, after our final games this weekend, if we make it to Nationals. I hope we do, these girls deserve it!

St. Louis

The lacrosse team is off to St. Louis tomorrow. I'm pretty excited to go somewhere I have never been. I think our team should do well. We're gone for three days and we play four games. These are our last games before Regionals next weekend. After that we should find out if we get to go to Nationals! I think we have a very good chance of getting there and I really think we can win it all!!! Go Cougs!

Headaches

I get headaches way too much!

Rain

I'm ready for the warm rain. You know, when the temperature is in the 70's and it's raining? I love that! I love being outside in that weather. It takes me back to Taiwan, riding my bike in downpours, or traveling around China. I miss it! No need for an umbrella, just a nice waterproof jacket.

How it has been lately, temperature in the 50's or less and then FREEZING cold rain... not a fan of that!

Trip Update

We got home Saturday around 10pm. That was nice! We won 3 of our 4 games, should have won them all. The girls did great! The driving wasn't actually as bad as I thought. We're off to St. Louis on Thursday. Lots of traveling... luckily this time we get to fly!!

Trip

Here's how my next 48 hours will be spent:

Today:
5:30am - Drive to Fort Collins, Colorado - 7-8 hours (depending on weather)
4pm - lacrosse game
7pm - lacrosse game

Tomorrow:
9am - lacrosse game
1:30pm - lacrosse game
3pm - drive home pulling in hopefully before midnight.

We plan to come home with 4 victories... wish us luck!

April Fool's Day

Have you ever done this trick? Oh, I sure have. Let me take you back to a story from my youth... Here's how it went that wonderful April 1st morning. My family and I got up at 5:30 to read scriptures, at that hour of the morning all of us kids were fighting back sleep. When we finished, after everyone had left the living room/kitchen area and before I went back to bed, I went into the kitchen to set up the great joke! I even colored the rubber band black to camouflage it. For those of you who might not know what is so funny about this let me tell you. Because the rubber band is around the sprayer, holding it down, as soon as the water is turned on it will come out of that, not the faucet, and spray the person. Oh, I thought I was so clever. After I set it all up perfectly to get someone wet I went back to bed and forgot all about it. I got up, got ready for school then went to the kitchen to get breakfast. After I finished I went to the sink to rinse my dishes. I bet you can guess what happened next. Yep, I got soaked... and no one else had used the sink yet... I played the stinkin' joke on myself. Hahahahaha. There were at least 7 people living at home then... how on earth did none of them get to it before I did! :) Good luck today!