New blog ideas & pics

I've made a few changes to the family blog. I'm trying to get more interactive links, but my blogging skills are not that good yet. I'm calling for a family funny picture competition this month. This is my first entry - "Jed in Irag", later on I'll pull out the big guns. Everyone share your favorite family pics on the blog. Also, let me know if you have any ideas for family polls, etc....
As for me this week, I'm a batchelor again. Carrie flew to California last night to visit her sister. On Wednesday she is off for Utah for another Sister's wedding, then its off to Idaho to help her parents get ready for the wedding reception. In the mean time, I'm going to work like crazy, trying to get through my summer classes and get ready for Fall semester. I do get to join Carrie in Utah this weekend for the wedding, so, I'll see the Utah crew then. Good luck with everything and keep on bloggin'.

Oops ...

Well, school is out. I finished cleaning out my room yesterday. I was offered a position next year. They gave me a raise, which was nice. So, yesterday I was out gardening, pulling weeds and watering. We have a REALLY mean bird that swoops down at us like it is going to attack is. So, I stayed out as long as I could before I thought the bird was going to kill me. It had a little baby fall out of its nest yesterday and I was running in the backyard to turn the water off, which I will get to in a second, when I saw the baby and the big mom bird swooped down at me and I could feel and hear the wind from the swoop as it brushed across me about 1-2 inches from my head. I know it is just protecting it's babies, BUT it is still a little frightning!! Anyway! So, another funny thing happened yesterday. After I finished weeding and planting in the garden I decided to put the sprinkler on the grass. I went in to take a shower while I was doing this. Well, as you can probably predict, I forgot about turning off the water and I left to work at school and run some other errands. Well, about 6 hours later, I remembered that I forgot to turn off the water. So, after about 6 1/2 hours, I raced home to turn off the water. Our yard was pretty flooded. The big problem is that there are water restrictions around here and I went WAY over and watered during the time of day when you are not supposed to. So, anyway! Our water bill is definitely NOT going to be a nice sight. Jacob, being very nice, said it was kind of funny. So, hopefully he'll still think its funny when we get the bill. Well, anyway! I better get going.
Have a great day!!
Carrie

Texas Tech University: Jacob!

Texas Tech University :: APS :: Division of PFP Look! Jacob is on the Internet! I was just looking through iTunes at the Texat Tech Uni and then I clicked a link and it led me to a photo of my Brother! Exciting eh? Although I'm sure that a bunch of you all are on the internet, but it was just cool to see that. I'll write more later.

All I have to say is ...

All I have to say is 7 more days!!!!

Lots to catch up on...

Wow, I haven't been on here for so long! Jacob and Carrie, thats really cool about your kitchen and Purple room, I hope its now another exciting color like orange or turquoise!! ha ha ha just kidding! Kristen and the Kids left today, so that is very sad. Right now they should be in Auckland New Zealand, waiting to get on the big flight to LA. We did lots with both Kristen and Jason and Josh and Sarah. I was in school most of the time, so I miss some stuff, but they let me come to some of my favorite things, like Manly Beach. I'm in my last week of school which means one thing: exams. Today I took IB English, which I was worried about, but I think i did pretty well, and I also had IB Music, (IB is the international form of AP) I'm pretty confident that I did really well!! Tomorrow I've got Spanish, then on Wednesday I've got IB Math and IB Chemistry, then I end on Thursday with History. I still laugh when I think of me being in an IB Math class, ha ha ha, but somehow I'm doing alright! This Friday we are all heading to Perth for out last time there. Once school is over, I think moving is going to feel a lot closer :'( It's going to be great to see all of you, this summer though! Who will I be seeing and when?? Do you have your dates worked out? I hope your all planning on coming to Jackson!! I'm sure you all know, but we are going to China on our way home, so that will be great. Also it wont make it as sad I don't think to come home, not that we aren't all very excited to see you guys though! Congratulations is due to everyone who has accomplished anything! From Baby Boys, to Kitchen islands and improvements! We'll see you all soon and we love you all.
Jared

Late nights ... new kitchen

Wow! What a week! We have had a very busy week. Jacob has had a busy couple of weeks. He and some of our friends decided to help each other out with some home improvement projects. So, Jacob has helped build two fences and our friend Hyrum Smith helped Jacob put in a new kitchen floor! Our house looks a million times better. It is amazing what a little kitchen update will do. We have a new floor and we have repainted the kitchen and the "purple room". (So it is no longer the "purple room". We're coming up with another name for it.) This morning when I walked out of the bedroom into the kitchen, I just felt so happy! We still have a little bit more to do. We have to do some touch up paint to the cupboards and so forth. So, we are nearing our kitchen update goal after sleepless nights. We are now trying to decide what to do about recarpeting our house. Anyway! We'll send some pictures of the new updates when we are all finished.

Other stuff, happening-- 2 1/2 weeks left of school for me, and 3 weeks before I leave for the month of June! I am so excited to travel to see family this summer! Saturday I had a little 50 hour reading party with 4 of my students. Then, this Friday is another party with those that have read 75 hours or more. Saturday we had a pizza and movie party and I think the kids favorite part was the fact that they didn't have to wear their uniform. Friday we are all going swimming. Also fun. I think Jacob will be happy when we are done because we also had a sundae party for the kids who have passed off their multiplication tables. He also came to the school to each lunch with some of my kids who had earned it, of course (since I make them earn EVERYTHING pretty much). The kids LOVE Jacob. He taught them a little finance and then a little Korean game. They think he is so cool. One of my kids bought him a lollipop to say thanks for coming--so sweet. So, anyway, things are going well. We are both looking forward to summer, gardening, visiting, long Sunday walks, and an all in all happy summer. We love you guys!

Carrie

Back in Lubbock, finally

After a long week. I made it home. I had a fun trip out to Philadelphia and New Jersey. It was really fun to see Becky and Garry. For those that are in the area, I highly recommend Hoboken, NJ. After a crazy finals week I left for Philly, very unprepared for the trip. They canceled the flight before mine so I was able to go out later in exchange for a voucher. Being the fiscally responsible student that I am, I couldn't turn down the voucher, especially after I learned that it was for $250. After my original flight left, I noticed that I was sitting at the front of the plane and that my ticket had been stamped "first class" what a bargain! Or so I thought. After many delays, I finally arrived in Philly at 1:30 am and began the long drive to the hotel. I only got lost once, which was good. Once was enough to learn an important lesson. Never drive around downtown Philly at night, in a minivan. Mom, thanks for the Garmin, it really came in handy. I finally made it to the hotel where I slept for about 3 hours before leaving for the conference. The conference was boring, but that was OK because I worked on my last final through most of the presentation. After that I went to New Jersey to meet Becky and Garry. We had a great time in Hoboken. We ate Thai food and saw New York from the Jersey side. That was the fun part of the trip. The next day it was back to work, visiting Universities and working for the the University. I did take a few minutes to check out the liberty bell and the U.S. mint. Philly is a fun place. I would like to go back. Carrie and I want to do a "National Treasure Tour" and visit D.C., Philly, and Boston. After leaving Philly at 4:00 am, I made it home safely but tired only to start my next project here at home.
The professors that I visited at Utah Valley University came down to visit our school. They have some interest in starting a personal financial planning major at UVU. I was in and out of meetings all day jumping from campus tours to research presentations. There was also an LDS professor interviewing form Georgia, I had to switch off taking him around as well. The good news is that our visitors from UVU loved it. There is a good chance that we will have an offer to come back to Utah to teach at UVU. From the information that we have now, it seems like working at UVU would be a great opportunity. So we will continue to hope for the best, we have a lot of opportunities, we'll just have to wait and see how everything works out.
There is much more to share, but you're going to have to call to get details. I'm going to bed! This next week is our home repair week. We have a lot of projects that have been waiting for a break. We'll put before and after pictures up when we're finished. Happy Mother's Day to Mom, and all Sisters. Carrie and I enjoyed participating in the family fast today. We appreciate your faith and prayers. Have a great week.
Jacob & Carrie

Just to recap - major accomplishments:
I visited 3 more states PA, NJ, & DE (just 15 states to go before I've hit all 50),
Lived through a midnight drive through downtown Philly,
Flew first class (for free),
Got an A's on my finals in Stats and Household Asset Theory,
Impressed the guys from Utah Valley University,
Survived a crazy week &
Made it home safely!

P.S. Show Kristen how to blog when she is in Australia.

Guess what?!?!

It's a Boy!!!!!

Trying to finish the semester

This is the semester that will not end. I was supposed to be done on Tuesday, but there is just too much to do. I'm on my way to Philadelphia, PA tomorrow for a conference. The problem is that I still have one final to take and one to give. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology and a new lap top battery, I can work on the road. I'm going to get back on Thursday just in time to meet with the Dean of the business school at UVU. I visited him in March and now he is coming down to visit us here in Lubbock. Hopefully everything will go well and I'll actually get a job someday. The good news is that by Friday night I'll be home, visitors will be gone, finals will be finished, grades will be posted, and I'll be done. That means on Saturday I can start gardening and doing yard work again. For some that it not a break, but I've been waiting to start working outside again.
Carrie is down to four more weeks of school and can't wait to be finished. She is going to be quite the little traveler this summer, visiting family and going to weddings. It looks like we may even get to see a few of you this summer. That's all for us. Good luck on everything and keep on bloggin'.

Hello everyone,
Well I am in Sydney for the summer/winter and it is great to be back. It feels more like summer here right now then Utah does with all of it's snow and cold...in MAY...crazy. Well I thought I'd share some good news with you all. I wrote a research paper this semester in my Book of Mormon class. It was like 14 pages of a lot of hard work and I was grateful for Rebeccas help on it. Well I got it back a little while ago and notice a beautiful 100% written across it! :) As if that wasn't good enough, my professor wrote a note at the bottom saying..."Outstandig paper. I am interveiwing a few students in an attempt to find a research assistant. Would you be interested?" Obviously... I was. So I e-mailed him back a we met and I was a bit nervous that he would say something like... ummm I'm interview 20 people, or half of the class got 100% on the paper. But he told me I was the ONLY student of his who got a 100, he asked me for an electronic version of my paper that he could use, I was one of three who he was interviewing, I was first in line for the job, and the next highest grade was a 94%. I know you are all thinking that there must have only been 20 people in the class, but this was out of 4 classes, 2 RM classes. So I was very grateful about all of those blessings, and very excited for that opportunity to meet with him (oh it's Daniel Judd by the way. So anyways, he e-mailed me the morning I was leaving for Sydney and let me know that I had the job if I wanted it. So watch out Rebecca and Jacob because I am slowly but surely gaining the title of "the smart one in the family" Haha...just kidding. Just thought I would share my exciting news with the family. So it looks like I will be back at BYU Fall semester with a pretty cool but hard job. But I'm excited for it!