2010 Goals... Gotta write them down right?

So Ashley and I had the idea to write down some goals for 2010.  I think we did a good job of writing down obtainable yet difficult goals that would definitely benefit us assuming we hit them.  So these are our goals and you can feel free to help us obtain them through reminders, motivation, or whatever else you can/want to offer.

Jason:

Health:

1. Get back down 175 lbs


2. Get back to a 32 Waist


3. With Gym Membership - Bench my weight (assuming we do end up getting a gym membership.  Not for sure yet.)


4. Run 5 miles


5. Finish 60 days of "Insanity"

Financial:

1. Be Debt Free this year


2. Earn a raise


3. Build full emergency fund

Faith:

1. Read one scripture oriented book


2. Say morning prayers each morning

Mind:

1. Read 10 books


2. Read one actual book (not CD)

Ashley's Goals:

Health:

1. Get back down to 115 lbs


2. Get Mental and Physical health in check


3. Fit into pre-pregnancy clothes


4. Run 5 miles

Financial:

Be Debt Free this year




1. Finish and sell (or give as baby gifts) all baby carrier covers


2. Build full emergency fund

Faith:

1. Read one scripture oriented book


2. Say morning prayers each morning

Other:

1. Finish sewing projects (Seth's curtains, our curtains, mending)


2. Do spring cleaning

So there you go.  We have some lofty goals that we will have to work very hard and focus on to obtain.  I'm currently 197 lbs...  Not my heaviest weight ever but not far from it.  I would love to get back down to my high school weight that was around 160, but I think 175 is more realistic and I haven't been that weight since the earlier parts of my mission which was around 2002-2003.  A few years back, 2005 or 2006, I spent the summer running and was running about 5-6 miles a few times a week.  I ended up getting plantar fasciitis which is micro tears in the plantar fascia, the ligament that connects your achilles to your heel to the ball of your foot.  So now that it is all but healed, I would like to push for this again.

I've never been a reader so to say I would read 10 books in a year will be a big stretch for me.  Especially if I have to read the physical book.  Also, we have been really focused lately on getting out of debt before we buy a house.  So we are going to work on getting out of debt and building a fully funded emergency fund by the end of the year so that we can start looking at houses and saving up a down payment for a house for next year.  Can I tell you how nice it is to pay off debts?  Not just to pay the minimum, but to see the debts go away permanently.  It's a beautiful thing to not have a car payment and it's wonderful to see those student loans melt away.

I think the hardest one for me to complete will be the 60 days of Insanity.  It's a workout program like P90x or Tae Boe, but it is extremely intense.  We'll see if my body can hold up under the workouts, but I think this is what will help me to get to my desired weight.  This and a good diet will get me there and both will be difficult to keep up.  We shall see.  I might even gives updates on the blog as I go through it on the program and whether it is working or not.

K...  That's our goals for 2010.

Updates

(Jason) So I decided that our blog needed some updates.  We have been extremely busy with life and we haven't posted in months.  Here are some updates on our life:

1. Seth is now 15 months old.


2. 2 Weeks vacation for Christmas in Wyoming was a ton of fun


3. Working for Adobe is a great thing.  They have awesome benfits and have really taken good care of us.


4. Ashley is now 26 and is more beautiful than ever.


5. I just earned 5 more bonus points for my previous comment.


6. Ashley will start tending two kids from the neighborhood 4 times a week starting today.


7. We have been following Dave Ramsey's financial dieting and have paid off about 60% of our debt during last year!! (It's tight sometimes)


8. We expect to be out of debt this time next year (Except for the house which we hope to buy next year)!!!!


9. I plan to start an exercise program called Insanity this next week.  We'll see if I can shed some weight doing it.  More like, We'll see if I can keep doing it... I'll shed the weight if I stick to it.


10. Ashley and I are closer, happier, and more talkative than ever.  We love each other and I am so happy we have what we have.

Well, I hope that helps catch you up a little.  Let us know if there is anything that you would like us to update you on.

Quote Board

We now have an online quote board. Check it out: Quote Board. We have a quote board at home and it keeps filling up with all of the random things that we and our friends say. So instead of deleting them permanently will the board fills up, they will end up on this site. You will be able to find a link at the top of our blog now that will lead to our pictures, which haven't been updated in a long time and our quote board. If you have any recommendations for the page then let me know. Maybe I can implement some of your good ideas.

Seth's First Bath

Recovery Room Video

Hey, here is a video of our recovery room and stuff...

Saturday at the latest

So I don't know what to write, but it's been a while and this may be my last chance to blog before the baby gets here. After that, I will definitely have something to say. ;) Everything is set up and ready to go for baby. I'm actually quite proud of Jason and me for being on top of things and having everything ready to go. I remember reading something around 35 weeks that was talking about painting the nursery. My only thought was, "I can't even bend over without flames running up my esophagus. How would you paint a whole nursery now?" I was grateful to have it all done and ready to go. I finished the quilt I was making for little Seth. That was a good day. And I am more than half way done with the curtains for the nursery. I was really behind on house work and getting this place clean enough for a newborn, but thanks to my mom and my little sister, Alyssa, things are caught up now. That was the part I was afraid wouldn’t happen, and it’s possibly the most important part. My problem is that I can’t bend, reach, climb, stretch, lift, or move quickly. Try doing house work without doing any of those things.

I just keep thinking that next time I’m pregnant, I will have a little one running around. I don’t know how anything will get done at that point. I’m sure I’ll figure it out but it’s given me a new respect for moms. Pregnancy is one of those things you really can’t understand until you experience it. My dad said he had been pregnant seven times and I corrected him and said he had been the partner of a pregnant woman seven times. He more or less said it was the same thing and I realized how much he didn’t know about being pregnant at that time. I’ve been around pregnant women before. It’s definitely not the same.

I went to the doctor today and found out that he is leaving for a two week vacation next week. So my options were to get induced before he left or have a different doctor if Seth came after next Wednesday. What I’m hoping is that I just go in to labor in the next few days, which is definitely a possibility. If not, I’ll be induced on Saturday whenever the hospital calls and says they’re ready for me. Though I didn’t want to go that route, it has its pluses. Hopefully it just happens naturally. Wish me luck!

July 4th

So I have to say the 4th of July Weekend was awesome. Not only did I get a three day weekend but I got to spend it with my wife (Ashley) and her little sis (Alyssa). It was great. We acquired tickets for the stadium of fire for Alyssa's birthday and Christmas presents. She loves Miley Cyrus. Her mom drove her to Utah under the pretenses that she was just going to Bed Bath and Beyond in Utah and then decided to come visit Ashley and I. Al had no clue at all what was going on and just went with it.

After I got home Ash said, "I think we should let her in on the plans..." Al was like, what plans? Kathy (Ash and Al's mom) asked Alyssa to go get the stuff out of the trunk. Al came back with armfuls of clothing. She asked, "Why are all of my clothes in the trunk?" We all started laughing and I hung an envelope of sorts over her head. (Then proceeded to do some weird Rasmussen ritual that says, 'Heavy heavy hang over thy poor head. What would you do with a (you then hit then with the gift on the head) bonk on the head?' Weird... I know) She took the envelope and opened it. Ashley said this was her birthday and Christmas gift all in one. She started reading and was like, "Oh... Cool...". Then she went into what looked like a moment of deep thought... And then she squealed really loudly. :) She figured out that three tickets to the Stadium of Fire actually meant three tickets to see Miley Cyrus! She started flipping out. It was awesome.

Stadium of fire was great. Miley was ok but that's not why I wanted to go. I wanted to see Blue Man Group. I'll tell you what... I really want to go to concert that is just them. They were very entertaining. The opening show with the dancers was fun too. They had 1300 girls all dressed the same and they came out on half of the football field and lined up. They had all kinds of different sports equipment. They ended up acting out every summer olympic event in their routine. It was great. There were several parts where I was like, "sweet!" It was really fun. The unfurling of the flag and the paraschute jumpers were great. It was just all-together fun. I definitely feel like the money was well spent. If someone really cool comes next year, then I think Ash and I may try to go again. Maybe they'll bring Rascal Flatts or something. I'd definitely be at that.

So we had a great weekend going to Stadium of fire, playing games, and watching Lost. We taught Al how to play Settlers of Catan while getting her addicted to season one of Lost. We're all so into it. It's a great show! The only thing that would make it better is if they got rid of the random girls dressed in bikinis. I know I know... It's on an island so I should expect it, but it is still annoying since it has nothing to do with the plot. To say the least... We really like Lost so far.

Life is grand. The baby is growing very well, Ashley is great and I'm doing well also. We got all of the walls in the baby's room stripped and washed. We bought paint and are going to start painting soon. Yay!

Baby updates

Ok this is Jason. I figured I should give you all some updates since Ash isn't. :p So we are almost in the 7th month. We start the 24 week this Wednesday. it has been pretty exciting. The baby is way active and is bouncing all over the place. We can even watch him kick sometimes. It's awesome! We've been doing a lot to prepare and it (with everything else we have on our plates) has kept us very busy. We have bought a crib and a changing table and we decided to get the crib sheet and bumper for the crib so we could get colors selected. We're going to strip the wall paper off of one of the rooms and we're going to paint with the colors on the crib set.

If you didn't know, we are having a boy. We have a few names, but we are pretty settled on one, but we are keeping it pretty private until the baby is born. if you really wanna know then call Ash. :) We are having so much fun and we are way excited for the baby to come in a few months. If you remind me, I'll post the ultrasound. it's pretty cool!

So to say the least we are excited. An update on us. We are still in Springville Utah living in Ashley's grandma's house. I'm still working for EnticeLabs in Provo and work is going well. Ashley is now a stay at home almost mom. :) She's doing her best to get the energy to take care of the home. it's gotta be hard to just about anything when you have an extra 10 pounds all of a sudden. She is wonderful though and things are well. Feel free to say hi sometime. :)

Graduation is coming soon!

Ashley and I will soon be done with school... Hopefully.... We just need to pass all of our classes now. We will officially graduate on April 25th 2008! I'll be graduating with my Master of Information Systems Management, and Ashley is getting her Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics with a minor in Linguistic Computing. 57 more days!!!!!!! Today we went to order our graduation caps and gowns. It was fun to realize how close we are to graduating. I'm way excited to be done and to move on in life.

I think it will be nice to come home and not have to worry about homework for classes that I no longer care at all about. I think one of the things I really look forward to is being able to come home and actually spend time with my wife and not have to worry about what is or isn't getting done. I guess I'll need to find a hobby or something. :)

Our late Honeymoon in Florida!

So we had a blast in Florida. We had wonderful flights and a great experience with the car rental. We actually got a pretty sweet car to drive around. We received a place to stay in Ormond Beach, Fl (which is right by Daytona Beach) from Grandma Arthur. We love Grandma! The place was great. We got there on Saturday and it was beautiful. We drove to our place and crashed for the night.

We spent Sunday at church and walking on the beach. We were collecting seashells. The water was freezing for Florida, but it's what I remembered Ocean City's water to be in June or July.

Monday, New Year's, was spent at Disney World - Epcot. This was fun. The lines for rides were ridiculously long but we had tons of fun. I had never been to Disney World so it was a great experience for me. They had the best fireworks that I have ever seen... Seriously. They were awesome. We got home that night around 2 or 3 am.

We then slept most of Tuesday and went to a really nice dinner at the Chart House. It was probably one of THEE best steaks I have ever had. It was amazing.

On Wednesday, we went to Disney World again and this time went to Hollywood Studios. The rides here were MUCH better and the lines were smaller too. We had so much fun here. I was actually pretty impressed by some of their rides. This time we made sure we understood the FastPass's and we used them as best we could. I have to say that one of the best things here was the fantismo or fantistico or something like that. It was a show on the water at the end of the night. I loved it. The worst part was that it was absolutely freezing and we had worn shorts. So we ended up having to buy plenty of hot chocolate and a blanket to stay warm. We still had loads of fun.

On Thursday we went to International drive and walked through Wonderworks. This place is definitely recommended by both of us. The house was a lot of fun. It's a building turned upside down. They have all of these scientific "rides" that you can play with and they actually had one ride that made me completely nauseous. We were in control and we just spun it and spun it and spun it as fast as we could. I was done for a while after that. Later we played LazerTag (and I kicked everyone's butt... Maybe that was because I was the only one that knew the rules because they didn't explain them at all.) After that we went to the comedy show. This was hilarious and so much fun. I would go to this show again if I went to Orlando again.

Friday was awesome. We ended up going snorkeling with Manatees and scuba diving. Scuba diving was fun because we had never done it but snorkeling was amazing. Mostly because of the manatees. We went to an area where we got to play with them and scratch their backs and everything. It's amazing how playful these animals are. We’ll post some pictures when we get a chance.

Saturday we came home. We loved it in Florida and look forward to going back. It was amazing Grandma. Thank you!

We're staying in Utah

Hey everyone, Ashley and I wanted to start a blog. So we'll be trying to keep up with our lives and posting interesting things on here. So keep checking back if you want to keep up on our lives. We want to make sure everyone knows what's going on if they want to know.

So the first thing I'll share with you is that we have decided to stay in Utah and work for the startup company, EnticeLabs. After a long period of study and prayer, we decided that we would stay. We strongly felt like this is where we need to be. We also thought that if we were ever going to try out a risky startup company, then we needed to do it now before we get wrapped up in our lives and have kids.

So we should be here in Utah for about 3-4 years at least unless something happens. Then we'll make a decision if we want to go somewhere else or stick around. We are doing wonderfully. we have been blessed in so many ways and although there have been times when we feel lost and confused, we feel that the Lord has been watching over us and directing us. Sometimes it has felt like direction into very strange and not understandable paths. We'll continue to follow no matter what the Lord tells us, but we are hoping that he gives us some direction soon.