The best (and only) good thing about Birmingham, AL

So you may have heard that Phil has heard back from his first school. He was accepted to the University of Alabama, Birmingham to the school of public health. With the possibility of moving to Birmingham, I decided to look into housing costs. Did you know that Phil and I could buy a house for as little as $60,000??? That's nuts! I mean granted, it would not be an updated house...but still.

update

After careful consideration, I decided not to buy Phil the ride on cooler. Since we rarely use a cooler, I figured it would mostly be Phil riding around on it in our parking lot. And since there's a 5 inch slab of ice covering it right now...the cooler would be of no use. I'm pretty confident the cooler doesn't have 4wheel drive.

But on another note, Phil has started his internship at the Utah Legislature, working for Rep. Ron Bigelow. He seems to be enjoying the experience and learning a lot. He gets to wear a sweet security badge with his picture on it, and carry around a blackberry so he can be at the beck and call of his representative. But Phil is not enjoying the 1 1/2-2 hour bus trip it takes to get to Salt Lake and back. He frequently complains about not being able to sleep during the commute because some girl is yapping away on her cell phone. But it is only a 6 week internship and his bus pass was the same price as one tank of gas....thank you UTA

Phil has submitted most of his applications for grad school, and I think he still has one or two to finish before their March deadline. We hope to start to hear back from schools starting in March. This will decide the fate of our future....so we're pretty anxious about it.

I'm still plugging away at school. Being my last semester, I have to be honest, I have little motivation, and school seems less fun. But don't worry, I'm still learning a lot, and getting my stafford loan's worth. It might get better once we know where we're going to live and I can actually start to look for a job....albeit one I probably don't want, since I have no long term work experience. But such is the life of the grad student, who decided not to take off a couple years before working on her degree to get work experience. But let's face it folks, if I had left school and started working full time, I probably wouldn't have gone back. So it worked out in the end.

Phil and I are looking into buying a new car. But this has not been a smooth process considering we have no time to do it and can't find a car in our price range that Phil's tall 6'6" frame will fit into comfortably. It would be a lot simpler if we were rich and could just walk next door to the dealership next to our building and point our finger and take one home with us. But alas, it is not, and we are still on the hunt for a good deal.

'til later....

The Best Gift Idea Ever!!!

So a couple of weeks ago I was trying to figure out what to get Phil for Christmas. I decided to use one of the best research tools out there....the internet. My first stop was Gifts.com, and as I was searching through the items I found this:



The Cruzin Cooler! This special scooter allows the rider to cruise up to 14 M.P.H.! Who thinks of these things? Our world is full of useless things. But this is just the start, this lovely contraption has an optional attachment.


If you are interested in purchasing this item visit this link: Gifts.com

Sisters Trip to Hawaii

Here are some pictures from our sisters trip to Hawaii. Enjoy! Here's Jules eating her McFlurry (yes I know, not very Hawaiian, but rather delicious) and basking in the sunset.

More sunset. Isn't it beautiful?

Here we are at Senior Frog's wearing our silly balloon hats. The food was quite good, but if you don't like heavy drinkers, loud music, and a guy walking around with a microphone talking to people, then I wouldn't go.

Here's Jules wearing her snorkel gear. Although the snorkeling wasn't as good as we thought it was going to be.

The view from our hotel room.

5 Things

So we were tagged by Ms. Margaret Tueller Proffitt to create this list...you might be next...

5 things we were doing 10 years ago:
1. Phillip was the starting center for the Joseph Lane Junior High School Freshman Basketball Team
2. Jen was playing in BYBA (Belmont Youth Basketball Association) on the maroon team
3. Jen had just turned 13 and was excited to start being a teenager...although it didn't afford her any special privileges...none the less it was an exciting time
4. Not thinking about paying for rent/utilities/food....no financial stresses at 13/14 (how nice)
5. Not watching the Red Sox play in the World Series (its going to different this time...i just know it)

* Frankly it was hard to think about things we did 10 years ago. I mean who really thinks about that? Plus what kind of 13/14 year old really takes all that much in?

5 things on our "to-do list" tomorrow:
1. Watch game 7....yes folks, we're going to take it to 7 and all the way to the World Series!!
2. Go to church (and try and be on time at 8am!)
3. Take a nap
4. Pack to go to Hawaii!!! YES! (just Jen of course...Phil has to stay in Provo and work/study, poor guy)
5. Grade more poorly written freshman papers

5 things we would do if we had a million dollars:
1. pay off my student loans and pay for Phil's graduate school tuition (wherever that may be)
2. buy a house
3. have babies
4. invest in the stock market
5. travel to Africa (together this time) and climb Kilimanjaro as Jen waits at the bottom hanging with the monkeys

5 things we will never wear again:
1. Acid wash jeans
2. plaid-flannel shirts
3. hyper color shirts
4. overalls
5. tapered jeans

5 favorite toys:
1. baseball and mitt (2 mitts preferably)
2. our BOSE CD player (graciously give to us by Kim and Sue last Christmas!)
3. Tim and Anna's Wii before they moved :(
4. blogger.com...we love being able to "stalk" our family and friends
5. wikipedia.org...it's the best website and it knows everything (or close to everything worth knowing)

5 people we're tagging...

Clarky Cubed, The Bradfords, BookerBean (yes you can do it Book, even though you weren't alive 10 years ago; have an imagination), Mike and Hannah (if they ever get their blog back up!), and Julia Clark (yes Julia, you need to start a blog and I think this will be a great way to do it!)

Boston, Aruba, and Connecticut Trip

So we're back now from our travels to the east coast and the Lesser Antilles. We had a great time seeing family in Boston and Connecticut. We also had a great time relaxing in Aruba. Here is a link to our pictures on-line.

Phil and I are starting school again this coming Tuesday. This is our last year here at BYU! We're excited to move on to a new place next year. We'll keep you all posted on those developments.

News Worthy Quote

Ok so here's an article from BYU news about our trip to Ghana. Check out my sweet quote!

Beauty

So while we were in Ghana we had a woman and her son cater dinners for us at the church temple dorms we were staying at while in Accra. The son had just joined the church 6 months ago. He got to talking with one of the girls in our group and basically asked her to find him a wife. She obviously didn't take him very seriously, but still asked him what his qualifications were. He pointed to me and said he would like to marry someone like me because I'm "strong." She reminded him that I was married, but needless to say I felt a little awkward around him after that.

I was told many times that I "looked like" an African because I had African hips. My first reaction was to be offended, but then realized that it was actually a compliment from them. In fact, while I was going through a security check point before hopping on the plane home my bags were being searched by a lady, and then these two guys walked up and started talking to me. The first one commented that he thought I was very beautiful, then the other said he liked my shape and waved his hands in the shape of a large round ball, and then the first one asked me if I was married. I guess I should have been flattered, but my first thought was "which one of these guys is the wing-man?"

These experiences made me ponder the perception of beauty and how culturally different they are. The African sense of beauty is much different than here in the states; they treasure the curves of a women. Before heading off to Ghana I read an article in an on-line Ghanain publication about a modeling agency in Ghana. They were discussing how there are many beautiful African models, but they could never break into any other market outside of Africa because they weren't stick thin and didn't fit the mold of the western world's view of beauty.

Through my interactions with the people there and my people watching (because I do that a lot), I couldn't help thinking "these people are some of the most beautiful people I have ever seen." And I don't think it was all due to their physical features, but also due to their kindness, sincerity and knowing everything they have in their lives they worked extremely hard for.

So I guess there's no real moral to this blog post, but just to provide some food for thought.

Jen's African Adventures

So I'm back from Ghana, after two weeks of amazing experiences. I had the opportunity to learn a lot about International Development and the challenges that these countries face.

I learned a lot about the Ghanain culture and the wonderful people there. They are the kindest people you will meet in the world. It is normal to wave and say hello to everyone you meet on the streets. The country is predominantly Christian, and you can feel the love of Christ emanating from their smiles and handshakes.

I fully enjoyed my time in Ghana, despite the extreme heat and humidity. There is much to tell, but for now here is a link to my pictures. Much of our time was spent on a bus traveling to different regions, so many of my pictures were taken through the bus window. The pictures don't adequately capture the beauty and wonder of Ghana, but I hope my memories have.

Phil's Adventures in Namibia

So here is Phil in Namibia last summer. He was there for 2 months. For the first month he lived in the bush with the Himba tribe doing anthropological research. For the second month he traveled around the country. Click here for more pictures!
WARNING: contains nudity