Well well a lot has changed in our worlds the last six months. I finished my internship this summer and accepted a full-time position with Deloitte. I also decided to work with them part-time during my Master's program at the University of Denver. Kyle also continues to work part time through finishing his degree at the University of Colorado-Denver. Working, school and life has truly become a balancing act! On top of that I started taking the CPA exam. I have currently passed the first test and am working on the rest.
In October we were driving back from Montana (where my extended family lives) and were talking about moving forward with our life. Both of us agreed it was time to take the plunge and look for our first house. To be honest we had no idea what we were doing, but we knew we wanted the house to be an investment and that it needed to be in between where both of us work. Our awesome realtor Cindy Rogers was so patient with us and truly helped us get our dream home. We also used our parents experience to make a good decision. The first house we loved, but had one downfall...a cigarette smell and we just couldn't get past it. So we moved on. The next house we found we put an offer on which was way below asking. They turned us down. So we moved on. We found what we thought was the perfect house and put in another decent offer. Turns out they had 6 higher offers so we moved on. We went back to the second house and gave a higher offer. They accepted. We did the inspection and found that it had atleast $15,000 in damages. We ended up walking away from the house. At this point I was discouraged. Anyone who knows the Colorado housing market knows that houses stay on the market for about 3 days maybe a week at most. We decided to start over and found a house we loved. We decided to think about it and then got a call from the owner saying if we would make a decent offer he would give it to us. We put an offer in under asking and he took it. I was still nervous about the inspection, but the house was in great condition. We soon closed on the house and began moving from our apartment downtown to familyville Highlands Ranch. We truly feel that Heavenly Father guided us to exactly where we needed to be.
This home has become our happy place and the place where we feel the most comfortable. We are constantly trying to fill it with the spirit and make our home a temple. We soon found out that our area is a mini Provo! The majority of our neighbors are Mormon which has been awesome. Our ward has been more welcoming than I thought people could ever be. It has truly inspired us to be more caring of those around us.
Our parents have just started a complete remodel of their house which is going to be incredible. It also worked out awesome for us because we took all their old furniture! They are now living in the basement of their home and watching the renovations take place.
For the holidays this year we spent Thanksgiving in Billings, MT and Christmas with Kyle's family in Utah. It's so fun to learn and embrace the various traditions of each of our families. Our family all gets together and because we are so big now (about 50 people) we eat in the garage. A few things we eat that I crave all year long are jelly butter and pretzel salad. For Christmas we flew into Utah and went to a restaurant that Kyle's ancestors have established. We learned from his grandma the history of the place and their family. On Christmas Eve we all ate dinner together and had a white elephant exchange. They also exchanged Christmas pajamas! Tiffany (Kyle's sister) and her husband also got their kids a puppy which was really exciting. (which may have inspired something in us ;)
For New Year's we traveled to Jamaica with some of my extended family. We enjoyed the beach and relaxing. We did some waterfall jumping, golfing, spa days and so on. It was a blast!
We are now back to school and work. We are looking forward to more exciting chapters in our life this year. We just celebrated our second anniversary yesterday and while at dinner took time to look back on last year and look forward to what we want to accomplish this year. We realized how truly blessed we are.
One aspect of our lives that we are especially bless with is the gospel of Jesus Christ. As I have moved from BYU to DU it has pained me to be surrounded by those with no knowledge of the gospel. I wish I could just shout the good news of the gospel in every classroom. (still building up the courage) I am currently taking an ethics class and am shocked at how different my view of ethics is from everyone else's. The class is constantly trying to define the line. How often is it ok to drink? Look at pornography? Gamble? Is it ok to be a professional and cheat on your wife? These are just the questions we considered today. I feel so grateful to have a prophet who leads my life. I never have to question whether these things are ok or not. I know these things are not. I know that if we strive to avoid doing these things completely we will be happy and avoid consequences completely. I understand that there are hard choices in life and that none of us are perfect, but if we can atleast know how to be perfect through a prophet and the example of our Savior we can never truly be lost.
If you are someone who is looking for answers and wants to find true happiness please visit Mormon.org.
