Sunday, October 25, 2009

And the adventures begin...

So another crazy week has passed by and I just have to say how much I love my wife! She is SO amazing (those of you who are gagging right now can stop---we are still newlyweds)!!

This week was pretty crazy busy. We got pre-approved for a home loan and have found a realtor, so no we are on the hunt for a new house!!! Yay!! We have spent some time looking online and around the neighborhoods we like but are expecting this to be a long experience. I actually think it will be a good growth experience for the two of us and I feel like this is something that Heavenly Father has His hands in---meaning that either there is something very important for us to learn from this experience or that He has a place prepared for us, perhaps even both.

So can I tell you about how wonderful Sundays are? I absolutely love gathering with my congregation to worship the Lord. I feel so uplifted and it seems that I can face the challenges of the upcoming week better if I focus on worshipful activities on this holy day. Today I learned of the importance of following the prophets and of sacrifice. I sure want to be an instrument in God's hands to do His work---I love it!!!

Nicole and I will keep you posted about our housing hunt, but in the mean time we would like any advice you can give us about finding a home!!

Take care of yourselves and remember to smile a lot!!

Sunday, October 11, 2009

A new adventure in blogging!

Nicole wrote:

After talking about it a bit, Jay and I have decided to create a blog! We are hoping that this will be a fun adventure for the two of us because this is something neither of us has done before. We are also hoping that this will enable us to share more about ourselves with others.
So for those who are reading this blog and don't know very much about us I think it only appropriate to share just a little about ourselves.
Jay grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. After graduating high school Jay joined the Air Force Reserves and absolutely loves it! It has enabled him to travel to many different places and learn more about the countries he has served in because of deployments and annual tours. When he was 19 years old he served a LDS church mission for two years in Brazil, where he shared his love for the gospel. Upon returning to Utah he started his undergrad at BYU (Provo, Utah) and then after graduating he decided to continue his education by going to RIT (Rochester, New York) for his master’s degree. While going to school in Rochester, he meet the most beautiful girl in the world (me obviously), and he knew that he just had to marry her, and so he did!

Jay wrote:

So blogging seems to be the trend and we decided to jump on the bandwagon or ride the wave or whatever cliché you want to use. In any case, I am hoping this will be a good way to track our growth and to share with our family and friends our adventures. Now it is my turn to brag about my beautiful bride.
One fine wintery morning a gorgeous baby came into the world—and the rest is history! Nicole was born in Utah as well; however, she was made for the cold and so convinced her parents, before she even turned 10 years old, to move to upstate New York (well, maybe it was because her father had a cool job offer but don’t tell her that). Anyway, after a very exciting high school experience, including a National title in Cross Country, she tried out college at BYU-Idaho (the best bleed blue…). She was only gone for a few semesters when she felt like she should return home and prepare to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was a good thing too, because she was able to help take care of her family, and (more importantly) she was in New York when I went there for school. After a brief courtship and a trying engagement (we spent 4 of the 6 months apart due to my deployment) we got married in June 2009 in the Bountiful, Utah temple. We now live in San Diego where I work for the Navy and we are absolutely loving it!