Goodbye 2008

Well, I would have to say that this year has been the most eventful year of my life. The first third of the year was packed full of the "finance core" of classes at BYU which was the most intense semester I had. It was loaded with classes like investments, economics, corporate finance, and corporate accounting. In the middle of all that I was in search of an internship for the summer, which as many of you know, I was able to get the one that I most wanted as a financial analyst for a hospital.

So the middle third of the year was filled with moving to St. George, UT for the summer and doing the analysis of multimillion dollar projects for the hospital. Before moving we sold both of our cars and bought a minivan. During the summer I also took a motorcycle safety course and bought my first motorcycle. By the end of summer I had to sell my motorcycle as I had become a single dad of our two children. I also got rid of the minivan (with great joy), and got a newer Honda Civic. Also, before I finished my internship I accepted an offer to work at the hospital full time after graduation. My first "real" job!

The last four months have been challenging but wonderful. I finished my last semester of school (I was taking 18 credits!) and I have grown a lot as I have been the sole provider for two kids. I finished school on December 17th (with great grades for the semester by the way) and made it up to Coeur d' Alene for a week to enjoy Christmas at "home" and then got back down to Springville and packed everything up and took off two days later to get back down here to St. George.

So here I am at the close of 2008, thankful for all that I have been able to accomplish and thankful for the many challenges I have faced. I know that I have achieved many things and have grown immensely because of the adversity that I have faced. I am also very thankful for how things have turned out. The timing of just about everything this year has been beyond amazing (the timing of how I got accepted for my internship, the timing of my divorce, the timing of having such a great job in such a bad economy, and finding a wonderful place to live that is very inexpensive because of the bad economy).

I look forward to what 2009 will bring but I highly doubt there will be nearly as much happening as what happened this year. I mean, seriously, how can you compare anything to a year of intense semesters, an internship, first motorcycle, divorce, becoming a single parent, graduation, and starting your first job out of college?

My new place!

So here are some pics of my new place down here in St. George. It's a great townhome in an awesome location!

Here is the living room with the stairs off to the right and the closet door right in the middle of the picture

Here is the dining room and going into the kitchen

Here is my awesome large kitchen!

This is right when you get upstairs. A bathroom on the left, Carter's room straight ahead, Alexis's room off to the right, and the master bedroom behind to the left.

Graduated!

It has been a while since I last posted on here. The end of my semester got extremely busy as I had a bunch of big projects and presentations in the last few days of classes. Then I had finals which of course is very time consuming. Needless to say, everything went well and I am now BYU alumni!

I will be adding a ton of pictures and more stuff on here soon. For now I will say that I am in Coeur d' Alene, ID with the kids and hanging out with the Griffitts. It's been very relaxing and fun. It's nice to know that I have no homework, no assignments, and no tests to study for.....ever.

I drove up to Boise, ID on Friday and then made the rest of the trip up to CDA on Saturday. I mostly had good road conditions but it got pretty ugly at times. A few interesting things I found as I made the trip........

1. I passed through a city called "Farr West". I guess it was even further than far, so they had to put an extra "r" on "far". Just then, a tumble weed blew by.

2. I stopped to use the bathroom in a little city called "Snowville". It was established in 1871 and the only thing I saw in the city was the gas station.

3. I was driving on a two lane highway and came across a sign on each side of the road, placed directly across from the other. The one on the left was a sign showing that the left lane was merging into the right lane. The sign on the left showed the right lane was merging into the lane on the left. It turned out that neither lane merged into the other.

4. Throughout Utah and southern Idaho the signs that say "Slower traffic keep right" are all on the far right side of the road. Wouldn't it make sense to put it next to the left lane where the dumb drivers that only drive in the left lane can see it and learn to move over? Once I got to Oregon it was finally next to the left lane, then I saw it that way throughout Washington and North Idaho.

Busy days....

I don't know if any of you have looked at my countdown over there to the right, but I only have two weeks until I graduate!!! That's crazy! So exciting. Along with it comes a jam packed end of the semester. This week has been the most chaotic of the whole semester. I had two huge presentations this week. Today alone I had three 75 minute classes, I also took a test between classes, finished up a big project and got it turned in, gave a presentation, and took a quiz. I didn't even eat anything until dinner time. I rushing all over the place today.

Tomorrow morning I am heading down to St. George with the kids to find a place to live. I have a few places lined up to look at. If everything goes well and the kids aren't too hyper then we might come back tomorrow night, otherwise we will stay at a hotel and come back on Saturday sometime.

Next week I have two big projects that are due and then the next week is finals. Then I am done!!! I will graduate and finally be done!!!!!!!!!!