Balloons and Burlington

Have you ever wondered how people get jobs like this?

Well, friends, let me tell you. Craigslist. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I now have a new job (on top of my other one at Noah's). I am officially a Hot Air Balloon Crewman for Gr8 Flight (aka Valley View Ballooning). Check it out at gr8flight.com. I was perusing craigslist.com looking for another part-time job when my wife, Danielle (some of you may have heard of her...), pointed out a listing that said "Hot Air Balloon Crew." "Oh my heck," exclaimed my super-hot wife, "that would be so awesome!" So I sent in an e-mail thinking, "Eh, what have I got to lose?" I've sent over 40 resumes and applications to people on craigslist and so far have gotten only automated responses from a few get rich quick schemes, so I didn't hold out too much hope. Well, O me of little faith. The very next day I had an e-mail from Bob Haupt wanting to meet with me. That was two days ago. I met with him yesterday at The Creamery on Ninth to discuss our (hopefully) future employment relations. We sat down and he introduced himself. He talked about his fixed-wing pilot's license and how he transitioned to a hot air balloon to advertise for a company he used to own. Then he told me all about how he upgraded to a commercial license along with a bigger balloon so he could make money directly. I thought to myself, "How interesting! This is a guy who's chasing his dreams! Good for him!" That's when he hit me with "Rule Number 1: Don't step on the balloon." I thought, "Well that makes sense. Very good advice!" A few minutes later, between him explaining what a crown line is and Rule Number 4 I started to think, "Gee, this guy's really going in depth for just an interview..." Then a few minutes LATER I started to realize that I was already kind of in. I was hired. He wasn't interviewing me anymore. He had begun training ten minutes earlier! Well gee whilickers, that seemed nice! We wrapped up the trainerview and he said he'd call me to tell me what time to show up the next day. That's today.

So here I am with one day of balloon chasing under my belt and another one on the way tomorrow morning at 6:15. So there you have it folks! I'm a balloon chaser. I chase balloons. Balloons: I chase them. Ok, just the one, but still I think it's preeeeeetty awesome.




Oh yeah! The second part of the post! Burrrrrlington (pretend I'm shivering; makes it fun). Danielle and I were out and about (or oat and aboat as our friends to the north might say) when I said, "Hey, my super-hot wife Danielle, what say we go into Burlington Coat Factory? I hear they're more than great coats!" to which she replied "That would be fan-jolly-tastic!" (I might be paraphrasing some.) So we started cruisin' around and we found some pretty good stuff! Sheck eet ooout!

This is Danielle's "I'm-a-city-girl-who-appreciates-the-whole-cowgirl-scene" shirt.

This is Danielle's "I'm hip and I don't care who knows it" dress. It's purple.

This is my "I'm a dude. Nope. I'm an awesome dude." shirt.

With Detail Below
This is my "I think I've had a shirt like this before but never really wore it much but this one looks like I might wear it more cuz I kinda made a deal with my wife and it was such a good deal anyway" shirt.
And here's a shot of gratuitous cheek kissing because I know Brad and Kadin will probably see this.

Toodle-pip!

1st day of school!

Ok maybe I'm a nerd but I needed a first day of school picture. I figure since I've been waiting for this day nearly my whole life, a picture should be in order.
(And to give credit where credit is due- Jesse picked out my first day of school clothes! haha)

Nursing school.... HERE I COME!

Well technically came.
Yesterday was my first day of school. I was completely excited/nervous (as depicted in the picture) but fortunately I haven't been COMPLETELY overwhelmed yet. I just have about a zillion chapters to read in the next week. No problem right?

Well except that we are compounding our problems by me having my 2nd first day of work today and we're moving OUT on Saturday and moving IN on Tuesday. Yeah no problem...

Finally de-junking

Well I have finally gotten up the courage to throw away the cards we got for our wedding. I'm a bit of a pack-rat believe it or not and it was hard to get rid of them! These are the containers they used to fill. (And I did have to keep those few in the basket for sentimental reasons)And this is what was thrown away! YAY for de-junking!

Jenn's Wedding

We had the pleasure of attending my 2nd cousin's wedding on August 7th and it was beautiful! Their sealing was wonderful and full of great advice. I always like hearing the advice and sealing promises at other people's weddings because I can't remember what was said at my own! It's always easier to listen when you're not stressed/nervous/excited about your own wedding.

Here's a few pictures from the day!

Cute newly married couple!

Ali and Tyer. Ali is Jenn's sister who just got engaged to Tyler and will be doing this all soon!
So exciting!

Not quite sure what these faces were all about but they made me laugh!

Jenn and her siblings

I love weddings! Such a fun time of life!

Speaking of weddings.... it is my good friend's 1 year anniversary tomorrow!
Shout out to Lauren and Dan! We miss you guys!

AGAIN?!

We were boxing up our stuff today and this is what Jesse found on our blanket...

Yes that is a spider in a nest on our blanket. It's the same type of spider that was nestled in the snap of Jesse's backpack. How do we find two of these nests with spiders in them? I don't get it.

GRAY HAIRS?!

I am in mourning. My hair is turning gray. I used to have two little gray hairs right in front, but now they've multiplied to 4. Just think how they're going to start multiplying now.... GRRR. I'm too young to have gray hairs! *sad sigh*

On a happy note, we got enough boxes to pack up our whole apartment from our neighbors who moved on Saturday. Cleaning someone else's apartment for 4 1/2 hours does pay off! Now the tough stuff begins.... actually packing and moving. YUCK.

Jesse's Big Post!

*Crowd screams* "Oh my gosh! A husband! It's a real live husband! And he's... what's that...? He's POSTING on a BLOG! Oh my gosh!" *Crowd screams for another hour, then goes to get ice cream*

I know. Don't bother saying it, cuz I know. I'm awful at keeping in touch with pretty much ANYONE who isn't consistently within 5 feet of my physical person, so posting on a blog that lets people I very well might not even KNOW in on the non-stop action that is our lives is quite out of character for me. But here goes...

I've been working a temporary internship at a place called Noah's in South Jordan (check it out at mynoahs.com!). It's a facility "For All of Life's Events." They have rooms you can rent out for weddings, bachelor parties, birthday parties, business meetings/presentations, movie nights, racquetball, even concealed-weapon certification courses put on by the Draper Police (which should be just about to finish up at the time of this posting). My job has been to give tours, process reservations, draw up layouts for how customers want the room to look, and most importantly, I set up. I set up chairs, banquet tables, round tables, skinny tables, fat tables, more chairs, tablecloths, ice carts, and a few more chairs. And tables. It's been fun, but exhausting seeing that they seem to like working me the 3pm-close shift Thursday through Saturday. This usually translates into me getting home around 1 or 2am-ish. Despite that, however, it has been a great time. Every day is like a new adventure. Last night I stayed till 3am to clean up after a graduation party put on by a family from India. Those Sikhs sure know how to throw a party! The day before that we had three weddings going on at the same time (have you ever had to deal with 3 mothers-of-the-bride simultaneously? Ugh.) And tonight I'll be working a quinceanera (it's like a hispanic sweet 16, but at 15). Anyway, I've been working my butt off and loving it, chipping away at the 100 hours I needed for this internship when a couple of days ago they approached me and said, "Jesse, we want to keep you. Would you be interested in becoming a real employee after your 100 hours are up?" To put it simply, awesomesauce. I was SO psyched! The "promotion" comes with a raise and the bonus of no longer being "the intern." Now I know how Ryan felt in Scranton. At least I didn't start any fires...

Anywho, so my hard work paid off! This is a fantastic company where I would eventually like to maybe end up in a management position at one of the facilities they're opening elsewhere. I feel so blessed to have been given this chance. So for all the folks wondering what's going on in my life, there you go. Happies all around! And here are some pictures to reward you for reading all that junk:

This is what it looks like at night. No really, it's so awesome it sparkles.

This is the main hall set up for a wedding reception or something. I kinda just pulled these pics off the internet so I don't know who took them or when or why or of what. Main hall. All you need to know. Ooh! Also sparkly.

This is the game room. That's two pool tables (one of them converted into ping-pong), a projector to which you can hook just about anything (watch movies, hook up a wii, laptop, whatever), a dang nice sound system, and off-screen there's a free 150 game arcade machine and..... wait for it...


Shuffleboard.


No seriously. It's a table version of shuffleboard! Crazy awesome, right? This room connects to a boardroom and a racquetball court (yes, I've begun spelling it the "European" way. At least it looks European to me...). I seriously love giving tours and seeing people's faces when I explain what these rooms can all do. If you're interested at all go to mynoahs.com, call 1-800-MYNOAHS, or just drop by and we'll give you a tour! (322 West 11000 South, South Jordan, Utah). I'm totally converted to this company. It's awesome.

Thanks for reading!

It's Official

We have given our notice to Wymount and signed a contract for a new apartment today! We're pretty excited about it. We're rather sad to leave our good friends and our huge front room and such but we're thrilled with our new place. It's got lots of storage (Well lots meaning a closet that is actually supposed to have things in it unlike our current storage place that shares a room with the furnace) a large bedroom, a nice kitchen with lots of counter and cupboard space (once again that's comparatively) and my favorite part is that it has a big bathroom! There's actual counter space, not just a sink like our current home. Plus it's just in good condition. And the best part is that the rent is significantly cheaper! Hard to believe we're getting more, nicer space for less! What a steal! We're feeling pretty blessed!

Are you kidding me?

We were cleaning out our bedroom and Jesse picked up his backpack and found this in the snap.

We then put it up to the light and saw this. Yes that is a SPIDER. In a nest. In the snap of Jesse's backpack. GROSS.

We had to get rid of it, so after poking it with a bobby pin for a couple minutes Jesse decided to unsnap the snap to see what would happen.

It just sat there. YUCK. Have I mentioned that I don't like spiders. They creep me out.

We washed it down our drain.

Speaking of spiders. We caught a HUGE spider a couple weeks ago. One that crawled underneath our bed, so of course I couldn't sleep until it was caught. We moved everything out from under our bed, and did not see a spider. GRRR. So then I decided we'd rearrange our room and hope to find it. Luckily we did. We put it in a jar and it was the biggest spider I've ever seen without being a tarantella. Later we found another good sized spider so we thought we'd throw it in the jar with the huge one and let them battle. There was no battle though. Our HUGE spider attacked the smaller one and killed it instantly. It then ate it. Cannibal spider. GROSS. I'm done with this whole spider thing. They just keep showing up in our apartment. I think we've found at least 5 in the last two days.

Scrubs!

I got a package a couple days ago containing bright hunter green scrubs! It got me even more excited to start the nursing program! I know it's going to be hard work so ready or not here I come!

VEGAS VACATION!

We were able to take a vacation with my family to Las Vegas. Reckon Vegas isn't typically the best place to visit the end of July, but it ended up being perfect! Cloudy every day, which means I didn't improve my tan, but the weather was completely bearable. We had such a relaxing, enjoyable time.

Our excursion to Hoover Dam.

There was also some of this....And LOTS of this...

Temple Troubles

We were lucky enough to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house which was beautiful. We are so blessed to have so many temples close to us. Then the next day we wanted to go to the Draper Temple to do a session. Unfortunately we got slightly lost so we missed the session we wanted. We could have waited an hour and done the 8pm session but figured that was a little late to start. Instead we did inititories, which I love so that was enjoyable. Then the next day we tried to do a session at the Salt Lake Temple where we were told that it was closed for cleaning. Unfortunate but we figured it was just our luck. Well then we went to Vegas with my family about a week later and planned on doing a session there. Once again we found out the Vegas Temple was also closed for cleaning. Are we really that cursed? We're trying to attend the Temple, I promise!
Luckily we got a few pictures in front of the Draper Temple so it proves we're trying!

Weekend with Kylie

My little sister Kylie came to visit us a couple weekends ago and we had a blast. We did all sorts of things and here are the pictures to prove it!

Off to Seven Peaks!

The face of pure happiness.

My cute Aunt Jen

After a long day of playing.... These cute boys crashed.We also cut Jesse's hair, but not before we played with it a bit!

We also painted canvasses... Which was really fun if I do say so myself.

To explain my "choose ye this day" painting... that was the theme of our EFY company the week we met. Because of this it's a bit of our own little motto.

Our cousin Tori turned the great age of 8 so we were able to go to her baptism. Here is my little brother Kadin next to our cousin Trevin. Trevin's about 6 months older than Kadin but significantly taller. They are just the best of friends!

After borrowing our niece, Abbie, for the afternoon, we did some intense nail painting.

We also got to hike the Y. That was my first time so we had a blast.

We had a blast with you Kylie! Come and play again!