Happy November 1st!

What a beautiful day we had here in ATL today. It was 72 degrees, sunny, warm, blue skies, beautiful fall colors everywhere. Nathan and I got out of the house and went to the park. I guess I should get more in the habit of taking pictures when we do stuff so we have pictures to put on the blog. It was a great afternoon.

Last night we celebrated Halloween with some friends from church at a party. It was a good time with great food, good friends, interesting conversations, fun pumpkin carving--an all-over fun night. Some of our friends took pictures of the pumpkins. If I get one from them, I'll post it. Nathan has been recording scary movies on our DV-R from TV for the last few weeks, and I know he's secretly hoping I'll relent and watch one with him. I think he just wants me to get all scared and snuggle up to him for comfort and reassurance. I hate scary movies that have no resolution. I've watched a few with him in the past, but I have to psyche myself up for it. I know, I'm such a pansy.

So today we went out to run some errands and did some window shopping, and I saw a t-shirt with this saying. "If you don't vote, I don't have to listen to your opinion." I liked that. I'm trying to psyche myself up for the long lines Tuesday. Just couldn't bring myself to stand in line for 6 hours to vote early!!! Holy cow. A record number of early voters (2 million) have already cast their ballots in the great state of GA. It's amazing to see so much enthusiasm and people taking action. I love it and am excited to see how things turn out Tuesday. It will sure prove interesting.

So we have some pretty big news. Last Friday Nathan accepted a job with Bank of America. The offer was as good or better than any others he had or expected to receive, and the program is great. The job is a position as a Junior VP in a 3-year fast-track leadership rotational program of operations management within BofA. It's exciting to see the light clearly at the end of the tunnel now. Many of you are curious where this job will take us geographically. Well.....so are we! We won't know for sure until January where the first assignment will be. Some possible locations I know of are their headquarters in Charlotte, NC; San Fransisco, CA; San Antonio, TX; and Chicago, IL. Our hope of hopes is that it will be Charlotte because I can transfer there within my current job, which would be a huge blessing. Plus, that would mean Nate's dad would be only a 6 hour drive instead of 10. It would be awesome to be closer to family again. Nathan shared this info with the recruiters, and they said they'd take it into consideration, but no promises. So now we get to play the waiting game until January. But at least that's one HUGE decision off our shoulders. We're excited about it!!!

Random Reminiscing

I haven't posted anything in the last 2 weeks because I didn't think I had anything interesting to post about. But then Mel gave me this great idea, and it's something the rest of you can do too.

It doesn't matter if you think you haven't done anything blog worthy for the day/week or if, like me, you haven't taken any new pictures. Everything you need for a new post is already on your computer! First, go to "my pictures" (or where ever you keep all of your pictures.) Then, open the 6th folder and find the 6th picture. Voilà! You now have the makings of a new post!!! You can tell a story about the photo or remind those of us who may have already seen it!

So here's the picture I found...

This is a picture from last Christmas. My niece, Ellie, who was almost 2 at the time, wanted to "do my hair." She was brushing it and had to make sure to use the squirt bottle with water in it like her mom does to do her hair. It was adorable. Plus, what girl doesn't like her hair to be played with? All you girls out there--remember when you were in school and your friends played with your hair? I remember sitting in 2nd grade in Indian style on the floor for something, and my friend Sylvia sitting behind me and braiding my hair or something. I still love to have my hair played with--especially when it's by someone as adorable as Ellie.

Catching a Break...Catching Some Fish..Catching up with Friends & Family

Finally. After weeks and weeks of hard work and no fun, we finally escaped. This last weekend we took a 3-day trip to the mountains of north Georgia (Ellijay and Blue Ridge). We had so much fun!! Our friends, Mike and Megan Armstrong, joined us Saturday morning. We started driving, and meandered along our way, stopping wherever looked appealing. We ended up having a picnic lunch in a beautiful little place and hiking to see an amazing waterfall--Amlicoa Falls.

After the hike, we hopped back in the car to make our way to the cabin we had rented for the weekend. But we got distracted in "Apple Alley," a bunch of apple orchards and shops along one little road. We decided to stop at one and ended up buying apple cider, apple cider slushies (actually very yummy), apple bread, apple fritters, fried apple pie (like a turnover), and apple honey butter. Ok, so we got a little appled-out. But how often do you get to do that? (Thanks Megan for the picture I took off your blog.)

After buying just about every apple thing we could imagine, we started again on our way, but got distracted by Main St. in Blue Ridge. It was full of shops of all kinds. Of course, Nathan had to stop in at the local fly shop, and had to buy more flies to add to his ever-growing collection. I bought carmel candies and Mad Libs in the general store, and we all had fun (ok maybe not the guys, but they were good sports to tag along) looking in the antique stores, craft stores, and such. My favorite was the rare books store. I could spend hours in a place like that.

After that we decided we were ready to get to our final destination. We were driving along all these beautiful little country roads through the GA mountains, different than the Utah mountains, but very beautiful. All of a sudden we saw a bunch of cabins on the hill. They were spectacular. Nathan and I were speculating on what our cabin would look like--nothing like that, of course. Well, pretty soon we turned down a road that clearly went up the mountain toward those spectacular cabins. Much to our amazement and joy our cabin was one of them. The pictures on the internet didn't do it justice. We had been nervous about that, but it totally paid off.

The picture of the leaves is a picture I took of the tree just outside the balcony off our bedroom at the cabin. Fall colors were just getting started. It was beautiful. We spent the evening grilling steaks on the grill, playing pool, playing games, enjoying the view, talking, hanging out, watching the tv's, eating junk food we don't get to eat all the time, and just having a great time. Then sometime that night our brother-in-law showed up with one of his military buddies. They drove from Huntsville, AL where they are doing some training for the next few months. It was surreal to see Jason in a place that was not a place either one of us is familiar to seeing each other in. It was like all of a sudden a family member popped up in the middle of no where. And we loved it!!! We were so excited to see him and had so much fun talking and catching up, playing pool, and learning fun things about him. Ask him sometime about his mullet/flattop/MC Hammer side burns haircut from his childhood. So funny, Jason! You are such a character. Our only wish was that they could have stayed with us the rest of the weekend and not had to leave after such a short visit.

Sunday morning after we went to church in a tiny little branch in Ellijay, GA. It was awesome to be in church in such a small place. That afternoon we tried to find some Sabbath-friendly activities. We ended up hiking to a place called "Swinging Bridge." The bridge really did swing when walked on.

The guys decided to try the river for fish.

I had a lot of fun practicing casting to the little tiny fish in the river that I could see. It was fun watching them come up and try to eat my huge dry fly. They hardly ever went after the small nymph. It was entertaining and quite fun. Here's the second largest one I caught that day (notice Nathan is holding it--I haven't found any gloves yet, and I tried to will myself to grab the fish and take the hook out, but when it started wriggling I screamed and dropped it).

The next day Nathan and I went on a guided float trip down the lower Toccoa River. I caught several fish, believe it or not, the biggest of which was a rainbow trout about 8 inches long. It was a rough day fishing. There was one point where Nathan and the guide spent about an hour casting to about 10 trout we could see right under the water. They were eating something off the surface, but heck if we could figure out what it was. I think about 7 flies later Nathan finally gave up. He was very frustrated after 8 hours of fishing and only a few trout caught. Here's a picture of one and of the river.

All in all, it was a really great weekend getaway. Something we would really like to do again. Oh, and we paid only $2.96/gal. for gas on the way home, topping off a really great trip.

Roller Coaster Week

I haven't written in awhile because I've been so busy with work and church that I haven't had time for much else besides sleep, an occasional hello to my hubby, and remembering to stop and eat. Craziness. Let's just say that this week I clocked 62 hours at work, and I was out sick one day (but at least worked from home most of that afternoon). It was our fiscal year end after a VERY long year at work, so it was very stressful and I'm so glad it's over. Now the pressure can release a little.
So what else made this a roller coaster week? Well....I came down with strep (3rd time in 4 months--blurg); Nathan got a job offer from Bank of America (which we're considering but not sure--still interviewing with a few others that seem promising too); Nathan went to an orthopedic surgeon and found out he has re-torn the meniscus (in his knee) that he had operated in April 2007, so he'll need surgery again to re-fix it; also found out that same day that he has what they call a SLAP tear in his shoulder, on a scale of 1 to 6 with 6 being the worst, his is a five. He's having surgery on Dec. 4th, and recovery to get back to "normal" is 8 months to 1 year closer to the 1 year. The economy tanked even further, which is freaking us out seeing as Nathan is job hunting. I went to the temple Tuesday night (church thing) and really enjoyed it. Last weekend was General Conference for church, and we totally loved it. Nathan had several huge projects due at school, and I had that crazy week at work. So that is why we had a roller coaster week. Lots of ups and downs. But now we're on an up because Nathan has Monday off school and I am taking the day off and we're going on a little mini-trip to a souped up cabin in northern GA. I am so excited. We're going with another couple from church, and then tomorrow afternoon we get a visitor from Utah. Yep, that's right, one family member is finally venturing out for a visit! Actually, our brother-in-law, Jason, is in AL for some training for work, and he happens to be only about 3 hours away, so he'll be stopping by the cabin with a friend. We're so excited to see someone from home. Should prove to be a very fun weekend. I'm sure I'll post some pics when we get back. Here's to a 3-day weekend where I don't have to think about such words as revenue, profit, loss, project, boss, insubordinate subordinates, or any other such things. HOORAY!!!!

Fishing Woes

So last Saturday Nathan and I ventured out to the Chattahoochee river so I could practice my fly fishing skills (or improve upon the lack thereof). We spent about 3 hours in the water. I found out that I am not a patient person when it comes to learning something new. I guess I'm just so used to being able to learn things quickly as far as things like work skills, etc. This fly fishing thing is so complicated. It reminds me of trying to learn to drive a car. It seems like there are so many things to remember all at once that I can't possibly remember them all and get it to all go smoothly. Remember when you were learning to drive? I remember feeling so overwhelmed and asking my dad something along the lines of, "But how am I supposed to remember to gas/brake at just the right pressure, turn at just the right moment and angle, check for oncoming traffic, check my blind spots, etc., etc. all at the same time? I can't do this!"
Yeah, so that was pretty much me on Saturday. Here's the monologue going through my head. Ok. Let out enough line to cast as far as I can, but not too much or it will get all messy, and not too little or it won't go anywhere. Bring line back. Roll cast. Keep shoulder statinary. Follow through with forearm, not just wrist. Oops, too much wrist. Too late. Ok. Oh, shoot, mend the line. Oh, keep the line out of the water--you're going to spook all the fish. Keep rod in line with fly. Oh, mend the line again. Oh, keep line out of water. Ok. Feed line enough to allow fly to continue looking natural. Not enough, now too much. Oh, keep finger on line and feed hand to hand. Now your fly is messed up and the fish know it's fake. Bring in the line. Let's try this again....and again...and again...and again....blurg.

Counting My Blessings

The other day I was using my laptop and thinking how cool it is to be able to reach just about anywhere in the world through the Internet with no wires attached or anything. Then a few days later Nathan and I were sitting in our living room watching General Conference on the Internet on the laptop. That Saturday I carried the laptop from room to room while I watched/listened to GC while doing various tasks around the house. Then this week I was sick, and through the miracles of technology, was able to access the network at work on my wireless laptop, just as if I was sitting at my desk. SO COOL!!!!! I was even able to work while sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office because their waiting room is equipped with WiFi. Now, I know this technology is not new or anything, but I take it for granted. So I thought I'd publicly count one of the greatest blessings in my life--the Internet and wireless access. I love it, love it, love it and don't know how I'd survive without it.

The Great Eight Challenge!!

8 T.V. Shows I Watch
(DV-R is a dangerous technology!)
30 Rock
The Office
Boston Legal
House
The Hills
The Closer
Project Runway (or Top Chef--depending on which season it is)
How I Met Your Mother

8 Favorite Restaurants
Olive Garden (can never go wrong with this old classic)
Bajio (too bad they only have these out west--love the sweet rice and lime chicken)
Stony River (Atlanta, GA--best steak I've ever had)
Taqueria del Sol (Atlanta, GA--good thing I found some good Mexican food here, and now I love fish tacos!)
Epic (Sandy, UT--ohhhhh, AMAZING salads, flatbreads, and a darn good filet mignon)
Seven Fish (Key West, FL--amazing mango salsa with shrimp)
Front Street Grill (Beaufort, NC--to die for conch fritters, salad, and entrees)
Legal Seafood (Boston, MA--everything is good there, but my favorite are the baked stuffed shrimp)

8 Things that Happened Yesterday
Slept in (no alarm!)
Went fly fishing (or at least practiced trying to) with Nathan on the Chattahoochee River
Watched General Conference (church)
Went to the grocery store
Worked
Cleaned House
Took a 30 minute nap
Watched the end of a movie I've been watching on and off for weeks now

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To
Office moving to a new building--beautiful new office, lots of stress organizing the move for my department
Thanksgiving--going to Miami to visit Mel and Stephen
Christmas--going home to Utah
Work slowing down after the first of the year
Nathan graduating from school
Moving to a better apartment/home
Becoming better at fly fishing
Getting out of debt

8 Things on My Wish List
Have a child (would LOVE to have 3--but at least one would be great)
Finish my bachelor's degree
Get out of debt
Travel to many places in Europe
Live close to family again
Have a yard I can call my own with grass I can lay on and dirt I can play in whenever I want
Lose about 20 lbs
A president and politicians that actually care about more than themselves, than making things good for whomever contributed to their campaign, and who actually care about trying to solve the major problems we face in this country, and who come up with some real solutions.

Okay. Now it's my turn to tag eight people:
Mom
Chelsey
Liz
Camyll
Anna
Cassady
Amber
Shan
And whoever else reads this blog