HR Professionals!

Well, it's official! We are professionals!

Today I took the PHR (Professional in Human Resources) exam, and Ryan took the SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources-- slightly cooler than the PHR) and we passed!

I love that we are both in the same profession because we were able to study together for the last few months and were able to help each other understand all things HR... not to mention we both had an excuse to be lame and stay inside to study every spare minute.

We did not do very well at all on the practice tests and only 54% of people pass their first time, so we were not feeling too great about it the night before, but let me tell you... it was such a relief to be done (after 3.5 hours-boo!) and see "pass" instead of "fail."

As the day has gone on, it has slowly been sinking in that we are done. Completely. No more school, no more tests... nothing! WAHOO!!!!!!!!

Here's Ryan proudly showing his results!

I realize I look completely nasty in this picture, but who am I trying to impress here on this blog?

And these, my friends, are the books that cost an arm and a leg (well, cost our companies an arm a leg, thank goodness. $1500 each for the materials and test!) that we have had our noses buried in for far too long...

The End. In so many (good) ways!

Congratulations, Ryan!!!

Let it be known that on Saturday, June 19th, 2010 at 11:30 a.m., Ryan officially completed his MBA!!!

For the last two years, Ryan has devoted almost every Friday night from 6-10pm and Saturday morning from 8-noon to school. Not only did he spend those hours in class, but he worked full-time, spent hours after work every night studying, got excellent grades, and still devoted time to his calling, family, and me. I really appreciate him and his dedication to everything he does. Whenever he faces a challenge, he doesn't give up, but rather he works even harder to figure things out... which is definitely a quality that I admire about him!

Anyway, it still doesn't seem real to either of us that we now have our weeknights and especially our weekends back! To be quite honest, I think I am just as excited (or maybe even more excited) as Ryan about this. But we thought we would try to make it real by having a fun Saturday. We started off by going straight to his parent's house for some afternoon swimming, followed by a yummy dinner at P.F. Changs. It was great to just relax and not worry about what assignment he already needs to be starting!

Congrats, Ry!!

Ryan and Craig made some serious waves with the boogie boards:

This picture doesn't even do it justice... but it looked like a wave pool!

Hopefully Amy wasn't planning on keeping her hair dry!

Ryan walked the plank with Tyler on his shoulders:

Whatever gets his attention...

This morning I sent not one, but two emails to Ryan. Just random things that I remembered and needed to tell him. Usually I get a response of some sort- at least a little something to acknowledge it was received, if nothing else. Today though... nothing. All day long. So, at 3:06 p.m. Ryan received the following one-line email in his inbox:

"Holy cow!!! Did you see the update on Cougarboard?!?!?!?!?"

Exactly two minutes later I got an email. And 20 more seconds after that... a call.

Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, right? The way to this man's heart is not through his stomach!

PB & what?!?

I love peanut butter and like any normal person I eat it by the spoonful (that's normal, right?). So, for a mid-afternoon snack, I grabbed a spoon and scooped up some PB. As I was putting the jar away, I noticed one of those allergy warnings on the label and was a little surprised at what it said:

"ALLERGY WARNING: CONTAINS PEANUTS. MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF MILK, EGGS, ANCHOVIES, WHEAT AND SOY."

Peanuts? Obviously. Milk? Understandable. Eggs, wheat, and soy? Normal. ANCHOVIES?!?!? Not obvious. Not understandable. Not normal. And I would like to know what the heck they mean by "traces" of anchovies. Just the head? Just the organs? Please specify. On second thought, don't specify.

Anything and everything about anchovies makes me want to hurl and now I never want to eat peanut butter again (that may sound dramatic, but it's true... at least for the next few days until I forget). Now if only Oreos could contain anchovies so I wouldn't want to eat those either...

Jonathan & Rachael's Wedding

Yesterday Ryan's younger sister changed her last name from Martin to Stephens for eternity. It was a little chilly and a lot rainy, but it was such a blast to see family and friends, Rachael made one of the most beautiful brides I have ever seen, we got an awesome new brother-in-law, and the dinner/reception was so classy and elegant. Can't beat all of that!

Luckily we swung by my parent's at the last minute and grabbed all of the big umbrellas that they had last year for our wedding because we sure needed all of them... and more!

I pretty much have the best sister-in-law's anyone could ask for:

And their kids sure are cute too (even if one of them is in an awkward smile stage... but at least this one didn't have a dress being pulled up! :) I don't know if you can see Suzy's headband in this picture, but Amy made it and it was the cutest thing ever... I was so impressed (but not surprised) with her skills. I should have gotten a pic of the cute outfit she made for baby Amyah, too... but alas, I didn't.

The newest happy couple:

The not-quite-as-new happy couple:

Rach had the cutest, sparkliest wedding shoes ever. This picture hardly does them justice, but I kind of really want a pair for myself.

We have a ton more pictures and videos, but that's all I'm posting for now. I need to figure out how to get the video on here so I can show the cute kids slow-dancing together. For now, just trust me... it was adorable.

Fortune Cookies

One night we were watching the Food Network on t.v. and saw some fancy fortune cookie shop that was featured. The cookies looked so fun, so instead of paying the big bucks to buy fancy shmancy ones we thought it would be fun to make our own. So we did!

Step 1: dip in chocolate

Step 2: roll in toppings of your choice (we recommend crushed butterfingers, oreos, sprinkles, nuts, etc.)

Step 3: eat... or just take pictures of them because they are fun to look at

We tested them out last weekend and they were so fun to make that we decided to make some this weekend to give to Rachael and Jonathan. They looked much better the second time around. The fun thing with those was that we took out the fortunes that came in them and replaced them with our own messages for R & J, wrapped them up, and sent them off with them on their honeymoon!

Oh, and we thought we should inform our friends and family about our fortune so they can keep us in our minds when evaluating their assets. Just sayin'......

Sweet Tooth

Ever since the new Sweet Tooth Fairy bakery moved in around the corner, I've been dying to go (surprise, surprise). Everyone we knew had gone there except for us... or so it seemed. So one night Ryan and I decided to finally try it out ourselves! We splurged and each got a cupcake- toasted coconut for Ryan and cheesecake for me- and a caramel banana bar too! They were worth every calorie.

Doesn't that look good? Oh, and so does the cupcake. ;)

Point of the Mountain Flight Park

One Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, Ryan and I took a drive through Draper to enjoy some nice weather. We noticed that a ton of paragliders were out that afternoon, so we drove towards them and kept winding up the roads. We were surprised when we drove right up to the flight park where they all land from the upper level and/or take off from the lower level. It was awesome to see about 50+ people just flying around all over the place.

Since Michelle and the kiddos came in to town a little early for Rachael's wedding to help with last-minute details, and to give Marc some peace and quiet so he could concentrate on studying for finals, we thought we would take them up there for something to do one night. Jackson and Bennett were so excited the whole time and they loved watching them. It's such a fun place for both adults and kids!

**Note: Picture overload starting now**

We looked over and Jackson was laying on the ground staring up at the high ones. Good idea, huh?

Doesn't that look like fun?

Jackson and Bennett both wanted their turns to fly too, so Ryan helped them out.

Ryan's treasures

About a month ago we rearranged our bedroom, so while Ryan was at work one day I took everything out from under our bed to make it easier to move later. Under my side were normal things, like duffel bags and backpacks, CD's, and wrapping paper. Then I moved to Ryan's side and was (not) surprised to see what treasures he had hiding:

Yep.... sparklers, pop-its, and a whoopie cushion. Needless to say, they kept us entertained for the night (just kidding- we actually just put them right back under the bed and will probably forget about them until we finally move out of this place).

On another note, right after we finished the Ragnar Relay, we came home and Ryan dug up his Vegas medal and then stored it with his So Cal medal. For the next few days, every time we had to go somewhere, Ryan would walk out from the back with both medals around his neck and would announce "okay, I'm ready to go now." And he would keep a straight face the whole time and walk towards the door. Obviously he was kidding, but let me tell you... it never got old. I cracked up every time (maybe you had to be there, sorry). One time I was ready and waiting with the camera:

When it's raining on Sunday...

Tonight we had a great dinner with the Elliott's and the Mock's (both families in our ward) and while we were all hanging out and talking in the living room afterwards, we noticed some crazy lightning outside, which got us pretty excited about the big storm coming in. Who doesn't love a good, warm, summer thunderstorm? We left their apartment just as the torrential downpour started and this was what we looked like by the time we ran from their apartment to ours:

Nah Nah Nah Nah....

On Sunday, Ryan and I headed up to SLC for a family dinner. We all went to visit my grandpa's grave site. A lot of my dad's side of the family is buried there in the Salt Lake City cemetery, so it was neat to go around and see them and learn more about these relatives. My grandpa is buried just across from President Hinckley, which was quite a popular gravesite that day... all the flowers were beautiful!!

Anyway, as we were all quietly looking around, we heard a bunch of voices begin to sing in unison "nah, nah, nah, nah.... nah, nah, nah, nah.... hey, hey, hey! Gooooodbye!" We turned around and saw a family gathered in a circle around a grave singing that. At first we thought they were just kidding, but then we realized they were serious. It was weird.

Well, we forgot to take any pictures this weekend, but it was pure bliss sleeping in 3 days in a row. We normally don't even get one day. Plus the company (our families) was great, the food was fantastic, and it was nice to relax. Here's hoping for some warm, sunny, swimming weather soon though because that is all this weekend was missing!