Life in St. George

So, life in St. George continues to pass by. The leaves have begun to turn and the 90 degree weather has settled down into the 50-60 degree weather. I become increasingly more up-t0-speed with the budgeting process at work, and Stef makes new friends each day. Since Stef has done a much better job than I have at writing, I will give you a quick view into our lives from my perspective.

First of all, my perspective on family life-the most important part. Stef is amazing and I can't express with words how grateful I am for her love and support in my life. She amazes me each day with her patience with me and Bret. I have never thought much about how hard it would be to not have a scheduled plan, but I have come to realize how difficult it can be for these young mothers with one or two kids, especially when there is not family around to spend time with. I have been so impressed with Stefs proactive attitude about her situation. She is the one in the ward to help the young mom's get together and do stuff. She has become great friends with my co-workers wife (also our bishop's daughter) and has a great attitude about spending the remainder of her time with a 5 month old baby. As work has been very busy lately, having such a supportive wife has made all the difference in the world. Working long hours can be tough enough, but if I didn't have Stef cheering for me from home it would be 100x worse. A couple times when I have driven the car to work (about two miles from home) she has walked with the stroller to say hi to me and pick up the car. That always puts a smile on my face and brightens my day. In a nutshell, I am very grateful for Stef and all that she does for me. I couldn't ask for a better wife!

Next, work life from my perspective. This is a very interesting time of life as I prepare to graduate and frequently reflect heavily on what I hope to do for a living, or at a minimum, how I want to start my career. I am very grateful to the Lord for the opportunities he has blessed me with such as my internship in Texas, and our experience we are having here. We loved being in Texas and enjoyed working for TI and so that is an option that remains wide open. Not living by family does not appeal to us much though but nonetheless, if that is where the Lord wants us, that is where we will go. We enjoy things here a lot. The guys I work with are all awesome, I interact almost daily with the CFO, and sit in meetings on a regular basis with the CEO. Cost of living is higher here than Texas or Salt Lake (about 6s with Salt Lake) and I am quite confident that if they were to offer something, it wouldn't be a big $ amount. I have certainly worked more here than in Texas. We have been doing the operating budget for the hospital and it has been intense. Thursday and Friday last week I worked from 8 am to 11 pm. The two fridays before that (the weekends we were up in Salt Lake) some of the guys ended up working until 4:30 am. Needless to say, I don't hope to work those kind of hrs on a regular basis and so if things don't change this may play into the decisions. Ulitmately though, we will do what the Lord wants. We are looking at some options up in Salt Lake becase we are itching to settle down and quit moving around so much and we know that we hope to end up in West Valley so the sooner we get there the better.

I am still running as regularly as I can, and I taught the 14 year olds Sunday School today which is my calling. They are all boys and a very sharp group at that. We are really enjoying our time here and we love and miss you all. Go Cougs!