"o christmas tree..."

take a gander at this beauty.... (i mean the tree, not ben)



this is the first year of our marriage that we went all out and got a "for real" tree. i went to target and bought 2 packs of 350 lights thinking that would be plenty and that i'd have a leftover strand.... think again whitney. i had to run back to target and get ANOTHER box. all said and done, we ended up with over 900 lights on our tree. okay, so maybe i went a little overboard, but i think our tree is pretty much totally awesome ...don't tell me if you don't agree.

isn't christmas wonderful? sigh... i hope you are all loving life and this wonderful holiday season.

and we're back...

we're finally getting settled from the craziness that we have called life for the last 3 months. i LOVE living in california, ben LOVES his new job and the boys LOVE their toys that they haven't seen for awhile, so we are happy all around. we got our internet up this week, so hopefully i'll be able to post a little more regularly and keep up with everyone else's blogs, too. okay, so here are some pictures of our lives for the last 3 months... pretty much, a LOT of pictures.

the mcneil's house

a shout out to our uncle dane, aunt marianne and their kids for putting up with us in their home for almost 2 WHOLE MONTHS! crazy, i know. but they are angels. here's some shots while we were staying with them.





this is from one of our play dates at summer crosby adam's house. her little girl's name is brooklyn. isn't she darling?!

jilly pooh's birthday

wow, my beautiful sister, jillian, is 20. i'm getting old.

joel's third birthday

could this kid be any cuter?

cnady, candy, candy

here we are at the halloween festivities for our new ward. so, i'm sure this isn't a novelty, but my kids LOVE candy.





oh, and i HAD to throw this one in. here's kadin a couple days later enjoying his halloween candy after a spaghetti dinner at uncle jed and aunt laurel's house. a shout out to jed and laurel mcneil for letting us crash at their house for a couple weeks while we looked for our own place!

at the new place

and last, here's some pictures of us at our new apartment. i'll post some more pictures of our place after we get it painted and looking cute.

also, i'd like to give a big shout out to my grandma lenie and my parents. my grandma kindly donated her leather couch to our empty home. there's nothing like free furniture, especially when it's actually nice. my parents brought the couch down to us last weekend and spent their time here helping us put our apartment together. my dad and ben spent saturday building shelves in our outside storage closet. all i can say is my dad is awesome. he just buys some wood and whips something up and it's amazing. hats off to my genius dad! my mom and i spent the day shopping for odds and ends like curtains, rugs, throw pillows, chairs, etc. hats off to my genius mom for her good taste and decorating expertise! love you guys!

"california here i come, right back where i started from..."

i apologize for my nonexistence among my blogging friends lately. my life had been crazy and my computer is in the same room where joel takes naps, so..... the day has finally arrived... we are leaving provo tomorrow morning and moving to california. i'm so ecstatic, i can hardly contain myself. at the same time, i'm surprisingly sad. i've spent many of my years in utah counting down the time when i would get to leave and now i don't want to... well, i'm all too ready to move on and have a real job, but there are so many wonderful things in utah that i'm just crushed to part with. my dear sister morgan, her silly husband, nate, and their darling son, asher... my beautiful sisters, ashley and jillian... my hilarious and fun brother and sister-in-law, doug and jackie... all our wonderful, close friends that we have grown to love over the years... the beautiful mountains... the hills that i've taken my morning run on so many times... BYU... our wonderful ward that we've been in for almost 5 years... all of our extended family that lives here, especially the mcneils, who have been so loving and generous... and on and on and on... what a wonderful place to live! but on to california and the next chapter in our lives. give us a call next time anybody is in the bay area! signing off in utah... catch ya on the flip side.

thesis defense... literally

man, when they say "thesis defense," they really mean it. you have to defend that thesis with your life. those professors totally grilled him. ben defended his thesis on tuesday, september 18. he did such a fabulous job. he totally sounded like he knew what he was talking about. considering this crazy, physics stuff that he's been studying, he totally had to be faking it. just kidding. in all seriousness, he did a great job and i'm so proud of him for getting through it... and he passed. woohoo! now he just has to make some revisions and get it printed and we can finally move on with our lives. we still don't know when we are moving yet, but i'll keep you posted.

yes, still alive... no, not pregnant

i've been a very poor blogger lately. we're still in utah... waiting. well, I'M waiting. ben is working his trash off to get his thesis done. but he's VERY close. actually, he'll probably finish today or tomorrow. what a champ he is.

just to clear up some miscommunication... i am NOT pregnant. :) morgan mentioned in one of her posts that "we spent an entire evening suggesting baby names for ben and whitney's unborn children" and then we had a few people asking both morgan and me if i was pregnant. sorry to disappoint, but no. ben and i were just arguing about baby names and it turned into a rousing family discussion. but for now, the fact that i'm not pregnant makes me very happy.

in the mean while, here's some pictures from our day trip on the heber creeper that we took in august with ben's family...








good times were had by all.

master of acoustics

i've always thought that a master's degree would be the coolest degree to get because you could say, "i'm a MASTER of... (insert degree here)," the way that he-man gets to say that he's the "master of the universe." as previously posted, ben just graduated with his master of science in acoustics. he officially graduates in december, but he walked at graduation last week. his siblings, doug and kadi, joined him in the ceremonies. it was totally a fun week of festivities with both sides of our family. ...and a totally awesome week of taking millions and millions of pictures. and here they all are...


probably our last visit to BYU's marriot center for a long time... sniffle, sniffle






hail the conquering graduates!







shafer silliness







ben and doug working it in those sexy robes







me and ben with my parents






the graduates with their parental units





in front of tucanos - arguably the most delicious top sirloin and garlic steak in the world... let's just say that they are masters' of the meat universe



carter and joel playing with cars... they are being so good, but let me just throw this equation out for ya: graduation + kids = not fun





ben working the runway







the busath clan







the shafer clan





check out the "hood" that the masters students get to wear - very stylish

and finally... our excited, little family ready to embark on a new adventure and definitely ready to not be so poor anymore... oh wait, we are moving to california's bay area... we'll still be poor, but excited nonetheless :)

BEN GOT A JOB!

wednesday, ben had an interview at quiet solution in sunnyvale, ca and we're stoked to announce that they totally loved him and offered him a job! ben's really excited about the company, the product they sell and his responsibilities that he will have. now he just has to finish his thesis, so he can start working. his thesis defense is scheduled for september 18 and his tentative start date with quiet solution is october 1... lots of work to get done in a very small amount of time... it's been a crazy summer and it's about to get even crazier. yay, ben! you rock! thanks for working so hard for our family and we love you so much!

graduation announcements

i just finished making ben's graduation announcements, and i thought they turned out pretty cute... well, hopefully they aren't THAT cute... i tried to make them look as masculine as possible, but that's pretty hard when you are making a homemade card. :) here they are...


here's the photo of us on graduation day that i'll include...