"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...

joel's injuries: edition #4,971

our sweet, little joel seems to have a knack for having accidents. when he was 13 months old, he grabbed the just un-plugged curling iron and burned his hand pretty severely. a few months back, he climbed out of his pack 'n play when he was supposed to be napping and attempted to scale our dresser, toppling it over on himself. he got pretty lucky, though. it didn't land on him and he walked away with just a big scratch down his face. he still has the scar from the scratch, but i'm hoping it will fade with time, so he can be his usual, pretty self once again. these are just a couple of the more memorable injuries, but i have another to add to his repertoire. my family is hanging out at lake tahoe at the moment. the cabin we are staying in has this huge stone fireplace right in the middle of the family room... let me just interject to say that anyone who is contemplating putting one of these in the middle of the living area where there might be children running around... this is not an intelligent idea. when i first walked into the house, i remember looking at said fireplace and thinking, "that is an accident waiting to happen." sure enough, on monday morning, joel slipped on a toy boat that was laying precariously next to the stone fireplace and cut his lower lip open on the edge of the stone... sweet. ben held joel with ice on his lip and he cried for... a really long time. it bled for probably 45 minutes. yuck. i gave him some motrin and after he calmed down we put him to bed and he slept for like 4 1/2 hours! i guess he cried himself into a comatose state. i'm happy to report, though, that it's healing quite quickly and he seems to be his usual, charming self. i'm sure as you are reading this, you are probably thinking that maybe we are unfit parents and you are probably right... most of these accidents that have occurred could have been prevented by simple precautions. however, i think it's just in joel's blood to be accident prone. thanks ben. :)

here's my dad next to the fireplace of death.

how could my life be better?

a friend of mine has a friend who has the most entertaining and fabulous blog. i don't know this girl, but i love to check in on her blog regularly to get a good laugh or to get the wheels in my head turning. she just recently urged her readers to "live a better life" and she is right. here are some changes that i have decided i NEED to make so that i can live life to the fullest:

1) have a little more patience with my husband and my children... crumbs on the carpet are not that important

2) when i have an idea about something i want to learn or do, do it... don't wait until years down the line when i finally think, "i wish i had taken those guitar lessons when i had the chance."

3) think of others more often... more notes, more phone calls, more sacrifices of time and money to give to others in need

4) save more and spend less... instant gratification does not make me truly happy

5) start being happy with me... it's okay to want to eat healthy and exercise, but i have worked hard to get where i am and i shouldn't obsess about the fact that i'm not a size 2 and just enjoy the fact that i look great

horsey ride

ben was still getting over the flu a couple of weeks ago when this happened. poor guy... joel and kadin wanted to do it over and over again. ben just couldn't resist, though. how could he really? i mean, look at those faces. :)

nothin' like a good mullet

doug, our official family barber, gave my boys haircuts a few weeks back. joel's hair was sooo long and we decided to see how he would look with a mullet... just to see. let me just say, wow. our little joel could pull off a pretty sweet mullet, that is to say, if mullets really were sweet.

here's a picture of the boys with their faux-hawks a couple of days before we cut their hair.

i just realized that i never took a picture of the boys right after they had their haircuts, but here's a shot of them with their cousins, carter and mason, this last week at our shafer family reunion. the picture is a few weeks after their haircuts, but you get the idea... i'd also like to ask if anyone has ever seen a cuter quartet of little boys in their whole life? i say no!