It's a Girl!!

Amos got home very late last night so we waited until morning to open the top secret sealed envelope containing the gender of little baby Hobby! We are having a girl!

I then proceeded to jump around the room like a three year old child with a sugar high. SO excited!

Shortly after finding out, she was kicking around a lot so Amos got to feel her kick for the first time! A little fist bump to Daddy from baby :)

Snowpocalypse 2010

The snow on the ground from the last storm is FINALLY almost melted and we're already in for another snowstorm at the end of this week...



I hope my snow shoveler doesn't get stranded in the airport again!

The Baby Bump

Look what I got!

Baby Bean

Here's the latest picture of bubba/peanut/baby/bubs/baby bean/baby Hobby at 14 weeks.

Cravings so far: pineapple, fruit, smoothies, bean salad, french fries, cheetos, and apple juice.

A Year of travel......

When you graduate from college with a finance degree you expect to end up working for a company, sitting in a small cubicle pushing paper, adding and subtracting numbers and on the odd occasion taking a trip to see a client to review their books..... Well when i graduated with a finance degree i did so at one of the worst possible times. The finance markets were in turmoil, and still are to a certain degree. What i ended up doing was taking a brilliant job with an Automotive software company. WHAT?! That's right i can hear you scream in bewilderment. He couldn't get a finance job because of the economy so he went to work in the automotive industry? Isn't that in just as bad a situation as the finance section?! Well....yes and no. Business has been booming for my company and so i have plenty of work to keep me busy.

As a part of my job i do A LOT of flying and general travel. Having a Dad who travels a lot for work i thought i would be able to adjust quickly as i thought i knew what to expect. How wrong i was. Travel is not quite what is cracked up to be. Just to give you an idea of how much I've traveled we are talking into the 100's of thousands of air miles and into double figures for thousands of miles driven. Good news is that i rarely fail to get upgraded to first class which makes the travel a little more bearable. Especially with the knowledge that somewhere in regular coach class is a 400 lbs fat person taking up not only their seat but also overflowing over the arm rest and into the persons chair who has the privilege of squishing in next to them (At times i have been that lucky person.) I'm also checking off the amount of states i have visited and am up to 26 states in America with trips to various parts of Canada coming up in early 2010.

Although the travel is rough at times and i am not home as much as i would like there are some fantastic moments such as my birthday on the beach in Florida and how could i forget all those wonderful hours spent in Airports!! One of the best moments came when i asked a salesman to use the mouse and click on a particular part of the computer screen and he physically picked up the mouse and put it on the screen and started clicking. CLASSIC i tell you.

As we all know people do the stupidest of things sometimes. Take for instance the wonderfully caring busy air hostess. who was getting the plane ready to land while we were descending. What she forgot though was that she needed to sit down when the plane actually landed. No serious injury occurred but it was an event to remember when she went flying as the plane touched down.

Expect more snippets of the funny experiences and the down right nasty people that i meet during the upcoming year as i try and add to the amount of states i hit up.

Our Visit to DC

On Tuesday Amos and I headed out to explore DC, since he has never had the chance to see the Nation's Capitol. We walked around the snow-covered Mall and explored the American History, Natural History, and Air and Space Museums. Left tons more to see for another day...

I found my favorite quote at the Natural History Museum :)

Home Sweet Home

We are homeowners!!

I finally have pictures of our house with our stuff instead of the previous owners'. No nursery pics yet - maybe once it's finished :)

Stats: 3br, 2 full & 2 half baths, living/dining room open area, eat-in kitchen, bonus room w/ fireplace & patio, tray ceiling and walk-in in master, deck and a garage.

Our Voyage Eastward

As I shed a small tear for Utah, we headed off at 4:52am on our four day journey east to my family's home in Maryland to stay until our house in Pennsylvania went to closing. Let the excitement begin!

Red Rock Relay

I did something I never thought I'd do this summer. I signed up to run a race - a RELAY race. I had heard great things about some of the similar Ragnar races so when some of my friends from PMI needed some extra teammates I thought "what the heck, why not take the challenge and have some great fun with friends before I leave Utah" and I did it!

With this relay you have a team of 12 people, each of which runs 3 legs of a 36 leg 180 mile race during a 24 hour period. Each leg is anywhere between 3 and 8 miles long, with the entire course spanning 180 miles and a descent of 8,000 ft.

Each team of 12 is split up into 2 van groups - the Snow team and the Sun team. Each van takes turns supporting their runner (stopping along the course to give encouragement and hydration) and then at the end of the leg the van drops off the next runner, where he waits for the baton to be handed to him to start his leg.

The whole team finishes together!

Our team minus 1 after we got our medals
The Snow team after we finished our legs

Hiking Timp!

I had the great opportunity to challenge myself and hike Mount Timpanogos (2nd highest in the Wasatch Mountain Range -11,749 feet) with my good friend Emily this summer. She has been before and knew the ropes - for example the fact that you start hiking at 4AM with headlamps so you get to the top before the sun gets too strong. Our husbands weren't too excited about waking up so early, so we braved the hike ourselves :) The whole thing took us around 8-9 hours top to bottom, I think. By the end I may have been hallucinating so I might not have my facts straight. It was definitely a great experience and I would recommend the hike to anyone who has the guts to do it!


My computer lost most of my pictures but this was a great shot we got on the way up (around 5:30 am)

Here's what the view is like at the top! Click to enlarge. (courtesy Wikipedia)

Vegas Vacation

I had a great trip to Vegas with my bro-in-law in celebration of his 18th! Amos missed out since he had to travel, but he was generous enough to get us a nice place to stay super close to the strip!

Caleb's favorite, the MGM Grand

On the strip.

Ooh la la!

Cool shot of the Stratosphere

I LOVE the Luxor (and the Wynn)

Then on the way back we visited the St. George Temple

And I got Caleb hooked on In-n-Out!

Coming up Quickly!

Our Big Move...and my relay.

We know when we're moving! It will be the week of September 12th that we load up the truck and head East. We're just trying to fit in everything before then, so anyone in Utah make sure to let us know if you want to get together before then!

And, I am going to participate in the Red Rock Relay, which is a 180 mile 24-hour relay race made up of teams of 12 people (that each run 3 times through the course of the race). I figured it would be a good chance to get in good shape and do something fun with some friends before packing up and heading out. However, that means I have to train, a LOT. Anyone with any relay-running or training tips please let me know!!

All Amos, All the time! (this week)

Amos was home for this whole week! He got home last Saturday after his company training meeting and an intense paintball match. AND he brought me home cookies and a cell phone holder for my desk. He got major points for that. Now for the collateral damage...

Nope, that's not a 3rd nipple you see- it's a paintball 'battle scar'. He had about 3 others just like this one. Ow!

Caleb is here from England so Amos and him have played tennis pretty much every afternoon. Here's us on Saturday:

It was really hot, and just near the courts were some people who were extremely innovative and fashioned a huge slip-n-slide out of a long sheet of plastic, a hose, a hill, and some dish soap and sprinklers. They were all having a blast, so after my match against Amos I decided to go for a ride down the hill to cool off.
We kept busy the rest of the weekend going to the Park City Outlets, playing Apples to Apples with the Nicolls, and going to baby Jake's baby blessing on Sunday.

My New Craft

Whenever I find the time, I have used a fabric star-making kit to make these little mobiles! It's fun, but time consuming :)

Happy 25th Amos!

Amos was in Florida this year for his birthday, which means that he had a wonderful time celebrating on the sunny beach with warm water, and enjoying an expensive meal at the Cheesecake Factory - all company expense. Not too shabby!

We celebrated when he came home this weekend - however, this michevious Hobby dug in this morning before I got a chance to take a picture. Here's the birthday boy with his partially-eaten cookie cake he requested this year!

Hanging Out at the Park

...Zion's National Park! We got a chance to do one of the things on my Utah Bucket List - go hiking through the Slot Canyons at Zions. Amos and I went down for the weekend and spent Saturday hiking and Sunday relaxing down in St. George. The hike we went on was a very flat hike, up a river (of cold knee-high water) to where the canyon gets really narrow. It is a breathtaking hike, and a great way to spend a warm afternoon.
And on our way home we stopped by the St. George Temple
And even more amazing, we did the whole trip for the cost of park admission, plus gas, plus $2.75 for food. Yep, $2.75. Amos had a gift card for Outback and when we got there we ordered an appetizer, a salad, and a dessert to-go and ended up not being very hungry and making all of it last us the whole few days. (minus our stop to In & Out Burger on the way home - mmm greasy hamburgers) And thanks to the Timms we had nice (and free) accommodations (with HGTV) and pool access - sweet!

Official Announcement...

We are moving to the East Coast! Amos has been assigned to manage the NY, PA, and NJ territories for DealerSocket. We are very excited and have been looking for houses in either NJ or PA and are planning a trip to go out and look in early July. There are so many things in Utah we will miss *ahem*Cafe Rio. (just kidding, but serious at the same time :), but so many things we look forward to about going East. We will be here for a bit longer and could end up heading out in the fall. I am very anxious to do a lot before we leave- like hike the Y, hike Timp, go to the hot pots, go "shooting the tube" again, picnicking in the canyon, going to the drive-in movie, etc. If you are up for doing any of these things with me/us, let me know and let's go!