First Semester of the Junior Core: Check

Studying for the hardest finals of your life: 50 hours
Practicing for group presentations: 10 hours
Spending all day everyday studying accounting: 100's of hours
Attending the #2 Accounting school in the nation: Priceless...

Ja finished his first semester of the Accounting Junior Core this morning! He was very excited and danced around and couldn't stop smiling, for awhile. After a little while the lack of sleep caught up to him, and he took a nap. He had so much work to do this semester, sometimes he would be doing 12+ hours a day of accounting, but he never complained. He really enjoyed his class, even if they worked him. He also loved his accounting group. They spent so much time together, which apparently isn't common because when he told people they did everything together the other students looked at him like the was weird. They even made a little movie at the end of the semester for a presentation. It was very clever and fun, for an accounting video. I wonder if there is a way I can put it on the blog. Even the wives were involved in the accounting activities, and we kinda did two group dates. I'm so proud of Ja and for all the hard work he puts into his education that will bless our family for years to come.

p.s. Ja is an officer for Beta Alpha Psi (BAP) which is a fraternity for Accounting students. He is the reporter which means he reports on all the activities of BAP to the committee. His whole group was elected officers so they will continue to be together.

BYU Graduate

Last night I took the last final of my life! I was so excited, that when I got home I danced around and couldn't stop smiling. I finished school! I graduated college! I didn't give up, even though many times I wanted to. Luckily, Ja was always there reassuring me that I can finish, and I that I need to push through and get everything done. I'm so glad I have him around to make me do things I don't want to do. We went to Leatherby's with the Jones to celebrate me finishing college. I still don't really feel like I'm done, but I've bee told I will, as soon as Ja has to go to school in a few weeks and I don't. I can't wait. I will be walking April 24th, so you should come:)

All in all, I enjoyed college. Only a few times did I really not like it, most of them were this semester when I had a million things to do. I learned so much more than I would have if I hadn't gone to college. Now I understand why the Brethern tell the women of the church to get an education. I am better prepared to teach my children how to learn, and I learned about things that I didn't know existed. Now when my child doesn't want to go to college I can reassure them it will be worth it, I did it and so can they. I learned so many great things about teaching children (I got my Associates in Elementary Education) and about our amazing bodies ( my Bachelor's is in Exercise Science: Emphasis in Fitness and Wellness). I had some great teachers I learned a lot from. I even enjoyed the hardest class I ever had to take because I had a great teacher who really wanted us to learn and have fun.

BYU was a great place to go to school. The campus is always clean and beautiful. It's nice to be able to talk religion in a class and have prayers before starting class. My life goal was to graduate from BYU, I'm so glad I could do it. Thank you to all of you who helped me and supported me through school. Now I can join the ranks of BYU grads! Go Cougars!

Even though college was great, I couldn't be happier that I'm done! Now, about those jobs...

I finished!

On Friday November 30th I officially finished my internship! That was one of the best days of my life. At the beginning of the semester when I was calculating my hours, I thought I would have to miss either work or school for a few days to finish my hours on time. I was really worried I would finish and then I wouldn't be able to graduate on time. Somehow things always work out though. My english teacher actually helped out a lot because every time we had a paper due she would give us one day off to write and one day was spent doing teacher conferences. That was about 8 days where I could go in for a few extra hours, which made up the time I would have taken off work. She helped me out and didn't even know it. There were also a project I did every month of finding a health topic and displaying things about it on the bulletin board. That gave me an extra five hours every month, without that I would not have been able to finish on time. I was really blessed this semester to be able to get every thing I needed to get done.
On friday when I got home, I was welcomed by the sign "Congratulations! You did it!" that Ja wrote for me. Since it was such an accomplishment for me I had to take a picture with it.

Racing at Pole Position

We are thankful for Thanksgiving

Right about the time we are all tired of school and don't think we can take it any longer a great holiday comes around that every student is very thankful for, Thanksgiving. We have been going to school with no breaks since Augusts so we really look forward to the few days we get to spend at home. Now we know we can make it the 3 weeks left in the semester. We left for California on Tuesday morning because on Tuesday it was Friday classes and we didn't have those. That was the first good decision we made that trip because the airports were empty. There wasn't any traffic getting to the airport either. If you can believe it LAX was empty too. We looked outside and didn't see anyone, we thought we were at the wrong airport. We spent tuesday playing on Dorothy's new iMac and showed her a few new tricks she can do. We went down to Yorba Linda that night after driving through a lot of traffic. We had a lot of fun at home; we watched Narnia, went to Pole Position (I'll post pictures later), had two great Thanksgiving dinners, and spent time with family. We even got to talk with Greg, Caleb, Brigham, and Holly over in Virginia on the video chat. We went to the Punderson's on Thanksgiving and had a great turkey and tons of mashed potatoes, and great apple pie. The next day we went to Grandma Seymour's for our second Thanksgiving dinner. We had ham, sweet potatoes, baked beans, and pumpkin cheesecake to name a few. It was very, very good. We also celebrated my birthday by singing and blowing out candles. The next day it was time to go back to Utah, we didn't want to go because we knew it would be freezing; we were really spoiled in the 70 degree CA weather. I made sure and got some good ol' fashioned donuts because they don't have those ma and pa donut places here. Another great thing about the trip was Ja and I exercised everyday, we did Pilates and Air Alert. We are trying to strengthen our abs and increase our vertical by 8-14 inches. We had fun doing it and Jill did it with us as well. Saturday we watched the BYU vs. Utah football game. I couldn't believe no one could score a touchdown. Of course Utah finally did when there was only a few minutes left. But not to worry, BYU prevailed by scoring a touchdown and getting two extra points. Finally BYU proved to be the better team when they blocked Utah from catching the ball in the endzone when time was out, which would have won the game for them. (hmmm, doesn't that sound familiar, except we actually caught the ball and won?) All in all, it was a great vacation and we can't wait until we can do it again. This a pretty long blog without any pictures so I'll make sure and post pictures as soon as I can.

California Slide Show!

Mt Timponogos Cave

Seymour Family Vacation

My family was driving up to Bear Lake for their vacation this summer and they were nice enough to stop by in Provo for a few days to visit Ja and I. We tried to fit in as many activities as we could. We went to the BYU Creamery to get lunch and ice cream and walked around BYU bookstore. Kenny bought a big blue wig because our high school colors are also blue.
The next day we went to Timponogos Cave. The cave was really fun.
There was a wait to get to the cave so we decided to walk around the camp grounds around the cave. Ja loved looking at his map as you can see, and Kenny and Jill were just having a great time.


To get to the cave you have to hike up a steep hill about 1 1/4 miles. I took some pictures along the way. Luckily, it wasn't too hot because of the high elevation. My dad, Kenny, Jill, and Ja flew up the hill and me and my mom took our time walking up. The cave isn't going anywhere right? The inside of the cave was amazing, it takes millions and millions of years to form all of the cool stalagmites. One employee worked at the cave for 50 years and never saw any difference in one stalagmite what was really close to touching the floor. The whole cave is covered in these deposits that are formed from dripping water and millions of years.


The walk down the hill was a lot easier and more fun to do. Once again the kids ran down the hill because they could go really fast. After the cave we went to one of our favorite places to eat, Costa Vida.
That night we went to Salt Lake to visit Temple Square because Jill hadn't walked around the temple before. We also went to a wedding reception of my mom's cousin's daughter. We had never meet anyone there before but we went to make my mom happy, and they had a chocolate fountain so we were pretty happy too.
On Sunday my family went to church with us and ate a good Sunday roast beef. After dinner they drove off to Bear Lake.

Wicked Fun California Trip

At the end of our weeks stay our friends Andrew and Chelsey Jones came to visit. We lured them in with promises of a fun beach and Wicked trip. How can anyone resist? We went out to breakfast at Hill Street, the favorite DeVore restaurant, drove to Hollywood and of course, went to Newport Beach. Chelsey grew up going to Newport every summer when she was younger so it was a walk down memory lane for her. She remembered more about it than I did and I went once a week for 3 summers! The boys had a great time in the water, Chelsey and I know better than to get in freezing cold water. Plus, we had to prove we went to sunny California and come back with a tan.


Fortunately for us, my Seymour side of the family had a bonfire that night at the next beach over, Huntington Beach. Andrew and Chelsey had never had a bonfire at the beach so we were excited we could do that for them. My Uncle Eric took some great pictures of us with the beautiful sunset in the background. We had a great time roasting hot dogs and s'mores over the fire on Grandpa Seymour's great skewers. The great thing was, it wasn't even that cold after the sun went down.
Then another highlight of the trip was Wicked. We had seen Wicked before but we love the music and would never pass up the chance to watch it again. Andrew and Chelsey have been listening to the music for awhile and were very excited to actually see what happens. The show was great, it's so fun to sing along. Glenda was very funny in this show especially during the "Popular" song.





We were very sad to leave home, we love it here. Plus, it was a bittersweet goodbye because we started school the next day. Ja was really excited to start his accounting program and I was really excited to begin my final semester at school, but then again it was school. We had a great trip visiting with parents, siblings, grandparents, and friends.

Henry's Birthday

On August 30th we went to Valencia to celebrate Henry's 1st birthday. We don't have any pictures of Henry with his great birthday cake, or opening presents but I do have a cute picture of Henry in his new birthday coat riding Uncle Ja's shoulders. Ja must have something weird in his hair.

Summer California Trip

I finally have free time to update our blog from some summer activities.
We took a trip home to California in August to visit our families and to see Wicked. We had a great time helping my parents paint their living room. Mom my decided that white walls aren't for her anymore. Unfortunately we only had time to primer, the hardest part. It was my first time painting a wall so I had fun. We also had to paint the ceiling which was quite a chore.



Ja and I also took a trip to Disneyland with Jill and her friend MacKenzie. We also met up with Devin and a friend. We had a great time and went on all the rides we wanted to. Except for the new Nemo ride because the line was 2 hours long. We were hoping to go on a day that wasn't crowded and we sure did. It was wonderful.

I've been tagged

My friend Chelsey has tagged me which means I have to write 6 habits/facts about myself. Here are the most interesting things about me:

1. My most favorite movie is Pride and Prejudice. I could watch the 6 hour long movie over and over. It's such a romantic movie, no new movie is like it. We own the six hour version and the new version with Kiera Knightly. Everytime I have a free night I want to watch it, but I spare Ja the time and we do something else. The book is also wonderful. I can thank Ja for the book because he gave it to me as a Valentine's Day gift. He said it was "our story" and it turned out to be a little true.

2. For some reason I really don't like the words nasty and fart. They are pretty gross words but I don't like them because of the way they sound when you say them. I know there have been other words I don't like hearing but I can't think of any other right now.

3. I, like other people, like to make lists of things to do just so I can cross things off the list. Ja enjoys doing this to. If we have already completed a chore before we made the list we write the chore down just so we can cross it off. We even write take a shower and get dressed so we can cross them off the list.

4. I have a habit now of turning off every light that we don't absolutely need on. One month our ceiling fan stopped working so we could only turn on one little lamp in our living room. It was a little dark, but we didn't realize how much money it was costing us every month to run that four-bulb ceiling fan/light. We were able to knock off $20 from our electricity bill! After that we don't want to get the fan fixed because we like paying less, and now we like the ambience the little lamp gives. Now we are experimenting with other lights by trying to not use them, to see if we can save any more money. We also haven't turned our heater on yet, it's a little chilly, but we are saving money!

5. I really like to cook, and I love finding new and easy recipes to use for dinner. My mom gave me a subscription to a magazine called Simple and Delicious for my birthday and I really like it. I've made about 5 recipes from the December issue and they are all wonderful. If you have a great recipe you'd like to share, I'd love to have it.

6. I love, love, love to watch HGTV. I could sit in front of the TV all day as long as this channeling is on. All they play are shows about houses, how to sell houses, how to decorate houses, how-to shows, and so much more. They don't waste the time prolonging shows for an hour trying to fill up time. Every show is 30 minutes so you can see more shows for the time. My ultimate favorite show is Divine Design with Candance Olsen. She is an amazing designer, everything she does is marvelous. I know she is on Saturday nights at 10:30, some sometime during the days. If you ever have a chance you should try and watch it. You'll fall in love with her too!

My Birthday

Since my birthday was on a Sunday this year, Ja and I went to dinner on Saturday night. We went to a sushi place called Happy Sumo. I played it safe and stuck to the California rolls and cucumber rolls, but the third roll was tuna. I actually liked the raw tuna rolls. I was happy with my choice. Ja decided to get the chef's choice dinner. I thought it was going to be seaweed rolls, but it turned out to be all raw fish. It looked nice on the plate, but would it be nice in the mouth? Surprisingly enough, it wasn't bad. I didn't mind the fishy taste, it just felt like I was eating something that tasted like the ocean. Ja was a trooper and ate the whole plate. There was tuna, salmon, yellow-tail, and tilapia. He said he probably won't eat that again but he was glad he tried it.
On Sunday night we had friends over to eat the pumpkin cheesecake I made. Ja thought we had candles, and I did too, but it turns out we were wrong. Luckily, Ja remembered we had huge matches so he stuck two of those in the cake. It was fun to have something to blow out. We had a fun time talking with friends. It's nice to know people like you enough to come and celebrate you on your birthday. Here is a picture of the cheesecake.

Check out my Slide Show!

I learned of this new place where I can make a slideshow of pictures. It's super easy and fun. You've already seen some of these pictures but they are the only series we have so far.

Umbrella Love

I've been without an umbrella for a year now and I really missed having one. So on our last trip to Target we made a special point to buy umbrellas. Ja got a black one, nice and manly, and I had to get a cool one so I wouldn't lose it again. I found my new favorite accessory! I like it so much I even had Ja take my picture with it. I love my umbrella.

Coed Softball- Summer 2007

We played intramurals this summer on a coed softball team. Ja played outfield and I played pitcher. I didn't have to pitch because your own team pitches to you, but I was the defensive pither. It was really fun to play because all of our friends were on the team. We had great pitchers, our Bishop and Jason Roberts. Ja couldn't play a couple times because he was busy umping himself, but we still love him anyways. We did really well during the season, and even made it to the semi-finals in the championship games. We lost in a horrible game when it was raining and lightening. Oh, and did I tell you that the first baseman clotheslined me and knocked me out?! He did assure the ump that I was out (as in I got out because he tagged me). Overall, it was a fun season and we look forward to playing again this summer.

Nachooooooo Party

In September our friends Becca and Colby Gage had a Nacho Libre party. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to dress up like our favorite characters. In case you haven't seen the movie, or can't tell who we are, here is the line-up (going from left to right). Colby is early Nacho, when he is practicing to be a luchador. Chelsey is Encarnacion, the nun that Ignacio (Nacho) likes. Ja is Esqueleto, Nacho's side kick. Andrew is the professional luchador Nacho Libre. (He is summoning his eagle powers in the picture.) Then I am Candidia, the one who loves Esqueleto and says things like "secret tunnels" and "I forgive you." We had really good nachos, with all the best toppings, made by Colby and Becca. The highlight of the party was the pinata. It was hilarous to see blindfolded adults swinging a bat at a paper mache donkey. If you haven't seen the movie now you should so you don't think we are crazy!

Here are two more pictures from the Nacho party. Don't I look a little lumpy?

Ja the Pit Crew Member

At the beginning of the school year Ja was able to take part in the Pit Crew Challenge. One of the Big Four firms had a guy come to BYU and teach the accounting students about team work. Since the pit crew is really fast at what they do some companies have looked to them for inspiration to get tasks done quickly. Ja was the guy who takes out the bolts in the tires. He had a lot of fun doing it and even got a free t-shirt.

Two funny Sunday stories

The past two weeks at church have lead to some funny stories I thought I should share. Last week our Bishop, who is a funny fellow, pulls Ja aside and tells him, "So I've heard Laura has the Egyptian flu, sick for 9 months then becomes a mummy." Ja was so confused, he was pretty sure I wasn't pregnant, but still got confused. He assured Bishop I wasn't pregnant then walked off trying to figure out why Bishop would be asking that. When he told me I thought, great I have the mommy tummy and I'm not even pregnant. We found out later that Bishop just learned of that joke and wanted to use it on someone and first thought of Ja because he said we've been married long enough to have a child. I was very relieved to not have the mommy tummy.
The next story happened today. We walk in the front doors to church to see a poster advertising the stake blood drive. As I'm reading the poster I realize my picture is on there! The same picture that ended up on some website! We had nothing to do with the poster, we don't even know who made it. So all during church people made comments about my picture, wondering how it got on the poster. One guy said I must have donated a lot of blood to make it on the poster. A few guys in elders quorum asked Ja how my picture got on there so Bishop made him explain to the whole quorum! I was a little embarrassed. I felt like people were looking at me funny after that. I guess it's better that Ja explained so people don't think I made the poster and put a picture of myself on it. Anyways, I thought those stories were worth sharing.

Banjo Boy - Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband

Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband

We went to another accounting recruitment night-this time for Ernst & Young. They had Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband come and play for us. We love them so we were excited to get a free concert. There wasn't too many people there at the beginning so we got to sit in the front row, we were really excited. Ja realized he has been to at least 7 of their concerts. At the end of the show we went to get their autographs and Ryan Shupe thanked us for sitting in the front row. We thought that was cool. If you haven't heard them you should look them up on itunes. They are a mix of country and rock and are really fun in concert. We've posted two of their songs we really like. Enjoy.

Perfect Pumpkin

In case you don't know I'm interning at Central Utah Clinic in the Physical Therapy and Wellness Department. The PT Aides decided to make pumpkin foods this week to celebrate fall. On Thursday one girl, Kestlee, brought in pumpkin cheesecake. I love cheesecake so I decided to try some. Oh my gosh! It was amazing! I kept saying over and over how delicious it was. Everyone else thought the same. I'm considering changing my favorite dessert to pumpkin cheesecake. It was 100 times better than pumpkin pie. If you don't even like pumpkin pie you'll like this. It has a pumpkin flavor without being too pumpkiny. Delicious!

Welcome to our blog! We would like to share our lives with you, pictures and all. Feel free to subscribe to our blog so you can be emailed everytime we update. We are having a great time here in Provo but unfortunately we are far away from most of our family so we thought this would be a good way to involve everyone in our lives. We love you all and thanks for viewing our blog!

SWAG

Stuff we all get. That has been the theme for the accounting program thus far. The first week of the program there was a "Meet the Firms" evening where 40 or so firms showed up looking for students to have intern at there various locations across the world. Deloitte had a dinner provided by Cafe Rio (although by the time we got to the dinner they had run out of Cafe Rio and we got Little Caesar instead) and a presentation for potential Deloitte interns. It was really good to experience and gain a better understanding of what working for a Big 4 might be like, but best of all, Laura had her own presentation. They had all of us split off into seperate groups such as tax, audit, financial services, and spouses. Laura obviously went to the spouse meeting and had a great time learning of all the perks families get (as well as the long hours during busy season). Laura was most excited about the international opportunities provided by the firm and is now gung ho on living abroad at some point in our career.
The next excititng firm was Grant Thornton and their hot dog eating contest and their root beer contest. There, we met with some workers, including a freind of Steve DeVore who lives in Seattle, but couldn't talk much about internships because we cannot get recruited at this point of our education. Basically, it was not too informative, but pretty fun to be at.
I visited KPMG in the Wilkinson Center and was invited to a breakfast by the old Bishop of the Devore's of Valencia. He works in the tax department at KPMG in Los Angeles. Unfortunately I was not able to go because technically, the big firms cannot actively recruit members of the Jr. core this early on.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers had all members of the Jr. core go through a leadership training program that was unlike anything I had ever done. Because pitcrews from NASCAR and other racing circuits have to be so efficient, business people have been looking to the pitcrew for inspiration. PriceWaterhouseCoopers had us go through a training meeting where we learned leadership qualities while changing the tires of a real race car. I had a blast as I gunned the the two back tires in record setting time.
The last fun experience that has occured thus far was with Earnst and Young. Two individuals from Earnst and Young came and gave a seminar on how to be a better public communicator. We watched a great video created by a real pro who is hilarious and was very enteraining to watch.
In the end, the SWAG that we accumulated included items such as two mugs, a tee shirt, a hat, half a dozen pens, two water bottles, quite a few brochures, and a lot of free food. The only thing that we will do differently next year is try to get more SWAG to last us the whole year long.
All of these experiences have been very educational and very fun. Throughout the seminars and different meetings that the firms have held, Laura and I have been reminded how fortunate we are to be in a situation where we can have numerous opportunities given to us. We are very grateful to the Lord for blessing us so much.

We Want the Funk

This is our new favorite commercial! Think of a little boy you know and picture them doing this. It's priceless..

Brigham Young University

I wanted to comment on how wonderful it is to be going to BYU and to live in Provo. BYU is such a wonderful place to study. What other college is your professor able to tie the gospel into every subject? It's also great to be in a school that is clean, you don't hear any profanity, you can't smell cigarette smoke, nor do you see beer cans all over. We also get to hear from so many church leaders. Just last tuesday President Hinckely came to the Marriott Center to give a devotional. The Marriott Center was full with students but as soon as President Hinckley walked in the whole place went silent. The Spirit was so strong there. We have also been able to hear from Elder Gerald Lund as he spoke to us in our stake conference. President Monson also spoke to us in a large Area Conference. We even got to sit in the fifth row. Now this saturday our stake is providing the Relief Society with tickets to the General Relief Society broadcast. We even get to ride up together on a bus. We have been given so many great opportunites being here!

Our new favorite website

I love working at Publications & Graphics!
A designer here also does some freelance photography and has asked me to be in his pictures a few times. They have all been of student Laura; I'm studying with a friend, holding a book and backpack, writing a paper, things like that. If you would like to check out the istock photo website where my pictures are here is the link: istockphoto.com. Search under "beautiful student" and you'll see 2 pictures of me on the first page. If you click on them then you can see all my pictures at the bottom of the page. Ja was also a model with me last saturday. We were doing student things again, I guess that's what we do best. AJ, the photographer, said he would even give us some prints to hang on our walls. BUT, the best thing is, I am actually on a real website that AJ nor I had anything to do with! Ja's cousin Brian is married to Kate. Kate and her brother Nate lived in the same ward as Ja and I when we were single. Nate is now living in Oregon. Guess who he saw on the website of his apartment complex? Here is the link: stadiumparkapartments.com. Cool huh? I'll let you know when Ja's pictures are on the website.

Big Island 2007

The day after Tiffany and Jeff's wedding the whole DeVore family flew over to the Big Island of Hawaii. Tiffany and Jeff kept going to Kauai for their honeymoon and meet up with us on the last day. We had a great time. Our hotel/condo was great, we shared with Nathan, Kiersten and Henry. It's been a few months now and we still miss waking up to Henry crawling on the wood floor slapping his hands on the floor as he goes along. Our condos are owned by Hilton so we went over to the Hilton hotel just down the road. It is the biggest hotel I have ever seen! Check out the picture of us paddle boating with the huge stairs behind us and you'll get an idea of how big it is. There are 3 different pools to swim in as well as a lagoon with turtles and fish swimming along with you. Besides the hotel we went to a few beaches, which are hard to come by because most of the coast is lava rock! Not too nice to swim in. We did make it down to a black sand beach which was pretty cool. The most fun was had at a rope swing we happened to come by on our way to the volcano. Ja and the boys had a blast, Kiersten and I did try it even though I was scared about hitting the rocks underneath. Fortunately everyone survived. We did make it to the volcano but it was getting dark and cold! Who knew it could be cold in Hawaii. We drove by a warm steam vent and then drove home. It was a very fun day. Everyone had a blast and we are very grateful we were able to go.

Here are pictures of the black sand beach we walked down to, a view from the hotel and Nathan jumping off the rope swing.

Pearl Harbor

Devin, Ja and I had a 10-hour layover in Oahu the day before we returned to Utah. We decided to go over to Pearl Harbor and take a look around. The harbor is so peaceful now, it was hard to imagine the total chaos that happened on December 7, 1941. We got to see the U.S.S. Arizona which was bombed and sunk to the bottom of the harbor. The picture has all the names of the people that died that day on the U.S.S. Arizona. It was really sad to see letters from wives and girlfriends written to the soliders saying, "We can't wait to see you in a few months," or "Can't wait to hear back from you." Those families weren't able to say goodbye. In the middle of this we ran into some friends, the Wests, from Utah, we had no idea they would be there. That was fun. Devin, Ja and I then went on the U.S.S. Missouri battleship. That was pretty cool to see in what small quarters the Navy has to live in. We did get a picture of the huge canons. It's hard to imagine how loud those would be when firing. And to think when Japan was bombing the harbor there were multiple bombs and canons shooting. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the ship but it was pretty cool. Tiny rooms, tiny beds, tiny storage, tiny offices. Part of the ship was like a little musem with artifacts from soldiers. All in all it was a fun layover. If you ever get a chance to see Pearl Harbor it's a trip worth taking.

These are the huge canons. Notice how little the people are in the background.

Our dream come true!

He did it! Ja got into BYU's accounting program! We couldn't be more excited. The day Ja found out he called everyone he knew and told them the good news. He was so excited he went and bought his books 2 months early! So this fall Ja will be starting classes in the #2 accounting school in the nation. We've been waiting for that day for two years. Thank you all for your many prayers. We are so grateful for this opportunity. Whenever Ja remembers he's in the accounting school he looks at me and says, "Laura I'm going to be an accountant!" with a huge smile on his face.

Christmas Break 2006

Instead of taking us to Yosemite again the Seymour family decided to let us scrape their ceiling instead. We offered to help them, we didn't know it would take so long. If any of you are thinking about doing this here is a word of advice: Use the metal scraper! It works so much better. What a good way to spend a vacation huh?