A Big Announcement...

...No, I'm not pregnant. :) We are moving yet AGAIN!! Let's play a little game to see if you can guess where. 

This time of year looks something like this:

A few months ago looked like this:

It has a coast line:

Getting any ideas yet? This will help narrow it down. It's 45 minutes from here:

 New York City

And most importantly for this avid Red Sox fan, it's 3.5 hours from here:

Drum roll please........

We are moving to CONNECTICUT!! 

Shocked? Yes, us to. Let me give you a little background and then hopefully this will all make sense. 

September 2011:

Jared is approached by one of his professors at Boise State. He asked him if he was open to new opportunities. He tells Jared there is a program at a place called the Financial Accounting Standard Board (FASB) to be a Postgraduate Technical Assistant (PTA). FASB is the governing body that sets accounting standards that privately held companies in the United States have to abide by. It is a year long experience that is intensive in research, training, and networking. He then tells him about the tough part. About 70 schools get to nominate one student each to apply to the program. Boise State actually isn't a University that gets to nominate but since this particular professor went through the program he gets to nominate a student. He would be competing with the tops students from Universities around the country including BYU (which has one of the top Accounting Programs in the country). He told Jared that no one from Boise State has ever even been asked to interview so not to put too much stock into it. He said Jared had less than a 10% chance of getting this position so he needed to continue going through recruiting season to find a job, but to just keep it in the back of his mind.

November 2011:

Jared gets a job at KPMG. Applications for FASB are due.

December 2011:

Jared graduates. We move on thinking our life for the next several years is planned out and look forward to maybe even buying our first home. As we are in the mountains outside Lake Tahoe on our way home for Christmas Jared gets a call from Connecticut. He is asked to come in for an interview. We quietly freak out. They call in 8 people for 4 spots. 50% chance but still questionable.

January 2012:

Interviews are taking place during the week he's in Orlando for training for his new job at KPMG. He has to approach the partner at KPMG that hired him and ask if he can go to CT to interview for the position. (Maybe one of the most stressful phone calls he's had to make!) Partner at KPMG is awesome and tells him he's not going to be the one to stand in the way of an opportunity like that and to go for it. He tells him that he has a job if he doesn't get it and he'll have a job in a year when he's done (he defers the employment offer). We breathe a sigh of relief and proceed with the interview.

1/16/12-Jared flies to Connecticut and interviews for the position. He feels like he did his best but thought it really could go either way.

1/20/12-FASB calls and offers him a job. (It was a REALLY long week)

The kicker?

The start date is February 13th. Like in 3 weeks February 13th.

Oh boy. I can't tell you the range of emotions that I've been through in the last few weeks. I was super stressed just because I didn't know where we were going to be in a few weeks. I have learned I do NOT do well when I don't have at least a broad plan in place. Once he got the job a whole new combination of emotions has come. We are both really sad because we love Boise. I'm sad for Brody to have to leave his best friend Blake and I am going to miss my sweet friends so much. My cute friend Lisa especially. We're apprehensive because our future is now unknown again. Ironically, my parents just moved to Idaho Falls so I'm moving away yet again. I'm really sad about that to!! However, we are both really excited. Probably me more than Jared because New England is home to me. I am excited for all of the adventures we can go on. I'm excited to take my boys to their first Red Sox game at Fenway Park. I'm excited to visit my cousins and some of our best friends in D.C. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends from High School. I'm excited to go to the New York City and Boston temples. There are so many fun things to do and see! I'm also a little scared because Fairfield County (where we will be living) is one of the highest income counties in the country. We spoke with one of the Bishops out there today and he told us that the neighboring ward includes the CEO of Deloitte, the CEO of JetBlue, and the CFO of American Express (I'm not sure I knew they were all Mormon!). I'm flying out there this week with my Dad to find a place to live and it's a little daunting because it's so expensive. This will be the 5th state Brody has lived in and he's only 4. Someday we'll be more stable (I hope) but for the next little while not so much. :) 


We had a lot of questions today at Church if this was more school or training or a job or what it was? The answer is that it's a job for a defined amount of time. He is paid salary and has full benefits just like any other job. It just ends in a year and then we'll see where we go after that. 

Well, that's just about it. Jared will be working in Norwalk, CT so we will live somewhere close to there. If any of you want to come visit you are more than welcome to! We will live there for a year so start planning. :) I can't promise you you'll have a 4 star hotel, but it'll be a free place to stay. East Coast here we come! Eastern U.S. friends: we need to plan a get together!! 


As a side note: We REALLY should've bought our own U-Haul about 10 moves ago. I mean, seriously?! 

Sea World and Other Adventures

Well, here we are at January 20th and I'm just barely finishing up our Christmas posts. Mainly because there's been a lot of this going on:

The night before we went to Sea World Brody got a stomach bug. It hung around for a week and then he passed it on to Parker. Nine more days, 12 to 15 diapers a day (I'm not kidding!), and multiple throwing up episodes later, Parker finally kicked the stomach bug. He was also getting a two year molar at the time so the poor guy was in bad shape. While all of that was going on Brody got pink eye. Thankfully he kept that to himself. They were healthy for all of 3 days and then Brody got a fever back again for 48 hours (when the above pictures were taken). Not sure what that was about but the poor guy has been miserable. Add to that the fact that Jared was out of town for 8 days of all of that and I was one tired Mom. I'm totally being a complainer, but the last few weeks have been some of the toughest I've had as a Mom. Thankfully I think they're all better now. The only thing to hang around is the 5:30 a.m. wake up time that they both developed while being sick (and a couple times in the night for Parker, but I think that tooth is still bothering him). I'm still tired, but at least our days are much better! Definitely makes me appreciate the times that they are healthy. :) Anyway, moving on.

We had so much fun at Sea World with Jared's family. The boys were in heaven all day and so were we! I love Sea World and it didn't disappoint. Sea World was all decorated for Christmas which added some extra fun!

Look, we found snow in San Diego!

 I just love this picture of my sister in-law B and one of our favorite people, Baby Tessa! I was amazed at how well Tessa and Baby Luke did all day at Sea World. They really are such good babies.  

 Uncle Jordan is amazing at basketball and won each of the kids little stuffed Shamu's. Thank you Uncle Jordan! Parker was super impressed and had to try it out himself. I should also note that if you go there and go on the Shipwreck Rapids ride prepare to get SOAKED. It was so much fun, but a few of us especially were absolutely soaked. The ride itself wasn't that bad, but there were little squirt guns off the side that you could pay a quarter for a shoot people as they went by. Someone was locked in on our side of the boat and I looked like I had just taken a shower! haha! That was about 11 in the morning and I was still wet when we left at 8:30 p.m. 

 Happy for their Shamus!

 Probably my favorite part of the day was watching Brody at the Sea Lion and Otter show. He LOVED it. There was a little comedy act before hand that he was cracking up laughing at. He would imitate the guys dance move and was just having so much fun. 

 Love these faces:

 It was so nice to get to spend so much time with Jared!

 Goofy little Parker:

 haha!

 One of our other favorite parts was Polar Express in 4D. My kids are still listening to the Polar Express CD and it is one of their favorite movies so of course they loved it!

 All Parker wanted to do was ride a roller coaster. This is about as close as we could get for our adrenaline junkie. :)

 Just a couple extra pictures from Bakersfield. All the boys loved playing on Uncle Jordan's iPad. The spectators were as cute as the one playing. They were all huddled around like this quite a bit :)

 Baby Lukey got some good snuggles :)

After we left Sea World the rest of the family went to the beach. I just thought this was such a cute picture of B, Jordan, and Tessa and I want it for my blog book. She is one of the happiest kids I know! 

 We skipped the beach because we had to go pick up the newest member of our family:

We've been in the market for a new car for a while now since we knew we'd need one now that Jared isn't in school anymore. We've been a 1 car family for the last almost 5 years. I'm grateful we've been able to make that work, but it was definitely time for a new car. We debated forever what kind of car to get and we ended up with a Mazda5. We got it at an auction so we were kind of at the mercy of what was available, but I'm happy with what we got. I probably wouldn't have chosen another silver car, but hey it works. Nothing fancy, but it works for us! It has 3 rows (seats 6 total) but has similar gas mileage to a car. The side doors are sliding so it's sort of a mini minivan? I don't really know what else to call it. It's going to work well for us for the next several years and I'm even more grateful to have gotten a great deal on it at auction. The boys love the new car and we've even had playtime in it a few times since it's been raining/snowing here so much. It's amazing how fun a car can be in the garage with all the seats down (at least for my boys who love cars!) 

Well, that's it for now. I hope you're all staying well and having a great January! 

Merry Christmas (finally!)

Due to a week of ridiculous sickness that invaded our house, I'm a little late in posting our Christmas post. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and are enjoying a new year. We traveled to California for Christmas and it was a crazy, fun filled, whirlwind of a vacation. Unfortunately we didn't get to see a lot of people I wanted to see, so I apologize if I missed you this time! This was the first time in 3 years that all of Jared's family was together (since Sammy was on his mission) so we needed the family time. 

My boys loved playing with their cousins at Mimi's house. One of the best parts? Getting to play outside without our coats--or shirts or pants for some kids. Where is their mother?!

Mud puddle fun:

 Love Brock's face haha!

 Happy boy!

 Loving the Parker torpedo

 Don't worry this isn't what it looks like. Grass stains and mud people!

 Showing off muscles

 Preparing for the sneak attack...

...haha! Erik behind Parker and Brody sneaking in behind Erik. Funny boys. 

We went caroling one night with Jared's extended family and the next night was Christmas Eve at G-gma and P-pops Musick's house. This is a family tradition that the Musicks have. Jared's Dad is one of 4 siblings. Two of them live across the street from each other 2 streets down from Randy's parents. Randy and Cathy live about 1.5 miles from them. Jared grew up with almost all of his cousins and this was a favorite family tradition. Christmas Eve usually consists of dinner, a visit from Santa, P-pops and G-gma sharing their testimony and saying a few words, and various other activities (sometimes singing, this year a book reading for the kids). It's a great way to spend Christmas Eve! If only Parker had felt the same way. He gets a little nervous around a lot of people so was having a little bit of a hard time. He was Dad's best friend. :) 

Since my little one was having a tough time we couldn't get a picture of our family with Jared's parents. So, I borrowed one of them from my sister in-law, Kelsey. We have far too few pictures of Mimi!

 Uncle Dan has a captivated audience for a Christmas story.

 Santa Claus came! The boys got remote control cars and were in heaven!

 Especially for my car enthusiast. This may have been his favorite present!

 After we got home, Mimi read the boys a Christmas classic.

 This picture cracks me up. Someone noticed I was taking their picture. :)

 Mimi with the newest member of the family, Baby Luke!

Christmas morning. Look what the elves did!

 Breaking through to see what Santa brought!

Happy boy. He's been asking for "Cars with eyes" (meaning Cars 2 cars, not hot wheels cars). He would've been happy with just those I think! 

 Parker man :)

 Brocky the cowboy

 Jared with Sammy and Katie

 Brody's play area. The piano!

 Off to Church!

The family after church (B, Jordan, and Tessa)

 Our little family :)

 Parker loved little Baby Luke. He kept wanting to "hold it". Thankfully Luke was a good sport.

 Parker also kept saying, "bring baby". He wanted him to come with him wherever he went so Jared helped him down the hall. :) Parker is looking really grown up lately. 

 Sweet baby Luke. He's not quite 3 months old here. He is the most mellow, sweet baby I think I've ever met!

 Aunt B made all of these adorable newsboy hats for all of the kids. My boys love wearing them and Brody even likes using it as a car carrier sometimes. :) 

 Parker loved watching football with Poppy. Have I mentioned how much he loves football yet?!

I didn't take a picture of this, but a huge props to Poppy for his Christmas presents. He took all of the boys shooting and he sent all of us girls to get massages/facials. It was so so fun and I absolutely loved it. Thank you Poppy! Thank you also to Mimi for all the hard work you put into making everyone's Christmas so much fun. We love you guys and hope you're having fun in Hawaii!


 We took a trip to San Diego for less than 48 hours during our trip. We had a great time at Sea World but I'm going to wait to make that post until I have some pictures from the rest of the family. Plus, it just deserves it's own post. Jared and I were lucky enough to get to go to the San Diego temple while we were there. We hadn't been back since we got married there almost 8 years ago. The Boise temple is closed for a year so we don't get to go very often right now. We had a great time and really appreciated the break. You don't realize how much you miss going until it's made a lot more difficult to go! The temple was still all decorated for Christmas. It looked beautiful!

 Since we went to the last session of the day we were the only ones there at 10:30 at night. So, no pictures of the two of us, but we took ones of us individually. Maybe one day I'll get photoshop and put us together in the same picture. :) 

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! I've been working on my blog book from this last year and I can't believe how fast it went by. Anyone know how to get time to slow down a little bit?!