Congrats to Rich!! on the new job

Rich just found out today he will be working for the Leavitt Group here in Cedar, he starts December 8th. I know he will be awsome, he is so dedicated in whatever he does. Me on the other hand- I never can tell how devoted I will be because I have so many interests that distract me! Sleeping, excercising, crafts, home projects, school, or another brilliant idea that I go forward with so much gusto I forget anything else in the world exists.

The Red Wall & Flowers from my Rich Darling-Harline

Finally, I have the red wall I have wanted for years, we two toned it in the living room and kept it one color in the kitchen. The color was quite shocking at first, I wondered if I had made a huge mistake. Both Rich and I were paranoid that we might drip the unforgivable RED paint. It was really fun but a lot of hard work.

Rich was so sweet the other day, he bought flowers and said it was celebrate Jamie day! Cute, he is everything and more I ever hoped for.

What do the olympics and kittens have in common?

For almost as long as we have been married, Jamie has been hinting how fun it would be to get a kitten. For as long as Jamie has been hinting, Rich has been changing the subject. Ignoring Jamie's growing, building, swelling attitude towards this feline fascination was not having the desired result Rich had hoped for. So.....on an early Thursday morning after Rich returned from playing basketball, Jamie attempted one last time to persuade him that he really did want a kitten.

We had stayed up late all week enjoying the Olympics, or should we say the Michael Phelps Experience from Beijing. So after minimal sleep and some physically draining early morning basketball, Jamie asks Rich to join her for a conversation in the bedroom. Oh boy, This could go one of two ways. It's a fragile moment in a young newlywed couples life. "What could she have to discuss?" Rich wondered with his sleep deprived brain. He would soon regret taking those 14 steps upstairs to the bedroom.

"I want a kitty!" Jamie exclaims with an intent in her eyes Rich had not seen in the nearly 8 months they had been married. Oh no! Rich calmly explains the reasons against this idea which, mind you, he has expressed on several previous occasions.
What he didn't plan for, and what came as a complete surprise, was Jamie's total commitment in convincing Rich he was going to get a kitten....TODAY! Here come the tears. Yep! She pulled out the big guns.

Her name is "Olympia" or "Ollie" for short.

Seriously, what can a guy do when the big guns go blasting?

Jamie is very happy and has been found cuddling with Ollie constantly, Jamie and Ollie are good friends. Rich is now jealous of Ollie's "quality time" with Jamie and has also also warmed up to the Idea of having a kitten. His shoulder has become the perfect napping pillow for Ollie. Rich has found himself slowly letting his initial distaste for a feline disappear as he becomes attached (he is such a softy). However, is there gas-ex for cats? She has a serious chronic flatulence disorder.

Oh, in case you didn't catch the connection.... Ollie is named for the Olympics we have been glued to this past week.

Rich and Jamie....and now Ollie.

Bevan do thee wed Charla Charrano?

So this weekend we are going to Arizona to attend my brothers wedding (Jamie's).
Rich is sun burnt from helping out with football camp and hanging with the coaches at Canyon view High (where he coached last year). I have been zipping around on my bike everywhere in town. I have driven my car about twice in the last two weeks.

Rich is still playing basketball in the wee early hours of the morning with the old guys. We have been eating breakfast and spending more time out on our patio listening to the birds and the occasional loud lawnmower. I am still commuting to St. George every other weekend for school until May 2009 (urghhhh)!

Indiana Jones and the Midnight Haircut

The other night I was sooo sick of my hair and chopped it at midnight in the bathroom. Rich was sleeping so he could get up to play basketball in the morning with the old guys. So, when he got up to use the restroom I had to get his sleepy eyes to open up enough to see my new "Posh Spice/Victoria Beckham" haircut. He kept singing "I'll tell ya what I want - What I really really want" by the spice girls. He then crept into my bathroom before he went to basketball and wrote it on my mirror too!

RICH'S Birthday- Rich has been wanting to watch Indiana Jones at the movie theatre so I got tickets and had an Indiana Jones cake made for his birthday. It was fun, and I was kinda sleepy because of a long weekend in St. George attending classes at the University of Phoenix.

Its really not eighty-twenty/Zions

Rich keeps joking about the relationship being an eighty-twenty relationship with me being eighty percent of the voice in the relationship. I am letting ya all know its not true, we are an equal partnership- sometimes I do get a little more voice in. I just don't want my inlaws to think I am a crazy-control freak that has to have little Richie under my finger.

Now to the fun---We have a pass to Zions National Park and the last hike we did was Observation Point (8 miles round trip). Kolob is calling. No not that Kolob. Zion Ntl Park Kolob. We are headed to hike Taylor creek this week, a new fun adventure in Kolob canyon.

Rich and I just sanded a dresser (took forever because we got so sick of it) and painted it a dark brown and made it look worn with new knobs and handles. It has been sitting in our backyard for almost a month. I kept hinting to him to do it cuz I didn't want to and then I got to it today while he cleaned the house and cleaned up the backyard. Yeah! Now I have my solice again. I love to sit in the backyard at my outdoor table and chair and read or plant stuff, just something outside.

I also traded in my green scooter for a roadbike so I can do a triathalon in October in Las Vegas PUMPKINHEAD triathalon!! So I am contemplating joining the biking club. They go on 35 mile bike rides every tuesday and thursday morning at 6 am (thats where the problem is I HATE getting up early).

School- I have decided to double up on my classes because this program (Masters of Mental Health Counseling) is taking soo long. I have my internship, which I am doing at a boys residential treatment center in Cedar City. Then, I have my Psychopharmacology class- which is difficult but thanks to my 1st year Nazi instructor all the brain stuff has already been drilled into my mind. I love the brain- it facinates me!! It is so cool how the tiny bursts of energy or chemicals can influence our behavior and bodies so significantly.

Interviews, applications and callings

It has been a month of sending resumes, filling out applications and traveling to interviews. Fortunately I have the time to spend. Recently finding myself out-of-work has allowed me to spend time looking for work. Strange how those go hand in hand. I have had meetings in SLC with Morgan Stanley and Advanta banks. I don't think banking is for me.

Jamie has also been applying for work as she continues to spend allot of time internshipping and finishing her course work for her masters program. Graduation for her is just 6 months away. Hallelujah! In the meantime Jamie continues to paint, redesign and create. My "ManHouse" now has curtains, smelly things, and a sewing machine. Slowly but surely the house will also become 80/20...it's not far off.

Jamie just received a new calling, Relief Society secretary. She is excited. Funny story.....A few Sunday's ago we had come home from church, I was relaxing downstairs and Jamie disappeared upstairs. When she emerged she had a bag of paper crafts, glue and scissors in her hand with the purpose of heading out the door. I asked, "Where are you going?". "Oh, to the church" she says, but in a cryptic purposely avoidance tone. An hour goes by....

Jamie returns with a funny look on her face. "I have a story to tell you", she says. Sheepishly she then goes on to explain that there is this relief society board in the RS room that has been bothering her for 2 months now. (In fact, it bothered her so bad one Sunday she had to leave the meeting early). She had intended, without anyones knowledge, to change the message board. What was it that bothered her so much.....snowflakes. The boarder was done in snowflakes. "It's almost summer", she screams to me. "I couldn't take it any longer".

Unfortunately when she went to make the change the room was being used. So being the social butterfly, Jamie strikes up a conversation with another sister from a different ward who is also in the hallway waiting. Eventually they get to the reason why they are waiting to get in the room. Jamie describes the message board and that it has been driving her NUTS! Jamie mentioned how her artistic side just can't allow it to continue. This sister, who she just met, politely agrees and says she can see how an artistic mind would be unsettled. However, the board she just described was not Jamie's ward but the sister's ward she had just met. HA!

The following Sunday the board had been changed. That's my baby!

Life in motion

Lately it seems as if the standard in normality is change. Family, friends, and on the home front major life adjustments at the present seem to be typical. Two sisters picking up family and belongings and moving away from family and adjusting their life to new environments and creating new friends. One brother and wife preparing to move into a new home, another preparing for a new wife. Personally Jamie (eighty) and I (twenty) are adjusting to finding new employment as my employment with the Church Seminaries and Institute System comes to an end in a week. Where the search will take us is undetermined and without definition at the moment.

We are hopeful and prayerful the search might be resolved quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately we are well aware of the time it can take to search, apply, interview and define the perfect employment opportunity. So, we're in it for the long haul, but hopeful for a speedy resolution.