Here's your (NEW) sign

I told Ben recently that he needs to wear a sign that says "WE DON"T KNOW ANYTHING YET!"  Referring of course to our pending move and total life style change due to Ben going back to school to get his Phd.  We get asked a lot what is going on and up until now have had to say "nothing, we are still waiting to hear from the schools."  But we finally have a little something to share. 

Yesterday, Ben got a phone call from Michigan State telling him that they want to send him an acceptance letter but that they needed a few more things from him.  You know little things like his GRE scores, transcripts from BYU and WGU and 2 more letters of recommendation.  Either Michigan State is really interested in Ben or they will accept anyone...even if your application is severely short on the necessary materials.  I am pretty sure it is the first, since he was one of only 8 applicants that were flown out, on the schools buck, to visit the school and see the program first hand.  It's nice to be loved!

He also received an email from University of Georgia wanting to schedule a phone interview.  I guess that means he made the 'first cut' in Georgia. 

So I guess what this really means is that this is starting to feel real.  Things are starting to happen and we will have some big and interesting decisions to make very soon.
 
Even though I joked about the sign...because we really were getting asked a lot.  We feel very loved and supported through this transition.  Thanks to all of you who care and are interested in our decision and our future.  We will definately keep you updated as we know more details!

Goings on

I thought after Christmas things were supposed to slow down...well life has not gotten the memo!  We are super busy so I thought I better do a post and hit a few of the highlights. 

Our resident smarty pants was recently invited to participate in the school geography bee.  I didn't even know such a thing existed.  But it does.  Joseph was one of 2 from his class who were invited.  There were 2 kids from each class in 4th, 5th and 6th grades.  There were about 18 kids total.  Joseph made the first cut and tied for 4th place.  It was so great to see him up there and being oh so proud of himself.  Situations like this always make me a bit nervous, because you never know if he is going to handle the competition aspect well and if he will remember appropriate microphone etiquette.  He was great.  After he was out he came and sat by us in the audience then proceeded to whisper the right answers for most of the last questions.  Go figure.  He was so excited and his class was so excited for him it was a great day for him.  I love seeing my kids grow into themselves.

In other news we have recently re-surfaced our master bathroom.  If you want to see pictures you are going to have to visit my craft blog...because why post it twice when I can just give you a link, right?   

Well I am off to catch up on a million things...ok I am off to close the gap between where I actually am and being caught up, I am pretty sure I will be forever "catching up"  A girl can dream though!

I'm back

I know you all terribly missed my ramblings about my life, so who am I to disappoint. We had a fabulous Christmas break. We went to my sister-in-law's cabin for Christmas and it was so fun. We ate (waaay to much), played games, had a pool and ping pong tournament, went sledding and just generally had a great time. (Just a side note on the pool tourney, Haley beat Sam and I beat Ben so it was totally awesome! Yes I just said totally awesome) At some point in the week all of Ben's siblings and their families were there except James and Lauren who we missed! It was stressful getting everything ready to go and the weather was pretty rough on the way but once we were there I was so glad we went. The kids were well behaved and had a great time too. Even our homebody Joseph who was pretty sure he would hate it loved it. He didn't complain once about being there. After we got back form the cabin Ben had the whole next week off. It was so great to spend time doing what ever we wanted. This week has been a little rocky getting everyone back on a schedule. Mostly the mornings, remind me again why school has to start so dang early. But it is always nice to get back on track. You may notice an obvious void of pictures. In our rush to get to the cabin I forgot my camera. I am like the worst photographer ever. I always forget it. So no pics to share, sorry.

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas vacation too, and that you are adjusting to the torture of getting up early again.