Party People... Did I miss anyone?

We need to get the word out for everyone to be checking into this blog so we can communicate. I don't have everyone's emails. I will list everyone I can think of who should be invited. Please don't be sad if I forget anyone, please just remind me and write it off to me being 2,000 miles away.

Kaysville Cow Party:
When: Saturday - May 23, 2009 @ 5 pm
Where: The Bean Residence
Bring your family and a topping for dinner.
I was thinking we could all contribute to Hawaiian Haystacks with a few other things on the side. We will also need plates, cups & drinks brought.

Let me know what you think.

Guest List: To be lengthened upon my memory improving! Obviously all families are invited!
Jenni & Brad Bond (Planning)
Terre & Derek Morton
Janneen & Chet Sanders
Brooke & Josh Johnson
Jordon & Ashley Olsen
Nick & Lori Newbold
Nick & Natalie Nielsen
Amber & Mark Pederson
Ryan & McKenzie Davies (just want my list to be complete)
Ryan Matheson
Jake Erickson
Kira & Dave Stefensen
Laura & Jon (Last name escaping me)
Natalie Carrigan

Thanks everyone! We hope to see everyone soon!!!

How about a party!!!

Hello my friends of the Kaysville Cow. This is Jenni. This is my very first post to this blog and I am now repenting, I never had the user name or password. So from what I hear many of us will be in K-town for Memorial Day Weekend. I was wondering who would have time to get together, eat some ice cream & cake and chat about the good old days. Please leave a comment either way and if your information has changed since we last talked please email me your info at beanbond@gmail.com. I really want to see everyone so please try to respond somehow.

See you next month! Jenni =)

Oh and Happy Birthday Brooke!!!

Worst case scenario...

I have been going to school at Utah State for 5 years now. The whole time that I have been going to school the professors have all said that there was never a better time to become an engineer. There were guys graduating with seven or eight job offers!!! Their only problem was which to pick. It was similar to sports where the players get courted by several teams, wages go up and include large sign-on bonuses. They said that we were in such a good position and that only in the worst case scenario would things change. Things continued that way until last summer. Then the worst case scenario happened. You guys all know about the bad economy, so I don't need to go into it.

Last year I started working for a really great engineering company as an intern. When I started they told me that there was a 90% chance that they would give me a job as an engineer. As the economy got worse and worse I would periodically check in with them and slowly the chances were getting worse and worse, but at Christmas time they were saying that it was closer to 50/50. By the time that the end of February rolled around my boss said that there would be no way that they could bring me on this year. That was really hard to hear. Since getting the 50/50 news I had been applying all over with no luck. Every company is in the same boat.

This is when we started to panic. We started applying all over the country and didn't even get a second look. All this time though I had a good friend who got out of school at USU when the gettin' was good and got a job with a company in Woods Cross. The work that they do is not the most sexy type of structural engineering, but they are a good company and they are bringing on as many guys as they think they can train successfully. I always kind of had them as one of my options. So the whole time that the economy and the job market were headed South I tried to keep in touch with them. The only problem is that everyone started to hear that they had jobs and applied to them too. A year ago they would have likely taken me as quickly as they could. Now this year they had over 300 applicants for four jobs!!!!! They whittled down the applicants to only canidates with masters degrees, which was 30, and started interviewing. I was able to get a good interview with them. After interviewing they selected 4 guys for positions with thier company and I wasn't one of them. But it turns out that one of the four guys is a friend of mine at school and he had another job lined up. I was the 5th guy.

I am not trying to brag that I got a job when so many others didn't. I just feel incredibly blessed. not only is it a really good job, but it is here in Utah in Davis County. We have always wanted to be here by our families. We were so worried that we would have to move out of state away from our families and friends. We would have accepted it, but it was not what we wanted. We have fasted and prayed for so long for this to happen. It is really a huge blessing for our little family.

Sorry to write a novel. Just a little update on the rest of my little family. Lorie is now 9 months pregnant and we are expecting this little boy (will be Eli Nicholas Newbold) any day now. Lorie isn't actually due until April 20th, but all signs point to him being early. Claire is will be 2 in July and is already being a terrible 2. I can't complain too much because she is just to funny and cute that it makes it hard to get upset with her. She is very smart too. I must say that I am already having joy in my posterity. We are looking for houses right now. We are basically looking in Layton, Syracuse, Clinton areas. We may have a house in mind so stay tuned. We are busy trying to get graduated, have a baby, find a house, start a new job and move out of Logan. It is all happening at once, but it is all good. Congratulations if you made it this far in this long post and thanks for listening.

Nick

Not for the weak stomach!

Hey guys, just realized it has been FOREVER since I have posted on here. So I will give you all an update, since I am sure that you are dying to know what is going on with the Morton's. Sorry if this post is very long, it has just been a while.

We'll start with the youngest: Kyler. She is now 18 months and therefore she was able to start going to nursery! It has been so nice not having to fight with her during church now. She has been wanting to go for months now, and now she gets to go with her big brother, which they both love. She loves going and hasn't cried once since we've been taking her. She loves to play with Bennett and talks up a storm, much more than Bennett ever did. I think it helps having an older sibling to be around, because she says pretty much everything that Bennett says, it is pretty cute.

Bennett turned 3 on February 8th. He is working on potty training and doing really well, although he keeps taking his unders and pants off and peeing on his floor, not too happy about that since he obviously knows he needs to go potty enough to take his clothes off. He loves to play and chase our dogs around with his BIG truck! The dogs just love it too (just kidding one runs upstairs and the other tries to find safety). He is a big helper and fun to have around....most of the time.

I have been busy with working on my blog www.thecraftymoms.blogspot.com and trying to make some money for the household. It has been going really well and I have started to sell my bows and accessories at The Quilted Bear in Ogden. Thanks for the advertisement you all have done, I really appreciate it. And now for the fun part... a couple years ago I noticed a spot that looked like this :

I didn't think much of it, but was at the doctor for a follow up on something else and decided to ask about it. Well they thought it was a little suspicious and referred me to a dermatologist for a consult and biopsy. A few weeks later after that appointment the dermatologist called and told me it was basal cell carcinoma (aka skin cancer). Thankfully it is a better of the cancers to get because it gets larger, but it stays in the same location and doesn't spread to other parts of my body. So they ended up referring me to the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake because of the location of it and I had it removed last week. I thought it was going to be like a typical mole removal, but instead they have to keep digging out the cancer then they microscope it to see if they got it all and either dig some more or they are done, what a fun new experience! Here is what it looked like after the Moh's procedure:

I looked at it and it was pretty disturbing, Derek was pretty disturbed by it as well. Thank goodness for bandages. After that procedure they sent me home and then I had to go back to a plastic surgeon for the repair of it, which included a skin graft from behind my ear. So I was sent home with a giant bandage and eye patch, which was super annoying! The bandage is now off and I am doing well, it is still not very pretty to look at, but at least the cancer is gone and hopefully stays away! We tried to take pictures of how it looks now, but they didn't turn out very well.  Sorry for the long version, but how do you leave anything out? except for the gross pictures?

Now to Derek, he is doing pretty well at work (Mountain View Title) they have been doing well considering. He also is the scoutmaster, which leaves me at home a lot with the kiddos sometimes more than I would like. He still loves his sports and is a new member of facebook if any of you need some more friends =) 

Sorry about posting about fairly bad news, but at least someone posted for the month, right?!? 

I hope you guys are doing well!

BUSY!!

Wow, it's been a while since we last updated. Kenz and I are busy with graduate school at BYU. We're both in the MPA program in the Marriott School of Management (in the Romney Institute for Public Management). I was accepted mid-year to the program, and since I want to graduate with Kenz, I will be taking 20 credit hours each semester for 3 semesters. That way I will be finished with the program in a year and a half instead of two years. Pretty much that means I live on campus; specifically in the Tanner Building (8am to 9pm most class days). That means I have to do marathon training during the day between classes. I ran the Utah Valley Marathon last year, and I would like to do the Salt Lake this next April. 

We're very excited because we get to go to Washington DC this next week (partially subsidized by the Romney Institute). We will be there researching internships, interviewing, looking for possible housing options for student interns who will be there over the summer, and meeting with and establishing contacts. Kenz claims Virginia as her home state, and lived just outside of DC for awhile. She is especially excited to be going back "home" (even though now her parents reside in Utah). 

I am still considering a JD, but probably after I have a little work experience. I also do not want to get three degrees from BYU. (I guess I want to mix it up a little).  Kenz and I are both talking about doing an Executive JD program while in DC, since that is where we plan to live after graduation. 

We hope all is well for everyone, and we hope to hear from you soon! You can check out our blog updates at: ryanandkenz.blogspot.com. We will definitely be adding pictures of our trip in the next while. We have added many of your blogs to ours so we can keep up with your lives, too. 

Owen's Walking!!

Hello Everybody!! It's been a super long time since I've updated everyone on my life!! Well, in Owen's 9th month (today he turned 10 months) he finally got his first tooth and he learned how to walk, Clint is looking more and more like a little boy instead of a baby, and Ryan is getting taller and smarter everyday--if only I could say the same about me!.

I know this is more of an update on my kids but hey, they're my life!!

Here are some pictures from Halloween. We had a Spiderman, a Fireman, and a Lion.

Here's some other pictures: Owen walking(kinda), and silly-face Janneen.

Another One on the Way!

Hey guys,

I realize that it as been quite a while since I wrote anything, but have been following religiously. I enjoy seeing how everyone is doing. We have some more big news: We are going to have a baby boy!!! I am so excited. He is due roughly April 20th. We are actually only 90% sure that it is a boy. The way that the scheduling went with the doctor the normal 12 week checkup/ultra-sound was pushed back a few weeks. I guess that it was late enough that the doctor said that she could possibly tell and asked us if we wanted to know. Turns out that we have an exhibitionist. The doctor said that because it was so early that she was only 90% sure, and not to paint any rooms yet, but it would be okay to buy clothes and take bets.

We also had some new family pictures taken. Here are some samples:




The day that we took these was an interesting day. We were waiting at Old Main
Hill at Utah State for our photographer friend to come take the pictures. While we were waiting one of my professors, Dr. Calliendo (he has us call him Dr. Joe), was flying down the hill at about 30 mph on his bike. I yelled out to him and he put on his brake right then, fishtailed and his tire caught on the grass and he went flying over his handle bars. I ran down to him, about a hundred yards away, and when I got there he was out cold with blood all over his face. I finally got him woken up, but he had no idea where he was or how he got there. I told him who I was and what had happened. He remembered my name and it stuck with him, but he still wasn't sure who I was. He was able to give us his wife's name and number, so we called her and got to come get him. While we were waiting for her to come I introduced Lorie and Claire to him about 20 times and told him the story of how he got there another 20 times. It was very interesting. Also while we were waiting I remembered that his son (Frank Calliendo, not the comedian)is a professor as well so I called him to come down. Dr. Joe had no idea who his own son was. The good thing is that he was laughing along with us and being funny as usual. His wife got there and she took him to the hospital. Turns out that he had a massive concussion, broken nose and no memory of even being at the hill. It was a very interesting day.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings.