I wish I was an elephant...

I've heard that elephants never forget. That is a trait we could have used last Friday.

Jake and I dress up for seminary... ties, skirts, you get the picture. So we'll often take extra clothes to change into. A few weeks ago it was raining really bad and I dropped my pants outside without realizing it. An hour later I found my pants, soaking wet. On the way to work I used the car heater to dry them - Jake would yell "switch" and I would turn on the defroster - all the moisture from my pants was fogging up the windows - then when the windows were clear I would switch back to drying my pants. All that morning at work, I had soggy legs.

Well this past Friday, on the way to seminary, Jake realized he had forgotten his Polo shirt at home. So he dropped me off at the church to get class started while he drove 10 min home. Then later, at work, it wasn't until 7:30 am that I realized I had forgotten my jump drive at home... and I needed it for my 8 am presentation! So I bolted home (this time a 15 min drive) during rush hour traffic... but I was able to make it back in time with 2 min to spare. If we had memories like elephants we wouldn't have wasted all that fuel (though we both enjoyed our drive home... it was similar to time trials before the big race - gotta beat the clock!)

This weekend we were very social. We had 4 friends over to watch Iron Man on Blu-Ray (amazing!) and we babysat a little 5 month old boy (super cute! but my arm's still sore from holding him). On Saturday my cousins Joe and Emily came to visit us - it was so much fun to hang out with them and hear all about Joe's fiance! That night we went to our ward Christmas party - I played the piano for our sing-a-long.. I love music! Then yesterday we got to visit my Organ teacher in a nursing home - she is always so happy!

Despite all the great friends we have out here (I really love going to church every Sunday! They keep us busy!) I'm really looking forward to going home. Less than 2 weeks and we'll get to be with all our family! YEA!!!

We're Back!

So, many of you have ever so kindly reminded me that I've been neglecting our blog. The excuse is simple - I simply didn't want to update it! I spend all day on a computer and I didn't feel like spending my evenings on one too. But let me catch you up. Basically our past few months can be summed into a simple phrase: we've turned into old people! No I'm serious! This is our life right now:

• 4:30 am - Wake up!
• 5:30 am - leave for seminary
• 6:00 am - SEMINARY (our class is a ton of fun!)
• 7:15 am - work... aka... enginerding
• 3:45 pm - go home
• 4:10 pm - gym
• 6:00 pm - dinner/seminary lesson
• 7:30 pm - time to relax, watch some TV, read, etc
• 8:30 pm - lights out!

You may think that I'm joking, but it's 8:15 pm and I'm about to go brush my teeth! Luckily on the weekends we try to go out and see the sights - so here are some picts of our adventures!

The Big E!!! A huge state fair in Mass. Jake is standing with Lego Indy and I'm eating one of the famous Big E creme puffs!

This is a waterfall we came across on one of our hikes - this is on Case Mt, right by our house. It took us 30 min to walk leisurely to the summitt - not quite the mountains we're used to!

Ahhh, the Boston Temple! It's so beautiful (aren't they all?) It's weird to have to drive 2 hrs just to see an angel Moroni!

The New England Air Museum... we thought it was appropriate to check it out - since we're aviation extrodin-airs! We even splurged and bought Astronaut Ice Cream - surprisingly it wasn't that bad (though it didn't taste anything like ice cream)

HALLOWEEN!!!! MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY! We went to a ward party as 70s people - Jake was the classic 70s cop. And in case you're wondering why he would go to such extreme lengths to grow out his facial hair for a costume, the stache is, in fact, a fake one.

So apparently, in the "real world" not a lot of people dress up for work on halloween, but I didn't let that damper my spirits. I decided that I could probably pull off something not too extreme. So I went to work dressed up as Tina Fey dressed up as Sarah Palin! I even watched SNL the night before to practice my Alaskan accent (which wasn't too shabby don't ya know!) At lunch in the cafeteria I saw people pointing at me, and laughing, hopefully they were enjoying my costume and not making fun of the "Utah Poof" hairstyle!

Dad was in town for buisness this past week - so we got to spend some time with him! It's was fun to show off our crib and watch a Blu-Ray (which is amazingly way 100% incrediably better than a normal DVD - I swear the movie looks 3D - like there are little people dancing inside your television!) Dad came to Seminary with us and gave a wonderful devo. It was so fun to have him here! I got so homesick to see him go (tears and everything). It's hard being so far away from all of you. We want you to know we miss you all and think about you often. We keep you in our prayers. Love you! (unless you're a stranger reading our blog - we don't love you)

Satan's Kingdom

Yesterday we went to "Satan's Kingdom" haha!!!




We went tubing down the Farmington river... they provide the lifevest, tubes and the bus ride back to your car. It's about a 2 hour float with class 3 rapids! It was a ton of relaxing fun.


We were chilling in a mellow section of the river and Jake was struggling to reposition himself on the tube. He thought it was funny that we had the same size tube even though we are definitely different sized people. He told me that I was "over there playing video games on your houseboat while I'm getting a full core workout just trying to stay on this thing!" haha!

No longer in happy valley...

We went to Circuit City tonight to buy some CDs. We went to look at the Blue Ray section but found an empty isle. Curious as to what had happened we asked a salesman where the Blue Rays were, he said that earlier this week they were robbed of their entire Blue Ray stock!!! What's even worse is that it happened in the middle of the day when other people where shopping! CRAZY! They said it will take them a month to restock their shelves!

Cookbook Collaboration

Check out our recipe blog!

http://cookbookcollaboration.blogspot.com/

Our First Baby!

Well.. if you haven't already heard... we bought a CAR!!! It was a long and exhausting decision, balancing our wants and needs. But we finally found a solution - the MAZDASPEED3. It is a turbocharged, 2.3L, race tuned machine that turns out a whopping 263 HP!!! (pretty good for only 4 cyclinders!)

We went to a dealership after deciding it was the car for us, the salesman told us that since we work for Pratt we get invoce pricing on our car. His manager came up to us and said that the Speed is the only car not available for invoice pricing, but he would honor what the salesman told us! So we got our car for a great price!

It is so much fun to drive!!! You can peel out in 6th gear on the freeway (not that we have or anything...) It feels like a go kart!

We are loving the gatchback, so far we've used it to move our TV stand, our new couch, counter stools, lots of groceries and more! When you fold down the seats there is a ton of space!





We were debating between the Speed and the Subaru WRX (which is more expensive). After watching this YouTube video we felt good about our decision to go with the Speed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6PGMi89qRo

Home and Cell Phone

Today we've accomplished many things...

This is our new apartment: (http://www.vintagegrove.com/pages/floor-plans.asp) We have the Candler floor plan, plus our personal garage/storage place. Check out the photo gallery! We move in Monday night.

We also got new cell phones: (http://search.vzw.com/?market=30668&q=venus&b2eFlag=N) For the record, mine's pink and Jake's phone is black

We saved over $700 with discounts at these places just cause we work for Pratt and Whitney! This rocks!

From Beehive to Nutmeg State!

Jake and I finally made it to Connecticut!!! But the journey was... well, not quite what we were expecting. Here's a little recap:

Monday July 14th: Jami's 19th Bday! We packed all morning, then got an email from Pratt reminding us that our drug test was due, we had to stop in the middle of our mess and hurry to take our test before they closed (luckily Jake checked his email!) We spent time with both of our families and had a real meal (our only meal that day)

Tuesday July 15th: We left in the morning... it was sad to say goodbye to Utah. We made great time cruisin on I-80 East, we switched drivers at every gas stop (about 200 miles). We had a fun time reading articles, playing 20 ?s and singing to the radio. A storm his and blew us around a bit while Jake was driving. Then when I sat behind the wheel (I'm sure it looked funny to have polly pocket driving a 16' truck) we drove right into a quite frightening lightening storm! When the rain started pouring the driver side wiper motor quit and left me without good visibility! Jake had to coach me through the storm until we could stop. We drove 900 miles that day.

Wednesday July 16th: We woke up in our cheap hotel room to discover mold mushrooms growing in window frame! I couldn't sleep cause my stomach hurt so dang bad! We got on the road and Jake started feeling sick too! We took turns driving through our misery.. while I was driving Jake even threw up!!! We pulled over and left a present for the lawn mowers! eww! We stopped at a rest area and fell asleep on a picnic table for an hour, it was then we decided there was no point in killing ourselves to get to CT, so we stopped at a brand new Hampton Inn and slept for 16 hours!!! (thanks Benadryl) We only went 400 miles that day.

Thursday July 17th: In the morning I felt tons better so I drove most of the day while Jake slept. We got a late start, and by the time we decided to pull over for the night we were in the middle of no where Pennsylvania! We stayed at another junky hotel (even after swearing them off two nights ago). Our "non smoking" room was thick with tobacco smoke - just great for two little allergy freaks! We talked to my family, turns out they all have the flu too! We drove a total of 600 miles.

Friday July 18th: The tobacco smoke room was a little too much for my little body - I was so dang sick today! I took more Benadryl just to keep from hurling everywhere. Jake drove the rest of the 400 miles into the Hartford area. We were able to get a room at eh Residence Inn (thanks Marriott!) and got a brand new 2008 Ford Focus rental car. We went to the Olive Garden for our first real meal since Monday night! We were full before our entrees even came! We are relaxing tonight before we head our tomorrow searching for a place to live, a car, cell phones, a new bank.... etc! We're not stressed about finding a place ASAP - but it will be difficult to dig our birth certificates out of the truck without unloading it before work Monday morning!

Even though it sounds terrible, there were some blessings along the way:
- I saw fire flies for the first time
- We were usually sick at opposite times so we could continue driving
- We arrived safely with no harm or accident
- It didn't after our wipers died
- Even though the gas cap was busted and rusted off, the inside part still worked (so we didn't leak gas everywhere)
- My skin is so soft out here! And I can't believe how silky my hair feels!
- We've never seen so many gorgeous trees naturally growing before
- Our food was delicious at the Olive Garden

BYU Formula Racing

For the past 4 years, I've been helping BYU begin and develope a racing program. This year I was in charge of designing our Formula SAE race car's suspension and steering subsystems. It was a very intense project, only 8 people to design, build and drive an open-wheeled car from scratch in only 10 months! We just got back from our competition at the California Motor Speedway, where 80colleges from around the world competed in several engineering static and dynamic events. I got to drive in the skid pad event (all my year's of go-kart racing helped me be the fastest driver on the team... or maybe it's because I haven't grown since 8th grade!) It is such a thrill to drive! There is so much traction that as you go through a corner, pulling 1.8 g's, your mind has a hard time focusing on the road - it makes your senses all crazy! It's awesome! (average high performance car, like Porsche 911 pulls about .92 g's in the corner)
We did really well and got 6th in the design event! We ran into several problems throughout the week, but were able to overcome adversity and get our car on the track (the other schools probably thought it was funny to see college kids always praying around their car!) This experience not only taught me race car vehicle dynamics, but I learned so many other skills. Presentation, documentation, cost analysis, manufacturing tolerence and compliance concerns, effects of stiction, driver safety and ergo, importance of fundamentals... and how many people can say they built a sexy race machine from scratch... I can!

We're BACK!!!

You may call off the picketers in front of our house... I've finally caved in and will write a new post.

These past few weeks have been some of the busiest and most stressful in my college career! It wasn't my Hum 201 class, or BIO 100 (I enjoyed those!) But the Formula SAE competition I'm involved in, more about that later.

Jake and I graduated from BYU, in Mechanical Engineering! FINALLY we're DONE!!!

We both had our birthdays (5 days apart!) For mine Jake took me to the Da Vinci exhibit in the University Mall, then to the Clark Planetarium - the perfect nerd birthday! For his b-day we went to Alpine Slides then went downhill mountain biking at Sundance!


This week we're packing up our house to move to Connect-I-Cut! It's so weird moving out for good... I have to pack all my keepsakes and take them with us. We don't know how long we'll be out there, but it will be awhile. It's sad to think about how little we'll get to see our loved ones - thank goodness for blogs!

Wedding Video

If you didn't get a chance to see the wedding video Luis made for us, it's embedded at the bottom of this page! ENJOY!

HAIRCUT!

Courtney and I have had a long history together full of ups and downs... including our hair! Here are a few picts of our hairy past!

This is us in 8th grade... we spent all night looking at different hairstyles on us with my Cosmopolitan CD (embarrassing) The next morning we went to Fantastic Sams and cut off 8-10 inches of hair!





This was just a few weeks ago... both Snorty and I felt like our hair was too long and unmanageable... and since our weddings were over - why keep it long? So we (separately this time) both got an A-line cut! It's so much easier to dry/comb/style! Plus I don't need to put my hair up when I wear my helmet!

Temple Picts!

We finally got our temple pictures back (mind you this is the fake wedding day because our photographer dropped his camera and lost the originals). They were taken at the end of March, not quite the snowy January - but we took them right before sunset so the lighting is BEAUTIFUL! The temple looks like it has gold leafing on the outside of it! Crazy! To see our picts, just click on the slideshow on the right hand side of our blog!

our admigo

Jake's friend, past roommate, and victim of the crockpot disaster - Billy - is our admigo. An admigo is an individual that is part creative genius and part social psychologist. They work in the adlab, aka advertising lab, creating persuasive pieces of art.

Well, Billy agreed that a "Glauser Glovebox" should be a glovebox full of Glausers! So he used his mad photoshop skills to create our awesome header picture, using Roy Lichtenshein's art for inspiration (Jake's favorite artist)! Then I spent all last night programming xml code to make our former blog layout match our new portrait!

YEA NEW BLOG LAYOUT!!! Thanks Billy!

Crockpot Disaster

Yesterday Jake and I invited a few of his buddies over for dinner. We wanted a last hoorah before they left for the summer (and since we won't be here when they get back).

So I decided to make my "famous" Catalina Chicken - it's super good, trust me. I bought all of the ingredients Wednesday night, and put the chicken and sauce in our crockpot to marinate overnight. The next morning Jake and I were rushing to school, we quickly looked in the crockpot manual to see how long/how hot to cook our delectable dinner. We pushed the required buttons for chicken and let it cook away.

When we got home that afternoon, our apartment smelled like pure delight! I was getting all excited, cause last time we had a dinner party, I made a crockpot roast and it was a huge success! I peered in through the glass top at our dinner - not wanting to open it (I didn't want unnecessary heat transfer) - and I decided to switch the heat setting to low.

Well, about fifteen minutes before our guests arrived I opened the chicken up! It had a funky smell. We put one on a plate to taste it... it was completely burned! How can you burn chicken in a cockpot? It's so easy to use! (I'll admit I started to panic at this point). We hurried and thawed the rest of our frozen chicken to cook on our "Grilleration" (Thanks George Foreman!). The chicken turned out great, unfortunately we didn't have a lot to eat (poor boys are probably still hungry) at least my bundt cake turned out yummy (*confession* I'm eating the cake right now!!)

Lesson Learned: If you're not sure about a recipe and you think you should call your mom to ask her for advice, but instead you just cook anyways... you probably will burn the chicken.

Show me the money!

I just faxed in our acceptance forms to Pratt and Whitney!

Connecticut... here we come!

"Connect, I Cut?"

Jake and I went to Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, CT two weeks ago (making that 14 planes this month!)

We got a phone call on Friday from P&W extending offers. Our offers were identical, they probably did that on purpose to avoid contention.

So Jake and I have been talking about moving for awhile now, and this seems like the perfect situation. It's a great company, good benefits, intellectually stimulating, interesting projects, beautiful landscape, central location, near-by big cities, etc. The major disadvantage is its relative location to our family. We won't be able to go to FHE every month, see the nieces and nephew's get baptised, go to my little brother's choir concerts, buy sporting goods from Jami at Parks, etc. All our family vacations will be coming back to Utah to catch up with everyone.

But looking at the other opportunities that we have, this seems like the best overall situation. So I think we're moving to CONNECTICUT!!! I figured if I'm going to live there, I better know how to spell the dang state, so Jake came up with this sentence: Connect, I cut? It doesn't really make sense, but I haven't had a problem spelling it since! THANKS JAKEY!

Our start date is July 21st, so if you feel like doing anything before then, give us a call before it's too late! PS - we want to go on many adventures throughout the state - so if you're in the mood for exploring.... let us know!

Aerosystems and Wedding Corsets

SPIRIT AEROSYSTEMS
Jake and I just got back from Wichita, Kansas! True to the stereotypes, Kansas is FLAT! We interviewed with Spirit Aerosystems ... the interviews were okay, Jake and his interviewer watched TV in the cafeteria for an hour, while mine kept prefacing his questions about my goals with "there is a correct answer."

The area was nice, the people were friendly, but every time we asked folks what they like to do in their spare time, we got two responses: 1: blank stare 2: drive 2-3 hours north/south/east/west... so we're thinking that Wichita, though it is the "Air Capital of the World" may not have much else to do.

WEDDING CORSETS
I went to the wedding dress store with my friend Katie yesterday to help her pick a veil. She had bought a corset for her dress and wanted to try the ensemble together. Unfortunately the corset made the dress fit really tight - I had to have the store lady help me zip her up. She stood in front of a huge mirror while I tried different veils with her dress. She told me she was feeling hot in there and she didn't want to sweat in her dress, so we should finish soon. Then she started to feel nauseous. All of the sudden her eyes glazed over and she started to fall backwards off her stool!!! I was in front of her and grabbed her the best I could, I broke her fall so she landed on her butt then laid down - she was mumbling and still out of it for a few more seconds before she came to. I turned her over and unzipped the dress - and undid the corset! It was just like 1800s! We came to the conclusion that she should return the corset, and when she tried the dress on without it, no one could tell a difference..... oh the things we do for beauty.

PI DAY!

In case you aren't afflicted with enginerdism, be aware today is Pi Day! Pi represents a circle's circumference to its diameter, and can be approximated as 3.14159. This afternoon it will be March 14 at 1:59 pm or 3/14 1:59 or 3.14159! Hence - PI DAY!

In celebration of the once-a-year event, I suggest we all enjoy in the scrumptious delicacy of pies! Jake and I are debating between a chocolate or a cherry pie. Luckily the decision should be a little easier for Grandpa Seaver, because he only has to choose between his two favorite pies: hot or cold!

Lockheed Martin

So last week (Thurs through Sun) Jake and I went to Binghamton, New York for an interview with Lockheed Martin. We're thinking cool - New York! This is going to be awesome! Well our first indication that this wasn't going to be the big apple was our third connection - the airplane was tiny! They had to take our carry-ons and store them below the plane.

The area is green, hilly and wet. It's on the boarder of the Susquehanna River. We drove through the area to get an idea of the local lifestyle... it felt like Oregon. At least we got to drive around in a brand new Pontiac G6.

The interviews went well. Jake's group works with integrating electrical components onto airplanes (not really what he wants to do). My group is designing and testing the new Humvees for the military.

They are new in the ground vehicle market and wanted a new engineer with automotive experience - like me! They seemed enthusiastic - I guess we'll have to see if they send us an offer this week!

While we were out on the town we decided to eat a fancy meal on the $40/day each that Lockheed gave us. We went to this little place called "The Cellar." It was a little home converted to a restaurant. Jake got lobster for the first time and I got Beef Wellington. It was all fancy and tasted really good - the dessert was the best! We ended up spending $105 on dinner!!! That's awesome!

The North East was hit with terrible snow storms this weekend, so getting home was all drama - first we were stuck in the Binghamton airport (it has 3 terminals). The pilots couldn't land because of fog, but we finally got in the air. Then in Detroit we sat on the runway for an extra hour de-icing the wings. But when we got it the air we had a long conversation with the pilot sitting next to us. He was so drunk! But he said a lot of nice things about Jake and I (about how he respects our kindness and such) we even discussed religion and I got his address to send him a Book of Mormon!!! We finally got to the St. Paul, Minneapolis airport where we had to spend the night (at least they had ghetto mats for us despite the bright lights and loud speaker announcements). I was frustrated with the system, but Jake reminded me that it's just a glorified bus network.

After hours upon hours of traveling we made it back to Utah. We were so excited to get back here - I wonder if that means the west is a better fit for us... maybe NY just isn't our style?

Recap: Great interviews, terrible traveling, and we still have jet lag!

Embarassing Moment!

Confession....

Before the prog din started (like 35 min) I drove to Maceys to buy our salad stuff *procrastination* My goal was to be in and out within 15 min. I quickly jogged up and down each isle with my detailed (and might I add, catergorized) shopping list, grabbing all the toppings for a fabulous green salad.... well, I went to look at some cherry tomatoes, and chatted for a few min with an old lady about how expensive they are, etc... then off I went - up and down each isle! About 5 min later the same lady I had just spoken with came around the corner and said "I think we switched carts back at the tomatoes" I looked down at the cart I was furiously pushing and low and behold her purse was sitting in the child's seat! I hadn't noticed even though I had been stocking it full of items for the past 5 min! I was mortified! I bet she had a heart attack thinking I was trying to swipe her purse! We went back to the tomatoes and I put my stuff back into my original cart.

Cherry on top....

As I was waiting in line to check out, the store manager walks by and says "oh, it looks like you've found your cart" I'm sure my face was a pretty shade of pink!

Rockin Prog Din

Since a lot of our friends have recently gotten married (ex: us) - Luis had the genius idea for a progressive dinner. We went from house to house for each part of our meal:


Dan & Katey - Appetizer
Jake & Jenni - Salad
Mike & Maridee - Main Course
Club 45 - Dessert & ROCK BAND!!!



In case you don't have a husband who likes guitar video games ... Rock band is like guitar hero - but with a guitar, bass, singer and the drums. It's so much more fun than guitar hero (different strokes for different folks)! The drums are where I like to spend my time!


We had 4 teams of 4 - all competing to be the best band ever (that night, in club 45). Our band included Luis, Billy, Jake and I - so Billy got us all matching green shirts and made a band logo (those ad lab folks) - we were "Three Men and a Little Lady!" haha It was a fun night!

Valentines Day

This was our first Valentine's Day with a significant other! And we spent the entire evening on schoolwork... I had to write a 16 page paper for my Formula Team, then spent the rest of the evening on my Kinematics test. Jake on the other hand was grading Fluids and Instrumentation papers, then did his Jet Engines homework until midnight. Oh engineering.... how you suck the life out of us!

I can't wait til graduation.

Picture Fear Confirmed

photographer called...

temple picts ruined

another photoshoot...

won't be exactly the same...

short nails, pasty skin,

plus lots of desserts since the wedding!

hahaha

at least I get to wear my dress again! :)

Wedding Photo Disaster

So.... In case you haven't heard the photographer dropped his camera before our reception. After it smashed into a million pieces his wife brought him a new one. So our reception picts are fine... but the memory card in the broken device is damaged.

Sad.

So, he sent it to a specialist to try and recover the picts... but it's not looking good.

I guess I shouldn't complain, our wedding day was perfect. And, worst case scenario, I get to wear my beautiful dress again!

But just remember our pictures in your prayers.

NOW WE'RE BLOGGIN!

Hey Family!

Jake and I are now down with the times, we've decided a blog is the best way to keep everyone updated. Let us know what you think!

LOVE!