4A State Champions - Columbia Wildcats

As many of you already know, Justin is an assistant coach for the Columbia High School wrestling team in Nampa. He got hooked up with the job last year when he volunteered to come help my little brother out with wrestling. Adam went to Columbia and so that is where Justin landed. Adam graduated last year, but Justin enjoyed it so much that when he was asked to come back as an official assistant coach, he couldn't say no.


This weekend we had the wonderful opportunity to cheer the Wildcats on as they wrestled at the state tournament in Pocatello. They missed winning first place as a team last year by merely 11 points to Blackfoot. This year, they were aimed to finish the job.


We took 17 boys to the state tournament, including all 13 of our varsity kids. The team won ever tournament and dual they attended with the exception of the Reno Tournament of Champions in which they placed 16th out of 90+!


With 10 boys remaining to the medaling rounds, and the team sitting in first, they knew they had to finish strong. We ended up with one 6th place, one 5th place, three 3rd place, and five 2nd place medals. The last round was disappointing as we watched each of our five finalists fall in their final matches, but the end was not there.


We had done the math, we had purchased the infamous shirts, and our team was slotted to win the 4A team title.


The boys of the 2009 Columbia Wildcat Wrestling Team did a stellar job all year and deserved this award!


Congrats boys!!!

The Economy SUCKS

As many of you know, I have an AWESOME job at a local real estate agency. Up to now, it has been fabulous. I love my boss, I love the people I work with most of the time, they work around my school and family schedules as much as possible, and the pay is great! In fact, because of my job we have been able to live a little better than most college students, and we've LOVED it :)

However, the economy sucks!

I know most of you already know that, but it is finally hitting home for us. Prior to this all that has effected us has really been the drop in gas prices...and we weren't complaining on bit on that. Just on Monday, our boss announced that she was going to have to cut all of our hours by 25% because we just aren't making enough money right now. It's way better than losing my job, but that sucks!!!!

I try really hard to be an optimist...as many of you know. So here is my list of pluses regarding the change in my hours:

• I work 8:30-2:30
• More time for homework and shouldn't be late to class
• Don't have to deal with afternoon traffic
• Can leave earlier on weekend vacations
• More daylight hours :)
• Day goes by faster
• No lunch hour, so I will spend less $$$ on lunch (can eat at home)
• More time with my dogs
• More time with my hubby
• More time to clean my house

Another definite plus regarding this whole situation is that Justin and I have made it a priority to 1) pay tithing, 2) pay off our debts, and 3) be current on all bills. On Monday, we were able to pay off our Land Cruiser, laptop, one credit card, and get our only other credit card down to half (we plan on keeping this one open to improve our credit and for emergencies). In doing all of this, when we got the news on Tuesday, we discovered that amount we were paying on those bills was greater than the amount of money I am no longer meaning.

What does that mean? We are still making more money than what our budget requires.

It'll be tight, but we are so thankful that we have been given the guidence and direction to get out of debt and more importantly that we are striving to follow this direction.

We'll make it through this...good luck to everyone in these tough time!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

New iPhones

Hey we just got our new phones. Wahoo!!! FYI - we switched from Verizon to AT&T but kept our numbers.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's Day this year was kind of fun :) Usually we are so worn out between my birthday, Christmas, and our anniversary, Valentine's Day gets little attention. However, we had the opportunity to go to Preston to see one of our best friend's at her wedding reception. Randi Roberts married Matthew Thomas...which cracks me up because my uncle's name is Randy Thomas. He he he. Anyway, the reception was absolutely beautiful and Randi was even more so. We went on in to Logan and spent the night at a Super 8 (we blew all our money on our anniversary) but the room was great. It snowed like crazy and was just beautiful. Again, no pictures. I figure the more I blog the more I'll feel guilty about forgetting pictures so I will start to remember to take some...is that how it works?

At any rate, I just wante everyone in the world to know that

I LOVE JUSTIN REED!

New Year, New Semester

Have you ever seen the movie, Groundhogs Day with Bill Murray? That's exactly how I feel about school! I just keep going and going and even though the seasons change and the classes change, it all feels like the exact same thing every single day. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying what I am learning, for the most part, but still I've been in school non-stop for EIGHTEEN of my 23 years! That's a bit much. The worse part is I still have at least 3 years to go! Anyway, Justin will be graduating in December with his bachelor's degree and then he'll role right into his Master's program. He actually will be taking half undergrad and have grad classes next semester. I haven't quite decided what my schedule will be for graduation. I think it would be hilarious to graduate in December, because I would technically graduate BEFORE Justin since his name starts with a J and mine starts with a C :) But that would require going to school this summer and I'm not sure I want to do that...I need a break once in a while. But then again, that would mean completing my program a whole semester earlier...which would be nice...regardless of what I do there, I too am getting my Master's so I will have 2 years on top of whatever I end up doing...no light at the end of this tunnel yet...but the lanes for employment are sure getting wider :)

RoomMate

Tony, Justin's little brother, just got home from his mission and we invited him to stay with us since he is going to Boise State this spring. He just moved in with us! It's gonna be fun... :)

Two Years

Again, I am THE BIGGEST SLACKER at taking pictures. I really need to get better about that. Well we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary! It was my year to pick the plans so we stayed the night at the AmeriTel Inn, by Edwards in Boise. We got a two story room with a personal jacuzzi on the top floor. It was a ton of fun! We also went to Murphy's steakhouse and saw the movie 7 Pounds with Will Smith. We just had a blast goofing off and pretending like we were miles away from home and reality. I can't believe that we've been together for 3 years already and married for 2! It's crazy how fast time flies when you are having fun :)