Casey is Home, Great Danes, Moving

In a small space of time we have had some big events go on. First our move to Minneapolis, then Casey, Dan's youngest brother, came back from his 2 year mission in Melbourne, Australia, and getting jobs w/ real responsibility. 

 I'm the most nervous about the latter. I know that I have earned my degree, taken all the classes, and had some previous experiences but I don't want to let my team down or anyone down for that matter.  I have worked w/ this product before and know some of the people so that's positive and negative. Positive because I'm familiar w/ soup production, the formulas, and the programs but negative because my chance for a new 1st impression has been taken away.  Dan reminds me that obviously my 1st impression must have been good since they requested me to be back in the same group, which I hear is unusual.  I just have to be confident right.!?!?

At the airport w/ all of Dan's Family.

Since Casey's gotten back a few people have made remarks how he is looking and even having some mannerisms like Danny.

Casey teaching how to throw the boomerang.

Dan trying to throw the boomerang.

The last saturday we were in Utah I had the opportunity to go to Great Dane Day.  It's a local club of great dane owners that get together 2x a year. I tagged along w/ Iris and Jefferey and had a great time. This one was one of the best, there were contests and plenty of doggie treats.  When the Danes started to play you definitely had to give them their room.  They are a powerful breed but really puppies at heart.
Iris, Jefferey, and their Dane Samson. He placed 1st as best wagger, 2nd as most obedient, and 2nd as best barker and came home w/ some awesome toys. This is their 2nd Dane. Bo passed away less than 2 years ago from cancer and Samson is such a great dog, big, slobbery, clumsy, but great.

Imagine how tall this dog is.  It's coming out of Iris' arm pit. He was such a sweetheart.

Puppy Great Dane, isn't he cute. You got to enjoy the time that you still can carry them.

For awhile and even now I'm in denial about being in Minnesota.  We lived here for 3 mo last summer while Dan and I were doing our internship w/ General Mills. So coming back here again and now it is somehow permanent is surreal to me. We moved in to our apartment and its a slow process getting everything where it should be, where we want it to be and into storage. We opted to have a 2bd/2ba apartment and thank goodness we did. There are certain perks w/ having 2 bathrooms and I will enjoy them thoroughly. 

Here we are in the moving truck that came to take our stuff away.  It was quite a jigsaw puzzle to get the boxes to fit just right so there was a wall.  Thank goodness Dan nor I had any part in that.

Entering the great state of Minnesota!!!

Dan did most of the driving of the 1300+ miles.  It was done in about 23 hrs w/ stopping.  Not my favorite trip but it saved us some money by not flying. We rolled out of Orem at 3:45 am and drove all the way to Des Moines, IA.  We were not planning to drive that long, construction areas littered I-80, and I do not like driving at night in unfamiliar areas but it ended up being allright.
With moving its requisite that you must buy new furniture that comes in about a billion parts. Dan hesitated at me taking on this challenge but I was insistent. I told him that it was all part of the experience, you know....follow the 30 page 55+ step-by-step directions, put a part in backwards, get mad, expletive (optional), calm down and try again.

Coldplay

I've never been into music. By that I mean that I never had any kind of CD collection. I don't really now why, probably because I wanted to spend money on other things and not CDs. I just listened to the radio and I was happy with that. 

Lately though I've been collecting music, thanks to my bro-in-law Jefferey (Iris' husband) and I have found Coldplay.  I love their new single "Viva La Vida". It's on my current playlist on this blog.  Have a listen to it and fall in love.  Also, it doesn't hurt that the lead singer is "click clack".

General Mills and Moving

For all those who are not aware Dan and I will be moving to Minneapolis, MN in about a week. We have both accepted positions with General Mills as "Research Scientist".  Dan will be working for the Small Planet Division which is GM's organic line. They have a diversified line making everything from canned tomatoes, soup, spaghetti sauce etc (Muir Glen) to cereal, granola bars, frozen goods, fruit jams and jellies (Cascadian Farms).

I will be working for Progresso. They do make more than soup. Beans, bread crumbs, and canned tomato products make up their line. We are both looking forward to it even though I do hate moving. Luckily our offers includes people coming in to pack what little we do have.  

Knitting and Graduation

Now that I have more time on my hands (no babysitting, Hawaii, or School) I've decided to pick up my knitting needles again. My sister, Iris, started a scarf about a year ago and she gave it to me awhile ago to finish.  So I finally got to it and finished it in a day.  It's not the best, I decided to improvise because I didn't have a pattern and had to become creative with the hat since I didn't have enough of the purple yarn to finish.  I hope she likes it.  I like the scarf the best. I look forward to posting my continuing knitting works.

As I type Dan is printing the copies of his thesis and bringing them to the library. I'm so proud of him and his last push to finish his Master's. He did absolutely amazing on his presentation a few weeks ago. 

Below is my reluctant but dashingly handsome model.  He definitely works the garment. Don't you think so?

Maui - Kayaking Trip

We ended up staying in Maui for 3 days.  Before we left we took a Kayaking trip on the southern coast.  It took a bit to get the hang of kayaking, turning, and paddling. We chose Maui Eco Tours and they were great. We chose one of their longer excursions with 3 snorkeling stops. We ended up being the last ones to each stop and that was ok, we were taking it all in. 

We had the opportunity to swim with the sea turtles. I was just casually looking at one which was about 10-15 feet away when one swam right under me. It was crazy.  They are so graceful swimming so fluidly through water. We must of seen at least 15 of them at different times.  As we went snorkeling we tried to see and identify all the characters from "Finding Nemo".  With the sea turtles we saw "Crush", "Gil" the moorish idol, "Bloat" the porcupine fish, and "Bubbles" the yellow tang. We thought we saw "Nemo" but it was another fish and thank heavens we didn't see "Bruce", "Anchor", or "Chum".

Makena Beach

View from our condo

"Crush" the sea turtle

Maui - Trilogy Catamaran trip to Lanai

While in Maui we went on a sailing/snorkeling all-day trip to Lanai.  The snorkeling was awesome we saw tons of fish and going out to Lanai on a catamaran was different. 

Trilogy catamaran

Sailing the seven seas, aarrghh

Plumeria

Breathtaking sunset

Pulling up of the sail

Hawaii Continued then on to Maui

We were able to get on awesome deal at a Waikiki hotel and stayed 3 blocks from the beach.  The view was so beautiful.  I loved looking at Diamond head from the beach. 

Diamond head from Waikiki

On my way to Maui on the smallest plane, 8 seater Cessna, that I've been in on. My mom was quite nervous but it turned out to be a short plane ride only 45 minutes to Maui.

The view from the Cessna, Hanauma Bay which we visited earlier that week and Diamond Head.

Surf School

On Tuesday, Aug 26th, we hung ten on the big waves.  Well they weren't that big but it was so much fun.  I wished we had gone again.  The instructors were absolutely amazing and gave us all the tips we needed to get up.  Let me tell you though its a whole lot of work.  First you have to get your self to the waves so that means a whole lot of paddling, then you have to catch a wave, this is where the instructors came in, they were out there with us and judge the waves and gave us a push while we paddle to hang on to the wave. I hope when Dan and I go back we will set a side at least 2 days of surfing.

The girls in our surfing gear. I think we look pretty darn good.

The group of novices and our surf instructors.

Instructional portion of the land lesson.

Me with the surf board. It was heavy.

You saw it right here, me surfing.