Our new blog... finally

Brent and I just celebrated our FIRST ANNIVERSARY... a few months ago... and i decided it was about time I finally started posting stuff to OUR blog. Actually it was perfect timing because as you can see I have really messed up this blog... I tried to change a background and instead deleted everyone's blog addresses on the side and the background only 1/2 changed to what I had wanted. So... time to move on and start over again! :)

Our new address: CindyandBrent.blogspot.com

Free Tax Preparation

Did you know the IRS offers FREE TAX PREPARATION if your income is under $49,000?!! I signed up to do volunteer tax preparation at one of the "VITA" sites (VITA is Volunteer Income Tax Assistance). Tonight was my first night doing taxes and IT WAS FUN!! (And luckily I had some more experienced tax preparers looking over my shoulders... so eventually I figured out what I was doing.) Anyway... I just thought it was SUPER exciting that there are some FREE tax perks out there!!

Here is the link to learn more about having your taxes prepared for free at a VITA site:
www.utahtaxhelp.org

...Or if you are close to Ogden, the place I volunteer at is: www.cottagesofhope.org. Cottages of Hope is an organization that not only prepares taxes for free... but they also offer all sorts of fun financial classes... like classes on how to save, basic financial literacy, how to spend wisely, etc. I am not sure if the classes are all free, but the organization is a Non-Profit organization... so I would think if the classes did cost money they probably aren't expensive.

You Know You are Surrounded By Good People When...

Wow... I have got the best husband ever! Brent had been (and still is) preparing for the end of semester final presentation of his project. He and his group have been working late to put in all the time they can find into their project. Monday was a snowy day and I never quite got around to shoveling the driveway. I actually do enjoy shoveling snow (light and fluffy snow) and I figured the snow would still be there in the morning. Brent finally got home from school around 1:00 AM... and before coming in he SHOVELED our driveway!! Wow, talk about going the extra mile to be the best of the best! I feel so spoiled as I slept right through the whole thing!

This morning was very snowy again. One of our cars is really snow intolerant! (But it is sure a fun ride when you are looking to drive around crazy-like, out of control, in the snow... and then get stuck.) I have been waiting for the day to come when I would need to drive the snow-unfriendly car to work on a super snowy day... and I've been practicing driving the car in the snow so I would be ready! Well it snowed so much our car couldn't drive in the snow today! My mom offered to let me take her nice 4-wheel-drive car to work for the whole day! What generosity!! (And this was after she came over and shoveled our driveway!)

What examples of giving I have in my life! Thanks for being so sincere and thoughtful Brent and shoveling our driveway in the middle of the night while I slept! And thanks to Mom for being so incredibly generous and trusting to let me take your car and upset your schedule for the day. Thanks for the difference you make in my life!

Hee hee, i thought it would be fun to post a picture of snow... this is Joni in 2006! This was her first time snowboarding! Doesn't she make snowboarding look so fun and easy?!

Half Way

Yippee, its a MIRACLE! We found out I passed the second CPA exam and am now 1/2 way to becoming a CPA! Two tests down and two more to go! Thanks so much for all your thoughts and prayers for me! And a BIG Thanks to Brent for all his support and for keeping me sane and happy after I study!

Tuesday night I decided to try and beat Brent's boxing record on the Wii. Apparently I must have had some SERIOUS pent-up aggression from studying or something because I have been sore all week as a result of Wii boxing! Boy... how out-of-shape do you need to be to get sore from playing video games?! Apparently I've arrived.... guess I should be boxing more often. I played again today (despite being sore) and realized I didn't need to punch quite so hard to get points.

A Quarter of the way to a CPA

Brent and I found out on Monday night that I passed the Regulation (taxes and business law) portion of the CPA exam! Yippeeeeeee!! Thanks so much for everyone's thoughts and prayers and help to support me! We are so lucky to have such super great family and friends! Big time THANK YOU to Brent for being so supportive of me studying! He has done practically ALL the cooking, cleaning, yard work, housework, EVERYTHING, so I could study. Thanks Brent! I love ya!

Three more tests to go... I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....

Recipe Tricks

Wow... I'm not going to lie, tonight's dinner was a major disappointment. Brent has class until 9:00 on Mondays so I thought I would be domestic and cook dinner. (I could probably count on one hand how many times I've made dinner since we've been married... and I wouldn't need to count how many times dinner has turned out when I cooked because I'm sure it wouldn't be more than one meal.)

Anyway Brent and I have been super excited to try a recipe called "Joe's Favorite Dinner". Sounds fantastic!! The recipe seemed to have lots of fun ingredients... I was thinking it would cook up into something really spectacular! We have actually had the ingredients for this recipe for WEEKS... we even had to re-buy some of the ingredients because they spoiled in the fridge before we made the recipe!

Luckily today was finally the day to try out Joe's amazing delicious favorite dinner! I woke up early (this dinner required a crock-pot... which is why I hadn't made it before... I forget to think about making dinner in the morning before work). While I was pouring all the ingredients into the crock-pot this morning I noticed the recipe called for an unusual amount of soups... LOTS of soup, soups of every kind! But it had so many other ingredients I didn't let the soup bother me. When I left for work Joe's Favorite Dinner looked a lot like soup... but I figured since it was in the crock-pot it would transform into something amazing while we were at work and school all day.

When I got home this evening I checked on Joe's Favorite Dinner again... oddly enough it hadn't yet transformed into anything spectacular. But I still wasn't too concerned because I still had the final ingredient and direction to complete Joe's Favorite Dinner! Noodles! I poured in the noodles and waited 45 minutes. I ran back out to the crock-pot only to behold... CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP! Apparently Joe must really love soup. I admit... it was kind of disappointing to wait 5 weeks, two shopping trips for ingredients, and 10 hours of cooking time for chicken noodle soup. It was delicious though, and had some very creative ingredients... and if we ever feel like eating homemade chicken noodle soup I guess we have a recipe for it.

Oh What do you do in the Summertime?

We have been so lucky to have such a fun summer! We have been having so much fun enjoying summertime that it seems once we are done with work and studying we don’t go near the computer… so we haven’t blogged a thing! So here is the fast and furious version of our fun summer!

We ran the FIRST annual Spring 5K at the Institute at the U of U with my family.

We went with Brent’s family on an AWESOME trip to NYC! (We will for sure post more pictures of our adventures there!)

Brent and YW have been teaching me golf so we hit the driving range a few times.

We went to a Salt Lake ROLLER DERBY!

We went with Brent’s family to a fun day at Willard and went wave running!

We went to the LEEDS house in Daybreak (the greenest house in Utah at the time… green as in ecologically friendly, not green as in color)

We also went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house

We went Go-Cart racing

We went to Ogden’s Rodeo and got to sit right above the bull-pen!

We both had super fun summer birthdays!

We hiked Gobbler’s Knob (not to be confused with Gobblin’s Knob… I tried to look up directions by searching “Gobblin’s Knob”… turns out that is something to do with video games, not a lot of information about hiking! I am not a lot more video game cultured now though!)

We took the YW hiking on the Bonneville Shoreline trail (until we accidentally took a wrong turn and started following the wrong trail… we still haven’t told the YW about this mistake!)

We got to spend our 4th of July at the Kaysville parade and WATER PARADE (my favorite parade of all time) and swimming at my Uncle Phillip’s house. (Brent has now seen with his own eyes that I actually CAN NOT swim… he is now a believer that my 5 year old niece had to “save” me three times last year!)

I took a community tennis class with Amy this summer… what fun! Our class was comprised of 11 year olds and us! We loved it! And we got some cool free t-shirts for taking the class! Whew hew! It was exciting to be able to actually ALMOST be able to play a real tennis game by the time our class ended!

Brent and his dad played in the Men’s League at the Eagle Mountain Golf Course all summer. I got to play golf for work one day this summer and ended up with a broken down golf-cart on the 7th hole with my 8-month pregnant co-worker! It was pretty entertaining… I tried to push our golf-cart uphill to the 8th hole. Luckily one of the lawnmowers saw us and told us we could call the clubhouse for a new golf-cart AND they bring it right to you! AWESOME! We had a super speedy golf cart for the last two holes and had a lot of fun! I think I’m basically certified as a professional golf-cart driver if Brent ever needs a driver!

We have also been working on a lot of fun projects around the house and in the yard… well truthfully BRENT has been working on a lot of projects around the house and in the yard! Most of the projects are nearly completed so we’ll have pictures of that soon!!

We also got to spend some time at the cabin canoeing and swimming in Causey! Brent showed off some of his wild synchronized swimming moves! (As well as his “turbo-power” canoe stroke!)

Yippee for a fun summer and a super wonderful Hubby to get to spend it with! We are so glad to have our families so close by so we could spend so much fun with them also!