Married = New Blog!

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http://amber-mike.blogspot.com/

Quick Update

Wedding plans are going so good! Within the last week we got our tuxes, registered (Kohls & Target), took our engagement photos, went to a park, and ate at Denny's. We just got our engagement pictures back and we're excited - it was a lot of fun!! We're getting addresses so if you haven't heard from me yet, that'd be great if you could shoot us an email or give us a call. [email protected].

She said - of course!!

We're engaged! I proposed this last Thursday and looking forward to June 20th at the Salt Lake Temple!

We have had the date set for a couple weeks but Amber was (somewhat) patiently : ) waiting for me to get a ring and officially propose before we let anyone else know. The ring wasn't going to be ready for another week or two so I took things into my own hands and bought a 'temp' ring at Smith's Marketplace and custom sized it with a hacksaw and pliers. It still looked pretty good!

We went and sat on the lawn of the Draper temple at dusk overlooking the salt lake valley and looked through this book. It kinda goes through our dating life and ends...

(Where we first met- at lunch w/friends on temple square)

There were so many things going on in my head: turn the page, how many pages are left?, pull the ring out of my pocket, give her a kiss, try not to let her know I'm pulling the ring out, oh she noticed I'm pulling the ring out, forget that, remember what I'm going to say, look her in the eyes, etc etc... that I forgot to get on one knee! But, she looked past that and said.. "of course! I'm so glad you asked!"

I'm just basking in it! It's so awesome that there's a rock on Amber Ann's hand! I'll take it any day, or how about for the rest of my life!? ..and then some!

best year ever

I was thinking that 2008 was the best but then 2009 came along! Life in general has been going really really good... I say "in general" because the flu I've had these last 4 days has not been so cool, BUT everything else has--

I started classes last week and love that I'm learning again: intro to lit, data warehousing, and enterprise applications. This will be my last semester! Work is going great; my co-workers are awesome and I've enjoyed my assignments so far. Dan's coming home from his mission in 2.5 weeks. The DJ business is going well. And I'm still holding hands with the prettiest girl I know!

I know I go to other blogs to see the pics... here are a few to catch you up.

Gingerbread houses - a group date w/the roomies. Our house was pretty sweet - check out the food storage, earthquake-proof foundation, and the marshmallow snowman :)
At Amber's work Christmas Party.
Steve and Tamara's wedding reception.Goodbye drumset - just posted it on KSL classifieds... I love the drums but the guitar is my favorite. They've just been collecting dust : /

A "cultured date" - we went to the Utah Symphony, ate real Italian pizza, and listened to a boring book on tape in the car... things that cultured people do.

chocolate

Tonight I finally started going at the chocolates in my advent calendar... that's 11 chocolates in one sitting!! (12 if I can stay awake for 15 more minutes...) Definitely worth the wait, but I am pretty junked out now.

I found out I got the job as a technical trainer for the Church!!! It is the perfect job - I'm way excited!! It's a job that will push me and keep me on the edge of the profession. 30 hours a week; works well for taking 3 classes. Excellent pay. And to top it off, the dept. is going to move to Riverton - which is stinking close to Bluffdale. I bet you can't guess who lives there.

Two weeks ago I got to spend some time with the fam - here's a picture of Mindy and I before going to a "red carpet premier" of my friends 20 minute movie.

Man Mindy Jo - you are a pretty girl... I'm glad you don't like boys and never will until you're 25 years old or so!

Jeff was in a bed race (6 man teams pushing hospital beds down main street of Preston, Id) and had to dress up in long johns - I decided not to put up the full body shot so Jeff wasn't embarrassed about his muscles.. j/k - I'm pretty sure he's at the point where he could beat up anyone he wants, including his older brothers.

And a picture of Amber and I from a date last week... shows how big my smile's been for the last 2 months (and why)!!!

Midnight.. chocolate number 12!

Crossroads

The internship is coming to an end this next week. For the last year I have been interning at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a Jr. IT Program Manager. The experience has been AMAZING!! I could not have hoped for anything better. I worked under 7 very respected and knowledgeable program managers and was involved in some exciting projects. I'll copy from the resume some of my experiences:

• Managed a team of 5 engineers in a 4 month project involving the transferring of over 17,000 key organizational records into a new system.
• Recruited and interviewed job candidates which led to the hiring of 2 employees.
• Trained and supported Church leadership in the use of MS Outlook.
  
• Individually assisted more than 80 Church leaders in the implementation of a new program.
• Programmed a visual reporting tool that saves an estimated 800 hours per year of combined employee time.

It has been a huge blessing and a strong jump start into my career.. so here come the crossroads: life after the internship! Things have been kinda up in the air, but we've kept pushing along and I'm feeling good about where they're starting to land.

There are 3 more classes that I have to take so at the disgust of many family and friends I've registered at the University of Utah to take my capstone class and will take the other 2 online through BYUI. I AM EXCITED! I love Salt Lake and look forward to pursuing my career while I finish out school. Not to mention, I won't have to drive 8 hours for every date I go on w/Amber!

I've applied for a few jobs and received one offer doing audiovisual work for the Church, waiting to hear back on another position though before I accept it. It's a blessing to have these opportunities; my first focus is definitely school but if I can love my job while doing it, I'll take it! I should have a job sorted out by the end of this week. I'll keep you posted... maybe.

san francisco

Long time coming for the next post... Working on a movie of our trip to San Francisco last weekend. Steve had a 30 minute interview for medical school so we went down w/him to play the rest of the time. Guaranteed, I'll post a video and what we did soon - don't lose hope!

yellowcard!!!

Last weekend we went to the yellowcard concert. Didn't know this beforehand but they ended up doing an acoustic set. It was a blast! Spill Canvas and Treaty of Paris played with them.

For my little sister's birthday my bro. and I bought her a ticket. He was going to bring her down but ended up going on a ski trip instead. So my dad brought her down. She pulled him right to the front - it was funny to see his head there in the pit amongst the 'younger' crowd. He said he was excited to go crowd surfing - but mom prohibited it because "you can die". He's awesome.
Here come the pics:

adopt a cougar

We went down to Provo last night, supporting the "Adopt-a-Cougar" program. I joined because I'm way impressed of how much an impact it can have on society... just a good cause.



All 20 of us (friends from the LDS frat) arrived at the Wilkinson Center with high hopes. Ryan and I paired off in search of lady cougars - we found two getting ice cream. Rejection 1... they were going to the BYU/Wyoming basketball game.

No frets, the next two were in the same area. We initiated conversation and talked for about 5 minutes. Finally when it came down to asking them on a date one of the girls pulls her hand out of her pocket... a rock! She was married; Rejection 2.

Two cougars sitting on a table doing homework were our next hope... Rejection 3 - they were studying for a test that they had to take that night.

Then we walked past the student computers and saw two girls there. This time we took the assertive approach. I went up to them and said: hey - we're going to get pizza in 2 minutes, do you want to come? Oh, and my name's Mike and this is Ryan. Un-Rejection 1.

Good pizza - good times. Adopt a Cougar is where we from Salt Lake go down to Provo and show the cougars how a "real man" treats a girl. No holding hands on the first date, no proposals, just a fun date. If you're looking to get into service, I highly recommend this one.

lunch

First blog from work! It's lunch hour - I had to deliver a pizza to a meeting that smelled so good - so we're waiting til the meeting's over in hopes of leftovers. Well that's it - here's the Church Office building where I work.

2:30 am

Confession -

I'm kinda liking this... hence posting at all hours of the night

Devin and I drove down to Clifton today to do some research on Papa Jay's... it's my family's jerky business. Really a good time, we're in the works of bringing a Papa Jay's to Salt Lake. the goal is to have it up and running by July of this year! You can go to Devin's blog (the link on the right) for different details. We're way excited about it; the first night we started talking about it we were up til 3:30 am - I was D.E.A.D. at work.

Here's a random clip of my little sister and cousin this last fall :/

The roommates except for D saw rocketman tonight - it was after a failed attempt to have fun at a party downtown. They're fans. Last night I went to "I am Legend"... not so much. We also went to a restaurant called "the fiddlers armpit" or so I thought - I told some friends afterwards and grossed them out then later Ben corrected me; it was The Fiddlers elbow. I was a half extremity off.

josephsmithpapers.net

JosephSmithPapers.net

This site was just released - an AWESOME website. Elder Marlin K. Jensen called it “the single most significant historical project of our generation.” It is shows documents that Joseph Smith created or had a part in; journals, revelations, letters, etc.

rocketman

We went to the Joseph Smith movie in the JSMB tonight for Family Home Evening. The movie is - amazing - there is so much emotion in it. One thing that really stood out was a line from D&C - "Shall we not go on in so great a cause?"

Friends in front of the conf. center.

Ben's trying to get me to out with his sister... Found out tonight that she just went on a date w/my cousin Josh. Might have to give Josh a call and make sure I'm not stepping on any toes with that one. That's quite the compliment to have another guy want to set you up with his sister.. unless, yeah - he tries to set everyone up with this sister - taking advantage of the "blind" effect... thankfully all my experiences have been good.

Rocketman came in the mail today, it's a favorite; highly recommended. None of the roommates have seen it so I had to get it.

bald?!

Today we had our final "initialization" into the LDS frat that I joined. It was a good experience but I'm not so sold on some of the traditions...

• Promenade at prom where all the family comes to see you walk down a path with your date as your name is announced (some schools I've dj'd at the parent stay for the rest of the dance and just watch!)


• Graduations


• Fraternity ceremonies.

The frat has been awesome - we meet each week and do something w/the guys then meet up with one of the LDS sororities for some activity. Our funnest activity was probably "scouching" - a couch w/skis on the bottom of it. But holy cow we've done a lot of really cool things! It has been an awesome way to the get the social life going in Salt Lake.

I didn't realize til today that I might have a receding hairline?! It just snuck up on me.

How much longer do you think until it's all gone??

I accidentally took Grandma's leftovers and left mine in the car. The lasagna wasn't too shabby. I hope she enjoys the chicken portobello.

day one

After a failed blog attempt a few months ago, I decided to start fresh. As my friend Derence would say "You tried once and failed miserably. The moral is: never try". I'll ignore the advice for today.

So what's new in my life? A blister on my left foot - from too much dancing. Last weekend I DJ'd two dances and went to a house party for Ashley's B-day.

Yesterday we went to Studio 600 three times:

1. 8:00 - too early, they hadn't started dance instruction yet.


2. 9:15 - too early; 6 people total in the club


3. 11:00 - about 80 - 100 people - we stayed.

It was a little slow getting started but we had a good time; Steve, Shane, Ben and I just dancing. A group of 16 year olds came and joined us for about 5 minutes - not making any eye contact at all, then left because I think they felt awkward. I was going to offer to set them up with my little brother - the one that's two siblings younger ;).

After a little while a group of 6 girls came and joined the circle - they were really cool - just a group of friends from BYU. Steve, Ben, and I got phone numbers, Shane didn't, but he has a date for next weekend so that's a good enough excuse. We'll see what happens.

Tonight my grandparents were in town so they took me to Macaroni Grill. Highly recommended. The food, AND my grandparents - they are awesome~ I really enjoyed spending a few minutes with them.

Then Steve and I went to a surprise birthday party for Tammy and danced it up.