Colorado Fun

Holidays, Vacations, , , ,

For Memorial Day weekend, we were looking forward to having the Lymans visit. We were going to hike the Y and visit family and have fun – but sometimes plans change. When Josh’s family found out they couldn’t make it last minute, we found the next best (or probably better) thing: go to them! So we had an awesome weekend in Colorado.

We drove the Rav out (thank you, thank you, thank you, family, for letting us use it!) on Friday night and flew back Monday night. Highlights of the trip?

Friday: Driving, pretty mountain scenery, crashing in a hotel

Saturday: Driving some more, seeing the Lyman family, biking along the Colorado River in Glenwood Springs together, yummy sack lunches, eating ice cream, driving even more, relaxing at home, watching The Village

Sunday: Church with the Lymans, spending time together, playing Scrabble, Heather’s delicious dinner and Dale’s delicious grilled kabobs

Monday: a wonderful Memorial Day family home evening lesson, playing Mario with Chris, introducing Luke to Portal, being introduced to NCIS, shopping with Heather and the boys, eating at Boston’s (one of Josh’s former employers and favorite restaurants), flying home and sitting next to a very nice man and his happy, friendly nine-month-old daughter who we got to play with

Below are some pictures from our adventure biking in Glenwood Springs. Hope you enjoy! And thanks family, for such a wonderful weekend! We loved it!

A Braaaaand Neeeew Caaaar!

Big Events, ,

Hooray, we finally have it! Yes, we decided to grow up and buy our own car, instead of having to rely on the charity of our families (thank you families!), and we are excited! So here’s the details.

We were looking for some sort of used family sedan, like a Civic or Camry. After doing some research, we also added the Nissan Altima to the target list because it got good reviews and was less expensive than some of the more household brands like Honda and Toyota. We came across a listing for an Altima on the good ol’ Wilk Board at BYU from a man named Peter, a car broker. We didn’t end up getting that particular car, but we did like what Peter was doing and decided to use him to help us find a car. For those who may not be familiar with the idea (like us when we started), a car broker is an individual who will take requests from clients and go out and find that type of car for the client, usually saving money in the process. There is a trade-off because you lose a little bit of control in the final selection, but it makes it much easier on the client.

Well fast forward a few weeks and Peter managed to find us a 2005 Nissan Altima 2.5S in really good shape, a year newer than we were looking for, and… we took it! It’s silver (check out the photos below) and drives very nicely. Because we went through a car broker, we also saved a good chunk of change on it too. So hooray, we hope to have it for many years to come. Thanks to all who helped make it possible!

P.S. – If any of you have good ideas for what to name it, we’re open to ideas so let us know in the comments below!

The Challenge

Just Life, Other, , ,

THE CHALLENGE: We came, we saw, we conquered. Okay, so our challenge was maybe not quite so daring and dangerous, but it was tough at times, and worth it. What was it? To not spend any money on discretionary items in the month of May.

It started as we were talking one night in April about money and budgeting and life. We have a budget that we stick to pretty well, and we’re pretty happy with our spending and saving habits. Still, we were starting to wonder if we were distinguishing enough between needs and wants and if there’s any room for improvement. So the challenge was Josh’s idea. Why not go a whole month and focus just on our needs? Then afterwards we could evaluate the difference it made and see where we might want to change.

So it was a good experience. Yes, hard at times. No fast food, no eating out, nothing “extra”, not even any candy or ice cream during weekly shopping trips (wait…okay, maybe we got one quart of ice cream). We were very careful to spend money only on things we had to. And it was a very good experience and taught us a lot.

First, we learned that it really is important to evaluate our spending decisions. In May, whenever we looked at something extra we wanted to buy, the answer was just “no”, so it was easy. The Challenge made it easy to tell the difference between wants and needs because we had already decided. Now we can try to make our future budgeting decisions wiser by saying “no” more often.

And second, The Challenge put us in a mindset – the “oh yeah, we’re not rich yet” mindset. We’ve been very blessed lately, it’s true, but we’re still young and saving up for so many important events in the future. It was nice (and good) to remind ourselves, “wait, we’re still college students.” I think that’s something we’ll remember now as we make decisions on what to buy.

And there’s been the benefits, too – saving extra money, coming in way under budget, knowing that we’ve been smart.

So now May has come and gone, and (though we’re excited we can eat out occasionally again), I think we’re a little wiser for it. We’re going to try to make that “oh yeah, we’re not rich yet” mindset more of the standard, and spending extra money more the exception.

What do you do to make sure you live within your means? Do you have any tips about budgeting or spending decisions?

Yea for Joshua!

Big Events, , ,

Wait, hasn’t there been a post with this same title before? ;-) Well, he deserves it! Recently we found out about another great step in Josh’s academic career – he got into the Master’s program! Woo hoo! It’s what we’ve been planning on and what he wanted, and (though I nor my parents nor his parents are surprised at all), it’s still nice to know for sure.

To brag on Josh some more, this is the Masters of Information Systems program at BYU – one of the top ten MISM programs in the country. It’s only open to a select number of students, and about half of those who applied got in. Way to go, Josh!

So what does this mean for our future? Well, Josh will start his senior year this fall, and during his senior year he’ll start taking some graduate-level classes. Then next fall (that’s fall of 2011), he’ll officially start the Masters program, which lasts one year. So then, in the spring of 2012, he’ll graduate with a Bachelor’s and a Master’s! Not bad, eh? (Just in time for the end of the world, too!)

Well, we’re both super excited and glad to know where we’ll be the next two years! And to celebrate, I made Josh a cookie cake (because he had never had one!). Usually I don’t think of myself as a very good baker at all, but I was actually pretty proud of this one – well, Josh liked it a lot and said it was delicious, which is what I care about. :-) Oh, and where did I learn my awesome cookie-cake decorating skills? That’s thanks to the summer I worked at the Great American Cookie Company in the mall. Oh, yeah.

Anyway, I’m super proud of Josh, so are we all! And most important, he’s happy and excited. So yay for life!