Jobs come and go and then come back again

So pretty much anyone who reads this blog already knows that I lost my job at EY due to layoffs on November 12th. I got one month of severance and exactly one month later, I got a job offer to work at an American Express Bank that is closer to home, more money, and less hours! The Lord works in mysterious ways. I never really felt all that bad about losing my job. It felt right and....let's be honest...it has been fantastic to be home. It has given me more time to serve in the church which has given me more opportunity to get to know some new friends in the ward. I am grateful for my new job (which starts in January)....but I do wish I could stay home ;). My friends at EY helped me out in my job search so much! I definitely think that the experience I gained at EY was important, but the relationships built were so much more important! I am filled with so much thankfulness for everything that I have! Merry Christmas!!

My Trip to the Windy City

This is me standing on a plate of glass that juts out from the 103rd floor of the tallest building in the western hemisphere. There's just a piece of glass between me and falling 103 stories to the street below. My hands were so sweaty...it took me about 15 minutes to get brave enough to walk out there.

2 Weeks ago, I went to Chicago for some Banking Training for work. The streets were crazy. Ther were fairly narrow streets (not as bad as Seattle or NY), but the buildings came right to the edge of the streets, it was crazy. There were tall buildings on every street. I felt trapped.

Our offices are at the Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower). It is the tallest building in the western hemisphere (used to be the tallest in the world). So Steve Plowman, Brad Schultz and I went up to the top floor where they have the Skydeck.

This is a replica of the tower.

This is a map of where the tower is in Chicago. It is right on lake Michigan, and as you can see, you are suposed to be able to see up to 50 miles into 4 different states.

This is a shot from the top floor. The city of Chicago is HUGE. It goes on and on forever. It looks like this out of every window.

So, they SkyDeck is this little glass room that has been built off of the top floor. You can step out onto it and there is nothing but glass between you and 103 stories. Those little dots below are cars.

The river runs right through the city and there are bridges every few blocks to connect the streets.

More Bridges

So, the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) has the LAMEST lobby ever. You would think it would be cool since it's such an iconic landmark...but it's not. Those weird shapes on the wall spin around.

See...I was really there.

Cupcake Class

I tought a cupcake class for Relief Socitey a few weekends ago. I showed a couple of ideas that could be done with only 2 icing tips (the 2 I think are essential to have).

I loved this pink frosting. Good tip is to buy frosting from a local bakery. That way it's already colored and you don't have to make it! I got pink and red frosting from Smith's Bakery for $2 each. It's a little more frosting than what comes in a regular frosting container on the baking aisle at the store. (Don't try to make red or black frosting. It's the most frustrating thing you'll do. Just buy it!)

Flowers in 'dirt' and 'grass'

I found these cute terracotta dish things on clearance at Walmart for like 20 cents.

Hunting in Mount Pleasant

Branden, his brother Kevin, and I got up at 3:30am and drove to Mount Pleasant to hunt Elk last weekend with my Whitaker Family. Everyone kept saying how much Kevin looks like his dad.

Nikki, my dad's girlfriend, made breakfast burritos, so the boys loaded up on food before they headed out.

L to R: My dad, Kevin, Branden, and Nikki's son Alex

My Super cute grandpa, Russ, went out too, but he drove in my dad's truck.

They came back at about 10am and my grandma made milk gravy. (It's a family favorite where gravy is made out of bacon grease and then is poured over little pieces of broken bread and then bacon is sprinkeld on top...I personally am not a fan of Milk Gravy. It's almost un-Whitaker to not like it...sorry). Grandpa immediately fell asleep after his breakfast.

Night-night

Kevin, Branden and Alex ate their milk gravy, bueberry muffins and of course....Coke.

My uncle Scott and my cousin Max were there too. Scott was showing us a play that he and some friends wrote for Park City Municipal somthing-or-other. It was a 5 act play. Each act was one of the 5 "R"s: reduce, recycle, reuse, restore, rethink. The had a waterbottle monster in the recycle scene, and in another act they had a chocolate chip cookie bake off with the Solar Sheriff with his solar oven and "The Man" with his machine. It was pretty cool.

Nikki has a ton more pictures, so hopefully she's send some with me in it to prove I was there ;)

I peed my pants!

(luckily there are no pictures to accompany this post)

So, I had to fly to Chicago last week and I was running to my car from work so I could go to the airport. I was really worried I wasn't going to make it to the airport in time before I peed my pants. So I drove through the ghetto (Rosepark by the State Fair Grounds) on my way to the airport and contemplated going in to a Taco Bell to pee, but I didn't for 3 reasons: 1) it was the ghetto, 2) YUCK! and 3)Branden's Germophobia would cause him to be so disappointed in me!

So...I figured I should make it to the airport and I continued on my journey. When I got to the airport fear set in as I realized that I had to park in long-term parking and ride the shuttle to the airport before I would be able to pee. I found a parking spot after about 5 minutes of driving around the parking lot. I saw a shuttle coming so I hurried and got my bags out of the trunk. I took 2 or 3 steps toward the shuttle when I just couldn't hold it any more...and I peed in my pants right there in the parking lot! Luckily I had a skirt on....so I jsut ran behind my car and dropped my drawers for the remainder of the tweedle.

I figured that if I had to pee my pants, this was the ideal situation....it was in a remote location with no people around, I had a skirt on, and I had clean unders in my luggage. And to be honest...peeing your pants isn't as bad as I expected it to be!

Carving Pumpkins

My dad came into town to pick up his retired police dog. We went out to dinner and then carved pumpkins at our house. I made Branden get the guts out of my pumpkins because I hate the yucky insides.

Branden & I were racing to finish....my dad and I tied.

We were making fun of Branden because his facial expressions were so intense. He was super focused.

This was my pumpkin....

My dad's was the witch....

And Brandens was a headless pumpkin horseman. Ok, his was most impressive. I guess his focus paid off.

Lake Tahoe

When I graduated with my undergrad and Branden graduated with his masters degree (May 2008), my Grandpa let Branden and I pick a vacation spot and he got us a condo for a few days. We stayed at the South end of Tahoe right across the street from Heavenly Ski Resort. This is us at a lookout point on the south-west corner of the lake.

Pic of the lake from the lookout.

This is a pic of us right next to the edge of a cliff. This waterfall is right off of the side of the road and it "falls" right over the cliff. It was weird to be able to walk right to the edge.

See...

So we decided to hike to the source of the waterfall...so we followed the river up the mountain. (I was sure that we were going to run into a bear and die the whole time).

This is the lake at the top of the river. It was so peaceful. There was no one else at the lake or on the trail..so we got to enjoy it all to ourselves.

You can see the lake at the top and the river as it runs down the mountain. It was so pretty!

A few miles away there is an old castle that is in a cove and there is this winding trail that's about a 1/2 mile long but the grade is really steep. It takes you from the road down the mountain to this castle. They give tours at the castle, but we missed the last one by a few minutes...so all of the people that were down there were headed back up the trail. There was only one other couple left down there and we came across a bear. The other couple was walking right toward it so we tried to get their attention. While we were doing that...we lost the dumb bear. I know it's super hard to see, but behind the cabin and on the left side of the big tree trunk (about 1/3 of the way up the trunk) you can see the bear's bum and back half. I was terrified. It wandered off TOWARD THE TRAIL that we had to take back up the mountain. There was seriously nowhere he could go but in the water or up the trail. So the whole time back up the trail I was sure he was going to jump out and eat me.

The place we stayed let us "check out" bikes for a few hours at a time and they even offered to drive us in one of their trucks to this bike trail that was about 10 miles away. We fit the bikes in our rental car and spent a few hours on this bike trail! It was cool because it was only about 100 yards from the highway on one side and 100 yards from the lake on the other...but you felt like you were in the woods because there were so many trees you couldn't see either the lake or the highway. It was a fun little trail "in the woods" that we didn't have to go too far to get to.

This is me on the side of the bike trail.

We got off of our bikes and worked our way through the trees to the lake. It's unlike any other lake I've been to. At Tahoe, in most places the trees come right up to the lake and the sand isn't sand at all...it's rocks. (and p.s. it's way too cold and dark to swim in). It's like a gorgous little mountain lake on a much larger scale.

Pic of the south shoreline. Makes me want to go back. We haven't been there since the fires on the south side. I wonder how much has changed because of the fire.

I was so obsessed with the sand that wasn't sand. It was tons of these amber colored rocks (and it wasn't that soft to walk on barefooted) It was so pretty though.

This is a beach on the east side of the lake a few blocks from where we stayed. It was close to walk to, so we went down there a few times. I don't think Branden's ever been more frustrated....standing so close to this goose and not being able to shoot it. It's good for him. Birds are meant for flying.

This is the Stardust Lodge, which is where we stayed. It had a pool which was cool. We went to "orientation" on friday night after we checked in and it was 99.9% people over the age of 65. The orientation was to tell about the different "activities" that would be going on at the Stardust throughout the week. It was really funny. It was all geared toward the old folks. It was fine though. The staff was awesome and we didn't need any entertaining. We spent every day out kining, biking, and exploring.

Since we checked in early, we got "upgraded" to the honeymoon suite. I almost fell over laughing when we walked in. The bed (and the couch below) were made of crushed orange velvet. It was so sweet. It was 1970s vegas in the woods. We were just grateful we had somewhere free to stay.

We were too nervous to touch the couch. In fact I threw Branden's pillow on it once just to watch him freak out. (those of you who know him know that germs will not be tolerated by him). I really hope we can get back to Tahoe soon. It was probably the best trip Branden and I have been on together.

Our 2 Kits

We love our 2 kits. They both came to us by accident. We found Little Buddy in the road and he never left and the Black Kitty used to be my grandma's. We never gave them proper names, but it is not a reflection of our love for them. (Black Kitty's "real" name is Nibs and Little Buddy's is Max. They only have "real" names for use at the vet's office.) Here black kitty is giving little buddy a bath.

Ready for dinner.

Anyone who has cats knows that they love to squeeze into warm tight places. I don't even know he managed to get into the middle of this blanket and keep it all folded with a pillow still on top.

Boxes, plastic sacks, and paper of any kind are also kitty favorites.

Black kitty sheds a lot in the summer, so as soon as it is warm outside we shave her. This time we forgot to tell the groomer to leave her tail hair, so he looked like a rat this summer.

I think maybe this was kitty's revenge for the shaving. I guess that's what we get for getting our camping stuff ready in the front room.

Little buddy is such a poser. He knows he's cute and he knows what to do to make you think he's cute so you'll give him loves. He'll flop down on the floor right in front of you and strike a few poses.

When Branden worked crazy shifts at work, he slept a lot in the daytime which meant he usually had some cuddle buddies. (They're not allowed in our room at the new house....so I'm sure they're feeling a little neglected. Little Budy LOVES to sleep under the covers!

Curiosity about the duck boat. Who knowa what # this duckboat was. Seems like Branden gets a new one almost every year.

Curious, but cautious.

I don't know why, but buddy sleeps with his arms out in front of him a lot. I think he just knows it's cute.

Branden would probably punch me if he knew I posted this picture :)

Here's a pic of what Black Kitty looks like when her tail isn't shaved. (and notice....a different duck boat in the background)

Guess we took too long to unload the grocery (looks like Costco) run.