In Rememberance

Just a short note before I decide to write a long blog about what really happened today. Jeff Kent has retired...I know, sad news. So this is in rememberance of the amazing career he had as a second baseman. I've only been a fan of him for two seasons, which is when I finally became a baseball fan and a Dodger fanatic, but during this time I have come to find out what a great player he is (or I guess was) even at the age of 39 and 40. He was the 2000 NL MVP, five-time All-Star and four-time Silver Slugger. He will retire with a .290 career batting average, 377 home runs, 1,518 RBIs and a .500 slugging percentage. His 351 home runs hit as a second baseman are 74 more than the next closest second baseman, Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg. So he a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame! I know I would vote for him! He is settling in Austin, Texas with his wife and four kids ranging from ages 5 to 12. But all in all, even though he is one of baseballs top 10 hot-heads, he was a good guy (from what I can tell at least) and a good member of the Church. So, even though he's still alive, I just wanted to say farewell Jeff Kent. I will always love you! (but don't tell my husband that!) Also, I'm just glad he retired with the Dodgers :)

Major Change

Ok. So I (Natalie) have made a big decision that I am trying my best not to regret. I changed my major from Psychology to Communication Disorders, which is Speech Pathology and Audiology. A few days before this semester began, I just started getting the feeling and began thinking that I wanted to be a Speech Therapist. So after talking it out with my parents and my hubby, I made the official and final decision to change my major the day after school started. It's a big sacrifice because it puts me back a semester and I HAVE to go to grad school if I want a career in Speech Pathology. I just hope I'm doing the right thing, but I guess only time will tell right? This idea didn't just come out of nowhere, by the way. When I tranferred to BYU, it's what I wanted to do, but I took the intro class and changed my mind. I tend to do that a lot. But unless I want to be in school forever, then I'm stuck with this major. That's ok though. It will be a lot of work but I think it's the best thing for the future. Wish me luck!

BELIEVE

I figure now is as good a time as any to write about our wonderful Christmas vacation! Especially since we are just sitting around waiting to our favorite show of all time to premier for the new season. SCRUBS is the ultimate best and luckily for us, we both LOVE it!! Anyway, we had the wonderful opportunity to go home to California for the week and a half of Christmas vacation that we had. Unfortunately we had to work the first Monday and Tuesday of vacation causing us to wait until Christmas Eve to go home, but it turned out to be fine. We had a great Christmas Day! We stayed at the Jones' home for the first week and the tradition there is to wake up at 7am to start opening presents. That was a little hard to do, but the excitement of Christmas helps a lot. After opening our presents, we headed over to the Simonds' home to spend the day. It was nice because my brother, his wife, and their baby boy were able to make it down as well and we all got to open presents together. We always hav fun opening presents because we take turns to see what everyone got and their reactions. The common themed reaction this year was "It's a sweater!!" and if you haven't seen The Three Amigos...watch it!! We soon headed back to the Jones' home to enjoy a delicious Christmas dinner prepared by Bryan's mom. The rest of the vacation consisted mostly of relaxing and enjoying NOT being in school for a change. Some other highlights of our vacation were going to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and Downtown Disney as well as just plain spending time with our families. It was SO nice being away from Utah and in the 70 degree weather that we experienced in Cali! We didn't have to wear boots, sweaters, long-sleeve shirts, beanies, glove, scarves or anything like it the whole time we were down there and it only rained twice. We can't wait to finally be permanently back there for good! Well, we hope you had a great a vacation as we did and we're sorry that the unfortunate school has to start back up again so soon. Good luck in your studies or your jobs and treat you families (and especially spouses) well for the New Year! Happy 2009!!! This is us in a fake bird's nest at the Wild Animal park.