And the second best job in America is...

Actuary! Woot!

"Many children dream of one day being a cowboy or a cowgirl. Few fantasize about being an actuary.

They may want to rethink their career paths."

I saw this in an article the other day, here.

"[A] study, released from CareerCast.com, a new job site, evaluates 200 professions to determine the best and worst according to five criteria inherent to every job: environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands and stress."

Actuary is consistently in the top 10 or so on these kinds of lists for the last decade. On this last list, Mathematician is #1, Actuary #2 and Statistician is #3. Pretty sweet, huh? I guess Brent made a good career choice for which I am very thankful. Oh, and for those of you who don't know, Brent passed Exam 6 which he took in Oct. On to #7!

Go Brent!

It's the Final Countdown!!

Brent had the idea to make one of these to help us countdown the days until we move to London. It's fun. Our livingroom looks like a party all the time with the added bonus of me being able to better gauge how many days (we're at 62 now) I have to get everything ready. It's getting really close and I'm kinda behind schedule. Lots of organizing, packing and random stuff to do. Anyone want to come help? Just kidding. Kind of.

In reference to the title of this post...



(thanks Melissa for reminding me about this song)

Surprise!

Ok, time for more catching up...

A few weeks ago, Brent surprised me with an early anniversary trip to Santa Barbara. We were only gone for one night but that was plenty long enough. The trip was a complete surprise. He apparently had been planning it since his birthday and had even called on some friends who know SB for help. Tricky guy.

A little back story. I don't like surprises. Well, that's not entirely true. I like to be surprised as long as I don't know it's coming. Brent does this a lot. I'm not sure why but he's always trying to catch me off guard with something, which is fine, as long as I don't know there is a surprise in queue. It's times when "I have a surprise for you!" comes out of his mouth and then he proceeds to not tell me what it is or when I should expect it that it makes me a little nuts. Luckily, this was not one of those times.

He kept this one a secret until the weekend before when he told me to keep my schedule for the next Fri-Sat open but he didn't tell me what for. The next Thursday night, he pulled out a suitcase and told me to pack enough stuff for one night and one day. What?!

The next morning, he had a Dr's appointment and we had portraits (christmas gift from my dad) scheduled so after those were done, we got on the freeway and started driving. It wasn't until we exited in SB that I knew where we were headed. Sneaky boy.

Anyway, he booked us in a cute Bed & Breakfast called the Old Yacht Club Inn. We got there before check-in so we drove around SB for awhile exploring. We found our way up into the hills and the on the way back, found the SB Mission so we stopped and did a little walking around.


Then we went back to the B&B and checked in, found the gourmet gift basket on our bed that Brent had them put together for us, changed clothes and headed off to dinner.


We ate at a little place on State Street called Palazzio. It was family-style Italian. The Italian cream soda, garlic rolls and the gelato were fantastic! The entrees themselves were ok but the other stuff made up for it. There was a Christmas parade that night so on our way back to the car we caught a little bit of it. We got back to the hotel and watched some old Christmas movies on tv. Brent had gotten a tetanus shot at his Dr. appointment and so he had a fever and wasn't feeling well (in hindsight we probably should've waited on the tetanus shot).

The next morning we ate breakfast (green chili cheese souffle, quite yummy) and checked out. We drove around some more and stopped to walk along Stearn's Wharf. While on the wharf, we saw pelicans (freaky!), seals, dolphins, street artists and pirates. We stopped in the gift shops and bought some saltwater taffy, fudge and an ornament for our Christmas tree. After that we walked along the main street to look at some shops and get some lunch. On our way out of town, we stopped off at a Bohemian Cafe for dessert and had chocolate fudge cake with rose buttercream frosting. It was interesting to say the least.


It was a really relaxing 24 hours and it was just what we needed after a long, busy fall and with the holidays coming up. Plus, who doesn't like getting away with their spouse? Crazy people, that's who. And do we look crazy?! Don't answer that...

Thanksgiving Extravaganza!

Ok, here is the basic run down from our Thanksgiving trip to Fresno:

We sat in hours of traffic trying to get out of LA on Wed night(no surprise there, just annoying).

Cami gave me a hair cut. I kind of looked like a poodle afterward. And let me just point out that this is why I always have some sort of product in my hair and never brush it when it's dry. But after washing and gooping it up, the new cut was great!

We had dinner at Kris & Jo-Ann's (my brother & his girlfriend) house. Jo-Ann had a baby on my birthday. Her name is True and she's very cute and looks like her daddy.

On Black Friday we woke up disgustingly early and went shopping. We got some screaming deals and managed to buy a few things we weren't planning on getting until we saw the ads the night before. Brent got a new camera for himself and he bought me an awesome camera! There is a really long story about the purchase of said camera but the condensed version is that we bought it at a great deal but then went to Costco and found it even cheaper so tried to return the original but they wouldn't let us so we had to go back to Costco to return the second one. It was funny at first but by the 3rd time going back and forth, I was ready to just have my dang camera already!


Friday afternoon/evening, my sisters and niece and mom helped me make gingerbread for our gingerbread houses and Brent rode in Bob's diesel for the first time. Then we went to the Makely's to play games. Between the shopping and the cooking I realized that I had been on my feet for about 16 hours so I was content to just sit and cuddle with Hope and Sam while the others played.


Saturday morning we (Brent, Me, Cami, Luis, Tiffani and Richard) went to the Fresno temple to do an endowment session. I really wanted to do that because it happened to be the 5th anniversary of the day I received my own endowment. We were asked to be the witness couple so that was cool. I can tell you, there is not much in this world that is better than being in the temple with family.

Saturday afternoon we headed over to the Makely's house to decorate our gingerbread houses and have an "unBirthday party" where we all sang to each other and ate mom's super yummy german chocolate cupcakes.

On Sunday we went to church with the Makely's and afterward Brent played games with the kids while Tiffani and I played our own game. We took pictures of Sam. Then we went back to mom's to hang out with her and Bob and to set up their webcam we bought for Christmas so that we could show them how to use it.


Then we drove home. On Monday night we Skype'd with mom. It was fun.

The end.

It was really great to be with family. Driving into the central valley I could smell it (those of you who have been there know what I'm talking about). The difference is that in the winter, instead of smelling like animal, it smells like dried up orchards, the remains of the fruit drying season and fog. Lots of fog. The valley gets so foggy in the winter that they sometimes cancel school. But I digress. As soon as we could smell the valley it instantly brought back happy memories of the holidays with my mom and family. We have some fun traditions in our family and they are what always get me excited about the holidays. Living here in LA with the sun and warmth, I forget that it is winter so driving into that foggy, smelly, wonderful place, I was ready for the holidays. It made leaving really hard...