Saturday, April 12, 2008

Spring!

In the past few days it has gotten warmer. Today it was 70 with the sun shining and the flowers are starting to bloom. After a long winter, it feels really good.


I just wanted to share my joy about the changing of the seasons. I hope you are having spring weather where you are!

Saturday, April 5, 2008

How Casey bakes bread

Casey and I both like to cook, although one of us seems to do it quite a bit more than the other. I'll let you guess which one. For Christmas I got him a french bread pan because he really loves sourdough and french bread. He has made is successfully several times, but we thought it would be a little better if it could rise a little bit more. He found the warmest spot in the house, on top of the computer, to help it rise. I just started laughing when I saw it tucked away in our office. It turned out great though. :)

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Dreaming of Florida....

I am getting SOOOO sick of winter and I can't wait for Spring and Florida.  On Friday we woke up to about an inch of snow.  It wasn't too bad, but I was just starting to think that Spring was on its way.  


Work has been really stressful lately and I just keep thinking how it will be over soon, and then it will start to get warm, and then we'll be in Florida.  For those of you who don't know very much about Sarasota (where we will be for the summer), I will fill you in a bit.  Its on the gulf coast about half way down the peninsula, about an hour south of Tampa.  Siesta Key, which is one of the best beaches in Florida, is in Sarasota.  And yes, we are accepting visitors if anyone wants to come be a beach bum with me this summer.  I am planning to try to find a temp job, but based on my experience here, I'm betting I will be spending a good amount of time on the beach.

I'm also excited to see where Casey grew up and to go to Disney World.  I've been wanting to go there since I was about ten, and it is the happiest place on earth.  We may also sneak in a cruise if we're lucky.   I'll put up a few pictures of the beach to create jealousy in all of you.  :)

Thursday, March 6, 2008

A Good Week

This week has been a very good one for me. A few of the things I wrote about in the previous post but I will expound on them some more.

On Tuesday I had an interview with the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida. I felt that the interview went really quite well. They told me that they would get back to me by next Monday. Well they got back sooner. On Wednesday afternoon they called to offer me a position as their summer marketing intern. I got off the phone with them with the biggest grin on my face. It felt so good to have an offer and know that I did not have to stress about that anymore. I called them this morning and officially accepted the offer, so we will be summering on the beautiful Gulf Coast of Florida. I start June 12 and finish up the first of August. But we may stay a bit longer and play around.

As I mentioned in the previous post I am on a team that has entered a business plan into two different business plan competitions (our company name is Pyrolitix Biofuels). The first is the Ignite Clean Energy Competition, which we found out we made it through to the semi-finals on Tuesday. The second is the MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition, which we found out tonight that we are among the 50 of 232 that made it through to the semi-finals. I am very excited about this opportunity. I have already learned a lot and I am sure will learn a lot more in the next two months. The semi-final presentations for both competitions are in April, and the finals, should we make it, are in May.

Today, so Heavenly Father makes sure we don't get too happy in the blessings he is giving us, our car broke on Suzy as she drove to work. One of the idler pulleys for the belt disintegrated and so the power-steering went out and the cooling system as well. A similar thing had happened to me a few year ago. Fortunately Suzy was able to guide the car into a parking lot just off the freeway and walk the last mile or so to work. It just so happened that the parking lot she pulled into was right next to a Chevy car dealership (we drive a Chevy). I rode the bus over after class and took the car in. They were great and we were able to get the car back this evening. So even in the trial Heavenly Father showed His hand and made sure that we were taken care of.

The most ironic thing was that this morning before Suzy called with the bad news, I was thinking to myself, "things are going so good...too good, what kind of wrench is going to be thrown into life to test our faith." I am glad that in the end this wrench wasn't that bad.

I also feel guilty and have to admit that I wrote the last post during a class.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

It's March!

We were excited that it was already March, with hopes that soon the crazy New England winter would soon be over. The sun even teased us on Saturday with sunshine and warmth. But we were sad to learn at Church on Sunday that March is perhaps the snowiest/wettest month of the year, and with that information our hopes came back down to earth. 


This week has been good. Yesterday I had an interview for a summer internship with the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, in Sarasota, Florida. The interview went really well, and the internship is near the top of our list. First of which because the internship is paid, but mostly because it is in Sarasota! And that sounds perfectly wonderful right now. 

In other good news...I have been working with a team in a business plan competition, well two actually, one at MIT and the other based in Boston. My Bishop is a chemical engineering professor here at UMass, and has come up with some new clean energy technology. So one of the 2nd year students, one of my Bishop's PhD students and I have put together a business plan based on the technology and entered it into these two clean energy business competitions. We found out yesterday that we made the semi-finals in one, and we will find out tomorrow about the other one. I am pretty excited about the competition, it has been really interesting as I have worked on it, and we like our chances to win the whole thing.

Suzy is doing well. She is pretty busy working, and in her callings in the Relief Society and finding time for Seminary, too. Unfortunately, we have no pictures because we have been stuck inside all the time because of the bad weather. So someday we will venture outside and do something and take pictures so that our posts will be more interesting.