Catching up

We've been busy! Mel and I moved her out to Oregon around Labor Day weekend. I got to stay at Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with Mel's dad.

The suspension bridge is the foot bridge over the Colorado River. The other photo is a shot of the trip down.

Ultrasound

 

Picture Phones

So, after 2 years of having a picture phone, I finally figured out how to get the pictures from my phone to my computer. These pictures are some of my favorites!

This is a picture of our handsome baby boy incubating inside Mel right now. This is a picture of a picture, so quality is definitely lacking, but you get the idea.

This was taken on Mission Bay in San Diego. Mel is in the back in control of the sailboat while her mom is there in the front.

Mel and I graduated from BYU on the same day!

This is pretty gruesome, I know, but this is a real sharks head from Ocean City, MD. That is not my hand.

This is Mel in her finest form :) I snapped this one while we were visiting family in CA. Those are her cousin's clean underwear on her head.

My finest jack o'lantern carving ever!

Jared Jensen making himself at home on my couch. Sorry, Jared, this was too good not to post.

Me and Jeremy Dunford @ work. No, we did not plan this one.

Mel is cute :)
Me skiing in Utah!
The way the setting sun hit these leaves, it made it look like they were glowing.

XY

We're having a boy! I'll post the sonogram pictures as soon as we get them scanned in.

What is it?

Monday is the day, folks! I'm catching a flight to TX tomorrow to spend the weekend with Melanie and on Monday we will learn the gender of our first born child!

Everyone asks , "What do you think it will be?" and I've decided that I think it is a boy. When it comes down to it, though, I'm just excited to be expecting a baby in December!

West Coast Living

Well, I am in Oregon! Here's a picture I took while mountain biking near Mount Hood.
Melanie and I took a trip to San Diego with her family July 12 -16. Spent a lot of time on the beach, went sailing on Mission Bay, and just had a good old time taking it easy.Mel has a really cute new short hair cut, if you haven't noticed. As for me, I don't like to shave on vacation - but I might have to if I don't want to look too ugly with all my scruff!

The Plan

Mel and I are headed out to San Diego on Wednesday for a little vacation time with her family on Mission Beach. I'll fly from San Diego to Portland and start working at Lincoln Heritage on Monday, July 17.

What a whirlwind week! Mel's going to be in Texas for at least a month until her employer, Health Fitness Corporation, can find, hire, and train her replacement. I'm not excited to be separated from her for any amount of time - especially when she's first starting to show some signs of being pregnant! Her appointment with the sonogram to find out the gender of the baby is in 4 more weeks, so I'll definitely be back for that one.

As far as our house goes, I think we are going to rent it out. I've done some research and it looks like that will make a lot more financial sense. We have some friends in our ward that are going to help us. This week we'll start advertising for tenants.

In other news, I'd like to bid farewel to the Suburban. We sold it on Friday. In memory of the 'Burb - 1991 to 2006.

Resignation

Me at Mount Hood - Timberline Lodge & Ski Resort (yes, they still ski in June!)

After nearly two years I resigned from my position at Texas Wasatch. I guess I need to update the "What I Do" link. You would think that I would get some time, like 2 weeks or something before I have to stop working, but tomorrow is my last day!

Mel and I decided that the move to Oregon will be the best for our family long term. I'm excited about the opportunity - not just the long term prospects, but the actual day-to-day of the job.

I'll post more thoughts about this later because it is late, but here are some pictures from my 36 hours in Oregon; 10 of which I spent touring the state.

There aren't many places where you can spend part of the day on the beach surfing and the other part of the day in the mountains skiing.

This picture is me at Cannon Beach.

This second picture is Cannon Beach view from a cliff.

Our Baby... Birds

We noticed about a month ago that a mourning dove and a couple of eggs had taken up residence in a hanging plant that Mel got for her birthday this year. Those eggs hatched while we were in Ohio and we now have our very own family of birds!

Big Changes?

Last week I got a call from a friend from BYU offering me a job with his dad's company.

I'm faced with a decision that could mean some big changes. Other than completely switching careers and giving up everything that I've worked towards at Texas Wasatch, it would mean a whole new state (Oregon), leaving behind close friends, selling our home, and Melanie giving up the opportunity of a lifetime with her new job as a fitness center manager for Radio Shack's corporate headquarters.

Not an easy decision - that's for sure. Taking this job wouldn't even be worth considering if I was completely satisfied with my current job selling insurance. But really, who wants to sell insurance? I sure don't! The problem is that, economically speaking, this job is next to unbeatable in both the short and long term.

I think I am also getting tired of being in the same routine every day. I don't think I am learning much and I'd love a change of scenery. Professionally I feel like my progress has slowed and I don't feel as challenged as I think I should. When I came on board to Texas Wasatch I think I expected more professional development than what I've experienced to date.

I brought up my concerns in my monthly interview with Kevin Hockenjos. I eventually told him that I had a job offer I'm considering that, at first glance, looks comparable to Texas Wasatch. Since I told him, I was kind of obligated to tell Mark Jones as well. Both of them argued that this is still the best job for me - what would you expect. I do not expect them to fight for me Both precedent and common sense tells me that they would be unhappy if I left but I shouldn't expect a counter offer or other benefits to entice me to stay.

We'll see where this goes when I fly out to Oregon in a couple weeks to meet with the partners. I have to convince them that they should pay me what I'm worth and they need to convince me that I should give up everything here in Texas to move to Oregon and work for them.

Going Home

Mel and I went 'home' a couple weeks ago for Memorial Day to help Mom get her house ready to sell. We cleaned out the basement and attic and tackled a few other rooms. We hauled a bunch of stuff to the dump, and burned what we could in our back yard.

Eric and I had fun with the fire. We dumped all the fuel we could find on the fire (lamp oil, old kerosene from the basement, and lighter fluid) and lit the pile. The flames were about 20 - 30 feet high and hot enough to scorch the grass and wilt leaves on a tree more than 10 feet from the fire. The next morning Jeff & Brad Goldie helped us load up the pile of junk and scrap metal to take to the dump.

It is tough to let go of 'home' - that house is where I grew up. It must be even harder for Mom and Audrey because that is where they are all the time. But the home is too big and too much to maintain for just the two of them.

Mom let her boss know that she would be gone by the end of the summer and met with a real estate agent last week to help sell the home. I guess this is the official end of an era.

One of my favorite things about going back to Ohio was meeting up with friends. It worked out that Brad & Bekah Goldie (along with their baby Nicholas) were in town. We went up to Cincinnati to hang out with Jason & Gini Forbes and Jared & Dani Jensen (plus their twins). Good times and great memories. It will be fun getting together as all of our children get older because all the kids will be about the same age (plus or minus a year or so).

Costa Rica

Another set of photos that I like from our trip to Costa Rica with Jeremy & Angela.

Adventures in Oklahoma

A couple weeks ago we took a trip to Turner Falls in Oklahoma with our friends, Jeremy & Angela Dunford. It rained all night and when we woke up in the morning we discovered that we were stranded! The low water crossing over the river had a lot of water flowing over it -- enough to sweep this poor Honda Civic off the road!
Needless to say we decided to call our friends, David & Chelsea Boss to rescue us from the other side of the river. Thank goodness for the footbridge! This place will be a lot of fun to visit when it doesn't rain all night!

Heartbeat

We heard the heartbeat!

On the 11th we went to Mel's doctor for her first checkup. The ultrasound tech turned on the sound without saying anything and we heard the heartbeat! I can't believe that this little 10 mm thing inside of Melanie has a heartbeat!

Costa Rica - vacation photo of the month

Costa Rica

Telling family and friends

We've started telling our friends and family about Mel being pregnant. It was interesting because at first we were so shocked and only told my mom and her parents, but now the flood gates have opened and today we told the Churchill's, our friend's the Hewitts (they had their baby last November), and more of Mel's family.

We are pretty excited about it ourselves. For me it comes in waves. The thought of changing a poopy diaper still terrifies me, but as I was laying in bed today taking a nap after church I thought about what it would feel like to take a nap with a little baby sleeping on my belly. Funny though, I know, but little moments like that make me think a little more about it.

The other day as I was driving home from work I thought -Well, I guess Mel and I won't be able to go mountain biking together once we have a baby because then we would have to get a baby sitter and that would just make it more difficult.-

Mel and I were talking last night about changes in life. There is always some hesitancy about change. I think about going away to college my Freshman year. Leaving college my freshman year and knowing that was the end of my child hood for good. Going on my mission, coming home from my mission, leaving BYU after graduating to come to Texas. Things like that are sad at the time but you move on and life progresses.

Having a baby is just the next step in that progression. We close the "Jim & Mel" chapter of our marriage and open a new one with a new plot and exciting changes called "Jim, Mel, and the baby."

In the beginning...

I've always wanted to be a regular journal writer, so maybe this blog is the 21st century journal. Rather than trying to justify why I'm doing a blog, I'm just going to start writing to see how this goes.