Camping in Flag

So, we went camping in Flagstaff over Memorial Day weekend. The weather was nice there the week before, but for the weekend a cold front moved in. Karl and I showed up Friday night at 7 pm and started setting up fast so we could so we could get settled before it was dark. By the time our tent was set up and we were moving everything in it started to snow!!! So we got everything in and bundled up a bit more and then got ready to camp while snowing. We had borrowed a space heater that runs on propane so that helped. We also got Carson this warm fleece sleeper that saved us. He slept toasty warm each night. We called him our little Ewok in this outfit.

The wind kept Karl and I up a bit but the cold wasn't that bad. We spent a day checking out these old Native American ruins. It was pretty cool. The one with Carson is over a "blow hole." There was cool air just flying out of it. You can see Carson's hair coming up (and there was a gate on it so nothing can fall in).

We also played some more paint ball. For some reason my left arm was a magnet. I got hit three times in the left arm and once in the left hand. I was pretty sure if I got hit in that arm again I'd cry. Karl got a mean bruise on his back. But of course it was fun. We tried a new game where we all start together and get 10 seconds to run and hide - all against all. I didn't do so great though because I hadn't closed my hopper tight enough and all my paint spilled out as I was running to hide. So then I was frantically picking up paint as everyone else hid. Needless to say, I was the first out. We also all went and saw the new Indiana Jones movie. I thought it was pretty good but it was my 1st Indiana Jones movie ever so I didn't have expectations. I think some thought it was a little out there.

I got all my CPA review material and it is hefty. So now I'm going to start plugging away at that. Karl got to go to a Diamondbacks game with clients for work on Thursday. He had a good time. And then we both went to a D-Backs game last night. Karl won tickets at work. So that was fun. Vickie watched Carson for us and I forgot to take wipes over to her house. And of course Carson had a major mess. So if I ever ask you to babysit - perhaps make a checklist before I leave your house.

Carson is starting to talk complete jibberish all day long. It's pretty funny. Some of his favorites are liddle liddle and well...tons of others that I can't figure out how to spell. Karl and I are getting very excited for Hawaii. The Cordell family is going on June 21st. Also coming up is Carson's 1st birthday on the 18th. Karl and I have our 5 year anniversary on the 7th. Big month!


Kasey

Official

Well it's official - I'm employed. I start in September so I have the summer to pass the CPA exam and relax - and visit Spokane!!! I got the offer on Friday and am excited. I think Moss Adams will be a really good fit for me. So now Karl and I have a bunch of decisions to make.

I forgot to blog about an IRS day I had at the end of the semester. Our fraud accounting class got to be "IRS Fraud Investigators" for a day. It was pretty fun. We had to solve the accounting mysteries. We worked with a whole team of IRS agents and had to do interviews and fake search warrent situations. I was hoping that sometime in the day I could shout "Where were you on the night of the murder?"...but it never really applied. I should have just thrown it into my suspect interview anyway - that would have really scared them. Anyway, the project is called "Project Adrian." And the IRS has only done it at a few schools so far. It was really cool that they choose to try it at ASU. Here is the link to the school article on it http://asunews.asu.edu/node/3140. Our teacher, Barb Muller, is really involved and was my favorite professor ever. The project was really fun, although I'm pretty sure I'm not going to become a fraud investigator.

That's all - we're going camping this weekend so I'm sure there will be pics to come.

Oh Man

Time really flew all of the sudden. A few exciting things have happened in our lives.
Carson first...He is now walking like crazy. If he falls he just stands right back up and starts again. I keep trying to get video of it to post but of course he doesn't want to cooperate. I'll get it soon though. He holds his little arms out in front of him like Frankenstein. Another item, I took Carson to get his first hair cut at a real salon type place. I trimmed his hair the other night and it looked awful. It's just gotten so thick I can't do it very well anymore. So after I tried (and he looked like Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber) I took him to Cool Cuts 4 Kids so they could fix it. We were in and out in 15 minutes and he now looks cute as can be. They sit the kids in a little car and strap them in. There is a TV at every station that is hooked up to movies, video games, whatever. So Carson watched Elmo and didn't even notice his hair being cut. He started to want to look all over though so I distracted him with bubbles. He didn't like when she got out the clippers because I held his head still. But once it was over he was happy. It's a real little boy haircut...all short on top. I tried to get some pics but it is so hard to see the difference not in person.

This pic is too funny. This is the only cabinet without the locks on it. I left it for him because there isn't anything breakable in it and I think he should be able to explore something. Anyway, he usually spends half the morning emptying it and playing with each item. The other morning though he worked so hard to get himself and his bunny inside. It took him quite awhile.



Karl was bored the other day and put Carson in this hutch (I know baby torture). Carson thought it was hilarious and kept smooshing his face against the glass.



This is one of his favorite places to sit. I pull out his toy box and he always just climbs right in and then starts to play.




School is finally over - and for me that means completely, for Karl that means for the summer. Karl only has one more year and then he's done with his Masters. I did really well and ended up with an overall GPA of 3.97. I'm pretty proud of that because I worked hard. People ask if I'm glad to be done...which I am because it's nice to reach a goal, but I really did enjoy my classes. I think I'll kind of miss it (I know weird). But I've entertained the idea of a masters somewhere down the road...we'll see. Karl did really well this last semester too. He really enjoyed his GIS class (a software program I don't know much about but you can look it up if you want to know more).

This weekend was especially FUN!!! Jessie came into town with the studio she teaches at for the NYCDA competition (you can also look up that if you want to know more). She came to be the convention's tap teacher's demonstrator. She came in Friday night and we all went out to dinner for Vickie's birthday!! Then we hung out at Vickie's and ate the delicious cake Josh made her. Saturday the convention began and I took full advantage of Jessie and sneaked into a few classes. Just to attend for a day is about $100 and you get a wrist band that allows you to roam free. I just didn't have a band and no one stopped me...so...their fault...right? I was just testing the system and they failed...moving on. I got to take three tap classes and watch a lot of jazz classes. I saw some incredible dancers. One of which...I think you might know her...Sabra Johnson!!!

Jessie and I were in the lobby when she walked right next to us and I turned into a 12 year old girl and had a little silent freak out. She's a celebrity to us so we were really excited. She was helping with the competition and teaching a few classes (she also sat right in front of us at the competition and Jessie got a pic of the back of her head with her cell phone, a need to get a copy of that). Anyway, the competition went great, Jessie did a great job demonstrating, I learned a few new tap tricks, and had so much fun. The tap teacher was named Danny Wallace and he's involved with a program called Tap the Map. They tour the US teaching tap workshops. I really hope the come to this area but it isn't planned yet. Tap is just so much more present on the east coast than it is here. Then Sunday night Jessie went back home. Anyway - a great weekend.


Funny story and then I'm done. (Warning: don't be offended my fellow AZ dwellers, as most of you already know...this city doesn't quite fit me perfectly) The weather was unusual for AZ today. It was cloudy and windy. I love these days. It is such a nice break from the blue and it makes me feel so excited. I was driving along and it started pouring rain. I just sat in my car smiling and loving every second. It made me feel like I was in a different city and I was thinking about how it will be nice to move someday. I came out of my day dream and realized "Funky Town" was playing on the radio. Right as I tuned into the song it said "Got to make a move to a town that's right for me." I started laughing so hard. Someday we'll probably move...but for now AZ is nice and definitely has it's benefits (family, warm winters, hmmmm, I'm sure there are more).

Well - that's all. Sorry it's long. I should have posted sooner.


Kasey

I Love The Water!!

I just thought I'd post these few things of Carson. The first is his bath time. This is his happiest time of the day (night). When Karl is administering the bath - there's no play. Carson is in and out and into his jammies is 5 seconds. I let Carson splash and chase his toys around the tub for quite a while. But I took a few pics the other night cause he was just so cute. I gave him a sweet mohawk. (He likes to suck on the washcloth because of his teeth). Here is a short video of him in the tub too.

Carson and I went swimming at Vickie's again today. I took some pics and a video. The water was still only 70 degrees but he loved it. Here's a video of Vickie dipping him in the pool. You can see the cold on his face at first but then he gets excited. Sorry it isn't better - I don't know why it has the streaks at the top.

Anyway - we have a little water bug on our hands.

Attack of the Lizards!

I had a close encounter the other day. Some of you may laugh (as Karl did) but I'm all creeped out now. We frequently have (what I consider) large lizards in our back yard. The other day it was national geographic though and being spring...I hope you know what I mean. Then two males were fighting - which was actually kind of interesting because they were flying all over the backyard. A while later I needed to run an errand. So I open up the garage and start to get Carson in the car and they all come running in. I screamed and tried to stomp around but I could just hear them scurrying around in the corners. It still gives me the willys. So I left. When I came back I couldn't hear them, but obviously they couldn't have left. So I took Carson inside and went back to get the stuff out of the trunk and I see out of the corner of my eye one sitting in this crevice on the garage door. So I turned around and went back inside (I actually did Pam as she leaves Michael's office when there is something in there that stinks really bad). But I got smart and left the garage door open an inch. I assume they are gone now because I haven't heard scurryings. But that entire weekend I would pound the door in its place a few times before I opened it - to scare them away from the door of course. The worst part is that I locked the garage door when it was open an inch (I don't know why). Later I left through the garage and forgot to unlock it so then I was locked out of the house. I blame the lizards!

Well - there isn't a whole lot new. But I thought I'd blog anyway. Carson has his top 4 teeth coming in all at once. So now he has 3 on the bottom and 4 on top. He has started taking a couple steps. You can see he really wants to walk everywhere now but crawling is still faster. So he'll take a couple steps and then get down and crawl. I don't know if he had allergies this week or got sick...or if it was the teeth. He had a bad runny nose, watery eyes, and was sneezing like crazy. He seems better today though. He never acted lethargic like he's done previously when he got sick. He was the same happy boy. He still just explores and destroys everything (which I'm sure is what most 10 month olds do). He'll go in the kitchen and empty a cupboard and then move to the next cupboard until my entire kitchen is on the floor. We really need to get those latches put on. Here's a few pics. The first is what I call Carson's yoga pose. He does it all the time. The picture is a little blurry because he doesn't hold it forever so it's hard to get a picture. The second is his new (well, new to us) music/learning table that he loves. He looks so big.

Karl had a game lunch at work today. He sets them up every once in a while as a team bonding experience. Everyone brings in their X Boxes and they hook them up to the projector in the meeting room. Then they order pizza and play X Box for an hour or so. His boss is even into it. So they had that today and Karl always loves it.

The Office Returns!

I'm so excited for this week...all will be right in the world once more as The Office will air again on Thursday (8 pm for us). It's a dinner party at Michael and Jan's and looks perfectly Office-y. I am so glad. Other than this show consuming my thoughts...we've done a few fun things.

Easter weekend we went camping with Karl's family and a family from our ward. We headed out NE to sunflower-ish area. We camped right next to a creek. It was fun and Garrett brought up 2 four wheelers so we got to ride around the area. We took a little hike and had a pretty view. Carson's first Easter was pretty uneventful (as expected). His favorite item was just an empty Easter egg. He's still carrying it around with him and sucking on it. Below are two pics from camping. This is one of Carson's favorite sleeping positions and he loved riding on the 4 wheeler with Karl (although he doesn't look all that happy in the pic).


Karl's work had another round of layoffs (this is like the 5th). Karl's still pretty secure but you never know for sure. There was Karl and another guy doing the projects. The other guy just got laid off. So now it's just Karl. He went from bored and lots of time to do homework to busy busy and can't even take his lunches. Obviously each has its pros and cons but I know he's able to enjoy going to work a lot more when he knows there are projects to work on. So we feel bad for the other guy, we knew him and he was nice, but it's also nice that Karl actually has work to do.

Conference weekend was good. We hung out and Karl's parents, like norm. I thought the sessions were really good and it was new to see President Monson so much. I always enjoy his talks. Karl and I found the sessions very uplifting and applicable to our lives. It also helped us get a little spiritual motivation. Scripture study is always hard for us since he gets up a lot earlier than I and one of us is usually up late doing homework. We have always just done nights but we trying mornings now to see if it works better. So we got up at 5:30 AM (ouch) and read a chapter. Hopefully it goes well (since I blogged it I have a little more accountability too).

Carson is getting braver and braver. He can get himself to standing without pulling up on anything now, but once he's there he looks like he doesn't know what to do next. I saw him take a step to Grandma the other day without holding on to the chair but that's all. Kari and Garrett let us borrow this little walker that he's been pushing all around the house. This video was from when he very first started using it. He's pretty fast now.



Carson and I went over to Vickie's yesterday and we tried out the pool. I thought for sure he wouldn't like it since it was only 70 degrees. I just put his feet in to see what he thought and he got all excited and started jumping up and down. So then his whole outfit was soaked. So I put him in a swimmer diaper and we played on the top step. He loved it!!! He just splashed around and even bent down and took a couple sips. He would splash on his left for 5 seconds and then switch to the right for 5 seconds. He just went back and forth till Vickie and I were laughing pretty hard. A few times he would go to crawl and the water would be on his stomach and he'd do the cold water gaspy breathing we all do. But he never cried. We put him on the floaty raft and pushed him around and he liked that too. I signed him up for little baby swim lessons this June (I think it is more just to help babies get used to the water) and now I can see he will love it and it will be so much fun. And the water will be a little warmer. Vickie posted some pics of us in the pool on her smugmug (http://vick.smugmug.com/).

I'm still in the job search. I've had a ton of interviews and a few more to come so something has to turn up. All activity has gone pretty dead though because April 15th is around the corner. Most of the companies won't even decide till the end of April so we'll see. But we only have 3 more weeks of classes and then finals. I was going to sign up for a CPA review and pay my test fees and get it started but all the companies I'm interviewing at will reimburse you if you have an offer...so I decided to wait another month and see if I can get someone else to pay for it.

That's all for now - Kasey

Oh The Mayhem

First, new Carson things. His first time on a swing the other day at the park and his new favorite sitting position.

This weekend we went to Karl's company picnic. It was pretty fun and Kari and Garrett came too. We ate and then played on all the blow up toys. Kenzie had a blast and Carson liked most of it too. Here's a pic of Kenzie and Carson in a bouncy room. They both loved it.

Kari and I took the kids down the giant slide. Kenzie loved it and they went down a bunch. If you click on the after picture you can see Carson wasn't too sure about it.

Carson thought this car was pretty cool and was excited by Karl's cotton candy (although we're mean and he didn't get to try any).

Carson is also still into everything! His favorite activity is exploring. The minute something new opens (the dishwasher, front or back door, refrigerator, pantry, etc.) he is there in a second and you're left wondering where he came from and how he got there so fast. Here are just a few examples.

He decided to help with the dishes. But apparently he needed to get a little closer.

Fridge, drawers, cabinets...it's all fair game

And all these pics are just from last week. Actually - two days. But each time I catch him doing something new or crazy it just makes me laugh. He keeps our lives exciting. Oh - he also got a third tooth on the bottom. Still none on the top.

As for me - my CPA exam application is processed now so I just need to schedule the times and then study like crazy (oh, and pay way cool exam fees to the tune of $750). We'll see when I can fit the tests in. I'm going to have to sit with a calendar before I start scheduling them.

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That's all for now...I know it's all just about Carson but I'm pretty sure that's all anyone cares about. And Karl and I are pretty boring.

Love Kase