Easy Transition

My mother-in-law asked me the other week what I miss about Texas. If you read my last blog you know I answered "my kitchen," but other than that and some great people in our ward......I just don't miss our life in Houston.

In fact, since we moved to Utah mid-May I've hardly looked back. We are SO content in Draper, and here's why:

JAMES ISN'T TRAVELING. Well, ironically enough he traveled back to Texas for a day his first full week of work, but his traveling will be infrequent, especially compared to....every week. It's wonderful to be a "normal" married couple going into our second year of marriage. I get to cook meals for him during the week, we get to work out together and now when I engage in pillow talk I'm not talking to myself.

FAMILY. We are loving being so close to James' family. They are about 20ish minutes north of us and we enjoyed Memorial Day and Sunday dinners, games, and home videos with them each week. They were so kind to help us in the moving in/unpacking process and in lending us some furniture and dishes while we waited for our moving truck to arrive. And this week we get to go to Bear Lake with them, so we definitely like that.
       
Morgan, Eliza, and Eva are also close by, about 25ish minutes south of us, and because they're moving to Virginia next month for law school (but mostly because we really like them) we've been doing some fun things together. We went out for sushi and frozen yogurt, grilled out by the pool at our complex, and I've been babysitting Eva one day each week. It's awesome because when I go down to watch Eva I have great talks with Morgan in the morning, great talks with Eliza in the afternoon, and Eva and I have fun all day. And I take a million pictures of her because she's like the cutest bug I ever seen and I'm totally not biased. See for yourself:

FRIENDS. I am so happy to be back living near so many dear friends. In the month that we've been here I've been able to catch up with mission companions, roommates, friends from classes, etc. and I still have SO many more people to see. It's the wonderful blessing of seeing so much family that is keeping us from seeing more friends. Good problem to have, really. Oh, and one of those friends is Brooke. We took a picture together:

Brooke and I are bound in friendship by our mutual obsession with dessert.

MOUNTAINS & WEATHER. We have been gaping at the mountains ever since we got here...as though James didn't grow up in SLC and we both didn't go to BYU. This past weekend we went on a hike up Bell's Canyon to get an up close and personal taste of the mountains. It was a beautiful hike and James is a cute husband. See:

Hmm. That's not a cute husband.

Beautiful view. Kudos to my camera phone...which isn't even an iPhone, yo

Thur he is.

Hur I is.

So cool looking down from so high.

Cute.

Cute.

Waterfall.

Soaked by waterfall. And cute.

James doesn't like selfies, but he's oddly SO good at taking them.

THIS: Fortunately for our souls but unfortunately for our figures we live right in the heart of the bustling metropolis of Draper...haha. We are surrounded by literally EVERY restaurant and EVERY store we'll ever need. Several of those restaurants happen to be ice cream places, like Leatherby's Family Creamery. Since our family is made of only two dainty eaters, we tackled the task of finishing this dessert made up of peanut butter and cookie dough ice cream, cookies and cream ice cream, oreos, a giant chocolate chip cookie, hot fudge, whipped cream, and maraschino cherries. We actually didn't eat the cherries because we're watching our caloric intake. But we did go home and eat popcorn to balance out sweet and salty.

Yeah, didn't find this in Texas.

Come visit us and we'll make the sacrifice of going back. Just a warning (in case you haven't gathered by the description or the picture), James is sure this place will shut down your pancreas. 

As an update on some of the "weightier matters":

• James is rocking his new job at Tower Arch Capital. It's a start-up private equity firm and he was the first associate hired on. Woot woot! He's also studying diligently for the GMAT which he hopes to take next month.

• I was blessed to get a job at Primary Children's Hospital which I will be starting in a few weeks. I'll work as a scheduler in the medical imaging department, which is awesome because it means I'll learn about all the imaging procedures to explain them to patients (in English and Spanish).

• I have an interview with SLCC's DMS (Diagnostic Medical Sonography..aka ultrasound) program in a few weeks as well. 

• I was called as our ward's choir accompanist and James and I already spoke in church. Boom bam! We are really liking our ward and the location of the chapel which is just across the street.

And to top off the seemingly perfect state of our life right now, we went on a run tonight and found out we have neighbors who own a ZEBRA! How cool is that?!?