Kevin's Graduation

A day that we had been looking forward to since we were first married came on May 2. Kevin graduated with his masters in mechanical engineering! He has to write his thesis still, so that will take several months, but it is still a huge symbol of all the hours and hard work he has put in over the past 7 years. The ceremony wasn't until 7, so I knew it was going to be tough with the boys. It was really hard because they usually do bath time/bedtime at 8. The ceremony right before ours didn't finish until about 6:40 and Kevin already had to go line up with the graduates. I hurried in there with the boys to try and save some good seats for my parents, Grandma Nelson, and Kevin's parents. The ceremony was about what you would expect, long and boring, but at least they read all graduate students names first because there were tons of undergrads that had to be read! They read Kevin's name, we cheered and took pictures and then we got out of there! The boys actually didn't do too bad. Ryder was being especially good. Easton on the other hand was so tired and cranky! He cried for most of it which means me and my dad took turns taking him out and walking around with him. I'm so proud of Kevin! He has sacrificed SO much to get to this point and to graduate from grad school with a 4.0 GPA is incredible. He is so driven I know he will be successful in whatever he does next.

Speaking of what he'll do next, we are trying to decide that. He has two job offers from national labs, one in Pittsburgh and one in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The two cities could not be more different from each other! Los Alamos is a really tiny town with not much to do except outdoors stuff. It has awesome schools and the climate is about the same as Utah except a little more mild. It would be about a 9.5 hour drive to see our families. They would be starting him almost like an intern not making much at all. After a year of that, if they hired him on in a normal position, the pay is amazing. On the other hand, the job in Pittsburgh would be more interesting and fun for Kevin. The weather is nice, except super cold in the winter. It would mean rarely visiting our families since airfare is expensive and a day flying with kids is torture. Pittsburgh is just a few hours drive to a lot of awesome places like Washington DC and New York. There are only certain suburbs outside of the city with really awesome schools, so we would be a little limited on where we would want to live. The pay isn't as much as we had hoped, so Kevin went ahead and countered with a higher amount and now we are just waiting to hear back from them on that. We are definitely leaning toward Pittsburgh. This has been the hardest decision we have ever had to make! We have been going back and forth on this for months now. I'm just ready to make a decision and start planning from there.

 The boys loved playing with Great Grandma and Grandpa Brasher before the ceremony.

 

 

 These are all the grad students. The undergrads were sitting up in the stands.

 

 

Picture overload

Here a ton of pictures from the last several months, starting in August at Bear Lake.

Long Overdue Boring Update

Blogging is much harder with two kids. Having two kids has kept me a lot busier than when I just had Ryder. I love it though! Im going to skip back a little to catch up on some things i missed. We had such an amazing summer! We absolutely loved it in Livermore! Every Friday after got home from work we would go get pizza and take it to a park. We would eat pizza on a blanket and just hang out. There are sooo many parks in Livermore so we went to a different park almost every time! We had such a fun time with family that came to visit. It was hard to come home at the end of August, but we were excited to see everyone. The boys and I flew home, but Kevin had to drive the haul truck towing our car behind him. I was so nervous about him driving that long drive home in one day! We are so lucky because Kevin's mom, Jeannine, was able to fly out and drive home with Kevin. She's the best!

Once we got back to Utah, we spent a few days at Bear Lake with my whole moms side of the family. It was so fun! Although Easton was being a huge stinker about sleeping! It didn't matter if I tried to get him to bed at his normal time, or wait until it was really late, he didn't want to sleep! That was hard, but other than that, it was a great weekend with everyone!

Since being home, we have just gotten back into normal life here in Utah. Kevin is an assistant scout master and works with the deacons at church. He seems to have a lot of fun with them and enjoys going on the camp outs. I am still on the relief society luncheon committee and we put on a neighborhood lunch several times a year. They always turn out so cute, with really yummy food! I was recently called to be the young women athletic director, which is hilarious if you know me because I am anything but athletic! It ended up being pretty fun. The other couch for our team used to play basketball so that helped a lot.We won 3 games and lost three games, so we didn't make it to regionals. The girls seemed to have have fun even when we lost.

Ryder took a tumbling class for 3-4 year olds and it was so fun to go and watch him. He is not the most coordinated little boy, and so he was pretty awkward the first week, especially trying to do a summersault! He improved a lot over the eight weeks and he can now do a summersault easily all by himself. He seemed to have a little crush on one of the instructors and she was really cute!

At the beginning of November, my mom had her hip replaced. There was a complication with the anesthesia though. For some reason, her body had a major reaction to it and her entire left leg became numb. It was as if the nerves completely died. Nobody was sure what was going to happen with it and if she would ever receive feeling back in her leg. She pretty much had to learn to walk again and it was really rough! She stayed in a really nice rehash center for about a month, and was able to learn a lot while she was there. She was there over Thanksgiving, which was hard. When she finally came home, it was overwhelming for her to say the least. Suddenly, every little thing took monumental effort and it was virtually impossible to get around without a lot of help. Since coming home, she has done AMAZING! Her attitude has been hopeful and determined. She is at the point now where she can go up and down the stairs by herself, and walk all over with just the help of a cane! I'm so proud of her! She still doesn't have the feeling back in her leg though. The doctor said it could take a couple years for the nerves to repair themselves and it's just a waiting game. They said about 2/3 of the nerves were damaged! She is an awesome example! I'm so thankful for everyone that has been supporting her through this whole ordeal, especially my dad, and Colby and Rashell. Rashell was such an awesome help, running errands for her, taking her places, making meals, etc.

Kevin is nearing the end of his schooling and will be graduating at the end of this spring with his masters degree! He has been applying for a lot of jobs. He has had a lot of interviews and has received several job offers. He has turned down the offers he has received so far because they weren't what he was looking for. Towards the middle of November, Kevin got a call from a company in San Diego that wanted to fly him out for an interview. We were in shock because the position he had applied for was a senior level position and we were sure they wouldn't be interested in someone with out experience like Kevin. They told him they wanted him to prepare a 30 minute presentation when he goes out there to interview. I'm not exaggerating when I say that since that phone call, Kevin has done almost nothing but work on that presentation and prepare for that interview. They also wanted to see some example of his code that he has written, and also see some examples of things he could do to improve their code. It was some intense preparations, that's for sure. Kevin worked every night until 3 or 4 in the morning! He was scheduled to fly out a few days before Christmas for his interview. However, the day of his flight was a horrible snow storm here in Utah. He waited at the airport all day to fly out, but they ended up canceling his flight and closing the entire airport down. He was actually pretty happy about it because when he rescheduled his interview, the soonest they could do was another month away. That gave him another whole month to prepare! He flew out last week and had an entire day of interviews, with about 8 people! It was crazy. He felt like he did really well, and everyone was very impressed with his presentation. This past week, they met as a group to discuss what everyone though of him. They contacted Kevin the next day to get some references. We were getting pretty excited because they wouldn't contact references unless they were pretty interested. Kevin's adviser at school was one of the references Kevin gave and he said he talked to them and they seemed really excited about hiring Kevin. So we were waiting for a call any day with an offer. On Friday, Kevin talked to the man who would have been his boss. He told Kevin the position had been closed because they weren't sure if they would have enough funding to bring Kevin on. He told Kevin across the board, every single person had loved Kevin and was so impressed. In fact, he was the only candidate they even flew out to San Diego to interview! It was such a huge letdown though. It was really hard for Kevin because he had poured the entire last few months into preparing for this job interview and based off of all the feedback he had received, we were sure he was going to get hired. All throughout this whole process of Kevin searching for a job, I have felt peace because I know Heavenly Father has a plan for our family. I know he will guide us to wherever he needs us to be. If this job in San Diego was not the right one right now, I know there is something else waiting for us. He has a couple jobs he still needs to apply for in CA, and he flew out to Pennsylvania last month for an interview. There is also a guaranteed position for him down at Los Alamos Lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico if he wants it. It will be interesting to see where we end up!

Ryder started primary at the beginning of January. I was a little nervous about the transition from nursery with toys and snacks, to primary where he would have to sit and be reverent. He has LOVED it though, he has the two cutest teachers, and loves sharing time. I think his favorite part is singing time though! He loves to sing! I'm so proud of my big boy! I still can't believe he is old enough to be going to primary.

Kevin's sister, Brianna, and Tyler's wife, Tara, are both pregnant! Brianna is due May 21 with a girl. Tara is due July 24 with a girl also. It been making me very baby hungry, especially for a girl! Im so excited for both of them. They will be great moms!

The weather is starting to get warm and i love it! I am so over winter. I cant wait for it to be consistently nice enough for us to spend a lot of time outside and have picnics at the park again!

Happy First Birthday Easton!

Easton turned ONE on March 7. He is so sweet! I did a birthday party on the 8th with the theme, "You are my sunshine" because i have always called him our sunshine. The party was a lot of work, but i love doing parties, so it was fun preparing for it. We had homemade macaroni and cheese, spinach salad, fruit, and veggie straws. For treats we had cupcakes, lemon bars, and a few candy jars that people could pick from to fill up a treat bag. A woman who used to be in our ward, Marla Crestani, now has a cake business. She make an adorable smash cake for Easton for only 20 dollars! Usually it would have been over a hundred dollars. She's so sweet! It had a sun on the top with a number one, and then it said Easton on the side. When it was time for him to dig in, he kinda just poked at it a little. I think because it had fondant on the outside, it was a little harder for him to dig in. He certainly loved it though! At one point i switched it out for a smaller cupcake that i thought might be easier for him to handle. He got the saddest look on his face and tears welled up in his eyes. So i hurried and gave him the big cake back. Sweet little guy!

I took him in for his 12 month appointment and he got several shots. He cried for a minute but not too bad. He weighed 19 lbs 8 oz. and was 29 inches long. So he is in about the 20th percentile for both weight and height, but his head is in the 98th percentile! Ha ha! He has two bottom teeth and one top tooth just cut through today! He is a cruising master and could probably walk if he tried but he is too scared. He loves to mimic sounds. He is constantly copying us and it always makes us laugh. He can say, Mama, Dada, uh oh, Jesus (shush), and hello (eh-doh). He knows where his nose is, and loves to shake his head yes and no, and to dance! We love this boy so much!