Shout "Hooray!"

Well, I've been a little busy these days with training for my new job, so I haven't really been able to blog much. But I did want to remember to document my 27th birthday, which was yesterday! It was a pretty quiet day--I'd already opened up birthday presents when my parents came up for Conference, and we didn't have anything huge planned. I had training all day and then left work around 3pm so I could spend some time with my family. We had planned to go to the park, but the weather was kind of hazy and I wasn't sure I wanted to be outside with what looked like incredibly poor air quality, so we just enjoyed time inside. And I opened my present--a breadmaker! I am so excited to use it. I need some good recipes...if anyone has one, let me know! And Joshua got me the cutest card, which made me happy. Then we went to dinner at Tucanos (one of my favorite restaurants) and then came home and tucked our silly boy into bed. Plus, my dad and both my brothers called me, so that was fun. It was a good day!

Oh, and four years ago today, I arrived home from my mission to Brazil. It seems like ages and ages ago, especially since the two most important people in the world to me at this point in my life were complete unknowns to me four years ago. But it was a great time in my life, and I'll always be grateful for those memories. =)

A new job...

...can you believe it?

Background: There's a hiring freeze going on at BYU right now, and so that has left a lot of departments with positions that they can't fill. The School of Technology, which is a part of the College of Engineering and Technology, is losing their Department Secretary, in addition to having already lost another 3/4 time person. The Director went to the Dean in desperation, and all of the Department Chairs were asked if they could spare any full-time staff in their department to help the School of Technology. Our Chair volunteered me.

So, effective next week, I will leave my position as the ACERC Secretary and move to the School of Technology! I'm excited for a new work environment and to meet new people. Too bad the salary is the same, but it'll still be good. I don't know how permanent it will be--when the hiring freeze is over, I don't know if I'll stay there or come back to ACERC. Time will tell. But hey, in the meantime, if you're ever by the Crabtree or Snell buildings at BYU, come visit me! (I'll be in the CTB mornings and the Snell afternoons)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

16 months...

I realized a semi-cool timing thing in my life last night.

I returned home from my mission to Brazil on April 29th, 2005, which was almost four years ago.

16 months later, on August 26, 2006, I married my wonderful husband, Cody.

16 months later, on December 18th, 2007, we welcomed our beautiful son, Joshua.

16 months later--is now, April 21, 2009. There is nothing particularly special about the present time (unless you'd care to know that my birthday is one week from today). I just thought it was interesting how I can split up the last four years into roughly 16-month increments, all divided by major life-changing events.

Yeah, I'm a nerd. =P

Edited at 12:23pm on Tuesday, April 21st: Cami's comment reminded me of something. If all goes according to plan, Cody will graduate with an Associate's Degree in 16 months from now! So yay, another 16-month milestone! =)

Hello, weather? Isn't it springtime yet?

I just took these pictures from our balcony. Sorry they don't show up so well, but it is almost midnight.
That last one is just to show how much snow has built up on the ledge of our balcony thus far (I have big hands, so that's at least four or five inches). Um, hello? This is APRIL 15TH!!!! I know Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, and that meant six more weeks of winter. Well, I just counted, and it's been 10--that's TEN--weeks since Groundhog Day, which is almost an entire MONTH since the promised supposed end of winter. Global warming my eye!

As you can tell, we here at the Alleman residence are quite ready for spring.

Oh, and here's the latest awesome Joshua picture:
G'night, everybody!

A slight change...

Just wanted to let everyone know that I've decided to enable comment moderation. I don't want this to discourage you from making comments on my posts, but I just feel that this is a necessary step to make things a little more private on here. So please, still make comments and I'll approve them as soon as possible! Thanks for reading! =)

First Haircut

It's been almost 16 months since Joshua was born, and this is the first time we've cut his hair. He wasn't born with much, and it was all really fine and blond, so it's not like he needed it. Around 10 months old or so, though, his hair started really growing--and it just got thicker and longer. Finally, we got some hair trimming scissors (courtesy of my mom--thanks, Grandma!) and decided to go for it. He was a pretty good sport for the whole ordeal. We tried to videotape it but quickly realized that we needed Daddy to focus on distracting Joshua so he wouldn't keep trying to turn around and see what Mommy was doing behind him. A few before pictures:
So you see, it wasn't incredibly long, but it did need a trim. Here is an after picture (sorry, we couldn't get him to look up...he was too distracted by Daddy's old cell phone):Once we took the cell phone out of his hand to get him ready for a bath, though, he lost it. This picture was just too funny not to post. Don't you just feel so badly for him? =P
His bath put him in a much better mood, so we got a couple of better pictures then:What a handsome boy he is! Mommy loves you, my dear sweet Joshua Logan!

Happy Meal!

Joshua had his first Happy Meal from McDonald's on Wednesday--chicken McNuggets and apple slices, with chocolate milk to top it off. He loooooved the caramel that came with the apple slices--so much so that he grabbed the little holder thingy and started slurping it down before I could catch him. Wow.

Things change so quickly!

It's amazing how your plans for the future can suddenly change in such a short time. It's not that drastic of a change, but it's definitely different from what we were previously headed towards.

Cody met with a couple of counselors this morning at UVU to discuss maybe taking a class or two this summer. After all of his meetings were done, he's now looking at finishing his Associate degree in August 2010--which, considering the original plan was for April 2011, is so much better! That means he'll be going full-time until then, which means no breaks (except for the week or two between semesters), but if it means he'll get done that much sooner, that's something we're willing to sacrifice for.

And another thing: he may declare himself a candidate for a Bachelor degree, and then apply for an Associate's in August of next year. Then, if he doesn't get a job next fall (which we really hope he does, of course, but you never know), he'll simply continue on the Bachelor's route and go for that. I'm not sure how long that will take, but we'll see. If he does get a job, then hopefully it will be one that will allow him to take evening classes so he can still be striving for his Bachelor's.

So, yay! Now we just hope and pray that he can continue to do well in his classes (so good so far!) and be motivated to go for this goal. We really look forward to the day when Cody can be the provider for our family--then I can be home with our son, and we can have more children (Lord willing, of course), and we'll all be happier!

Family: Isn't it about...time?

These past few days I've been thinking a lot about family and what role they play in my life. Of course, a lot of this was brought on by my parents visiting over the weekend, but it's always been something I think about. And now that I have a husband and a son and we're our own family now, this is something I'll ponder over and over as I raise my children in the coming years. Some days will be much different than others, and sometimes I'll want things to be different than they are. But family will always play a role.

This morning, our son Joshua met his grandpa. Now, that may sound odd, especially because I don't know if most of you know the situation. Suffice it to say that Cody hasn't seen his father in probably 6 or 7 years. I've never met him or even talked to him on the phone. There's been a rift of sorts, obviously, branching from Cody's childhood and the trial of losing his mom when he was 19, which neither father nor son dealt with very well. Once we got married, Cody sent him a letter inviting him to be a part of our life and saying he wanted his dad to meet me and be a grandfather to our children. I don't think we ever heard anything back, except for (I think) a letter from his current wife after Joshua was born, congratulating us.

So, it was a surprise indeed when Cody went to pick Joshua up from his great-grandparents' house (they watch him on Mondays and Wednesdays while Cody has class) and his dad was there. And it wasn't that awkward, from what I understand. His dad seemed quite humble, and there was a spirit of forgiveness and understanding in the room. His father even gave Cody a hug as Cody left to take Joshua home. Cody said he thinks Joshua knew who his grandpa was, probably because Cody looks a lot like him. I'm not sure what will happen now, if I'll get a chance to meet him as well and if we'll have more of a relationship with him, but I do love that now my son knows all of his grandparents. That was one thing that I have been worried about--I want Joshua to know his family. That's his blood there, his relatives. It's only fair that he gets a chance to meet them all.

Anyway, that's another reason I've been so pensive lately. Family is very important, and even though we may have struggles and hardships, we can and should always strive to reach out to each other. In our case, I imagine it to be a sort of prodigal son scenario--except, in this case, neither the son nor the father are solely to blame for the estrangement, and they both have things to do to bridge the gap between them. But due to almost pure chance (or was it inspired?), at least one small step has been taken. I hope this means good things for the Alleman men in the future.

Good trip, but all too brief!

Well, they came and left already...it really was a short trip, but we're so glad that my parents were able to even come at all. They arrived on Friday afternoon, and after enjoying some good Joshua time, we put him to bed and played a bit of Phase 10. Although, come to think of it, we never finished the game because Kirsti and Rich arrived from his mission reunion and we started chatting instead.

We next watched both sessions of Conference on Saturday, which were of course quite good (and we sustained a new Apostle! Yay!). Kirsti, Rich, and Brianne came over for the afternoon session. After a bit off Wii (courtesy of Rich and Kirsti), the men left to attend the priesthood session and us girls (+ Joshua) got ready to go reserve a table at Olive Garden. Joshua was a little temperamental, considering dinner didn't even start until after 8pm and he's usually in bed by 7:30, but fortunately he was relatively good overall. We finally made it back home by 10pm and played some more Wii until I finally went to bed around midnight (I heard they stayed until around 1am, they being Rich, Kirsti, Brianne, and Brianne's friend Paige and her husband Whitney--Brianne and Paige are going to France together next month, and I guess Paige came over so my parents could meet her...or something).

Sunday morning was much the same, except Kirsti, Rich, and Brianne came over for the morning session and brought Rich's brother Rob. More good talks, more inspiration to be better and to be more like Christ. I'm looking forward to getting the Ensign so I can read the talks more, because it really does get hard to pay attention with Joshua running around. Then we had a really really good crock pot chicken dinner (thanks, Mommy!) and played games into the evening.

Monday morning, we went to IHOP with everyone, including my grandpa and his wife, Ruth, who drove up with my parents but stayed at Ruth's daughter's house in Springville all weekend. Then we came back to our house and chatted until they left. Short trip, but of course they loved getting their Joshua fix, and we'll see them all at a big family reunion in Texas. Yay!

And I fail at taking pictures again. My dad was good with his camera, but I didn't get copies before he took off, so I only have four pictures of Joshua from the weekend (one with my cell phone, three with Kirsti's). I'll still post them, though, because he's adorable. First up, Joshua wearing my dad's sunglasses (which he LOVED):The next three were all taken at Olive Garden...first Daddy played with the napkin and gave Joshua a turban of sorts, and the next two were of Joshua enjoying his mommy's frozen raspberry lemonade. He couldn't get enough of it.That's it. Thanks for letting me share. And thanks, Mom and Dad, for making the sacrifice to come see us! We love you!

Looking forward to the weekend...

This weekend, I'm hoping, is going to be awesome. First of all, it's April--and hopefully the weather gets the message that April is springtime, so that means it's time to stop dumping cold white stuff all over. I'm okay with rain, but snow is no longer welcome, at least not in my opinion.

Second of all, it's General Conference! I'm looking forward to hearing from the leaders of our Church and being able to enjoy watching them from the comfort of my own home. May those of us who attend be receptive and listen to the Spirit as we are taught by the Lord's appointed servants.

Third of all, my parents are driving up for the weekend, and they're bringing my grandpa and his wife with them! I kinda-sorta proposed the idea for them to come up last week, not thinking that they would actually take me up on it (not that I'm regretting extending the invitation, of course!). Sure enough, there didn't seem to be a possibility that they could actually afford it--but then my mom texted me on Sunday and said they were coming! I'm looking forward to having them here. It'll be a short trip, but it will be most welcome. I'm sure they're excited to see Joshua, too. It must be hard living away from their grandkids, because they really do change so much, especially when they're younger. So it'll be good to have them around, if only for 2-3 days.

So yeah, this weekend should be great. I'll try to take pictures and videos throughout the weekend (but we all know how much of a flake I can be when it comes to that...), so look for an update on Monday or Tuesday. Hope you have a great weekend, too!