The Coffee Table...

Oh hello! We have had a crazy two weeks and are so grateful for the break! Travis started his new job and I had my first round of midterms. Basically we didn't see each other for 9 days! Travis is loving his new job and more importantly they are loving him! I survived my tests and might possibly have done well! The few days before Travis' job started he decided to get in his last little project. We were out on a Sunday drive a few weeks ago and we drove past an antique store with some things sitting out front. It was closed but had a slot in the door that said "slip your money through the door and take what you need"! It was so funny how trusting these little towns are. We looked around the antiques outside and found this really cool old barn door. Travis was convinced he needed to make something out of it. We left and he kept contimplating it... When I came home from school on monday it was sitting our back deck. He had already gone to work on it. With the start date of his job coming up he had to get started. There was a bit of a glitch during the process. Travis may have got a little overzealous with his brand new chisel he was using to smooth the edges. After a trip to the urgent care and a refusal to let me practice my surgery skills, sanding, hammering, more sanding, assembling and staining we have 9 stitches and a new coffee table! See pictures below

Before:

After:

CONGRATULATIONS...

I am so proud of my husband! I feel like he has been on the job search for over a year now. Including searching in Logan, finding a job in SLC then immediately beginning his search for here in Pullman. Since we decided on Washington State he has been on the look out for jobs. He has filled out hundreds of applications and mostly to no avail. The largest company in Pullman is an engineering firm that employs 3000. Travis knew that this was his best bet for finding a great long term job. We both wanted him to find a job that would build up his resume so that in four years when we move, he will have built up a background in something to further his career. Since this summer he has been in contact with Schweitzer Engineering by applying for an internship that had opened online, hoping to just get in the door. The guy heading up the purchasing department (which is where the internship was) called him and said I really like your resume and you are overqualified for the internship so I want you as a buyer but we can't hire someone straight out of college. When we moved here he went to a lunch with this same guy who said "I want you BUT you have to convince by senior executives that I can hire you with no experience." He told him to prepare a 20 minute presentation on the topic of purchasing while relating his personal qualities to the topic of purchasing commodities. So Travis spent a week preparing and researching this presentation. They set up an ALL day interview starting with a tour, his presentation, a technical interview, a benefits meeting, then a follow up meeting. I was a nervous wreck all day at school knowing Travis was doing all of this! At the follow up meeting they told him they had to meet with the Senior VP who was in a meeting so they would call him later Wednesday evening. At 5 o'clock Wednesday they called him to come back over ( we live across the street) and OFFERED HIM THE JOB!!! I know this was a very lengthy story for this news but I was so proud of the work Travis put in to secure this job. He is super excited about it and he starts on Monday! It is fully benefitted with tuition reimbursement for higher education and gives him the opportunity for a new skill and advancements. He can't wait to start, he is completely over cleaning the apartment and running errands! Good job Travis!!

GO COUGS!...

Cougar football is what people do in Pullman! Even though WSU is not good at ALL. The entire student body shows up dressed in Crimson and Gray! Not just some of the students, or most of the students, ALL the students, parents, alumni, faculty, kids, infants, and senior citizens! We got some great free tickets for being professional students so a group of us from the Vet school decided to take a break from studying and head to the game. Decked out in our WSU gear we drug out the BBQ and had our own tailgating party with our friends. We were unaware that there were such strict tailgating policies on campus, like you can't unless you pay 85 bucks a season for a pass, so we just had one in our parking lot where the boys could throw the football. After more food than necessary we started the trek to the stadium. Fall has not arrived here in Pullman, instead a heat wave has hit, rocketing the temps into the high 90's! The game was awesome and the people watching was even better! We sat in the student section for the first quarter but decided we are old married kids and moved so we could sit. The cougs dominated UNLV 59-7 and we had a blast cheering them on! Even though it was 95 degrees it was worth the Wazzou experience! Our family away from family is really getting some good bonding time, hopefully we will continue to like each other for the next four years! P.S. I know I have been on a blogging feign but don't get your hopes up...test start next week so I will be MIA for awhile but enjoy these!

Tailgating!

Our friends little girls...homemade skirts!

Pregame Party

Boys enjoying the 5th row view!

Crimson and Gray!

A night at the County Fair...

We absolutely love Washington! We heard about a fair going on in a little town just outside of Pullman so we headed up there after the evening study session. Travis LOVES fairs and all day we had been dreaming about carnival food. 4 words...hand dipped corn dogs! We drove out around 7 just as the sun was setting and it couldn't have been more beautiful. The rodeo grounds are out in the middle of a wheat field that you just come up to behind the hill. We headed straight for the food and WOW did we eat way to much! Corn dogs, mini doughnuts, funnel cakes, fresh lemonade, and deluxe nachos. This small town Colfax is the epitome of small towns (even smaller than Heber). The fair had everything, cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep. We roamed through all of the barns after the food, stepped in and watched the end of the rodeo and walked through the carnival games. The boys were feeling pretty homesick about missing our brothers high school football games so we headed over to Colfax High to cheer on the Bulldogs!! We watched the intense last 10 minutes where the came back from behind and WON! The 5 cheerleaders were very excited! It was the ultimate evening, seriously we are absolutely loving Pullman and the surrounding area.

Our friends Britt and Lyle

Can you say foot long hand dipped corn dogs!

I miss our chicken phyllis!

Go COLFAX!!

Labor Day...

Weird! It was a bizarre experience making plans for labor day weekend. For as long as I can remember we do something with my family for my dad and brothers birthday. This Labor day was looking pretty boring, I needed to study (story of my life) and Travis needed to work on a presentation for a job interview. Friday night was very uneventful as we just caught up on errands that get forgotten during the week. Saturday morning I left for school around 8 and studied till around 2 o'clock while I was gone Travis had been successful in getting most of his presentation done. We decided last minute we were going camping at 3:00! We gathered all of gear, scavenged our pantry and picked up our friends. We drove about 40 minutes outside of Pullman to the Clearwater National Forest. We found a perfect little camp spot nestled in some trees next to a stream. We had a bit of a misconception on the tent that traveled to WA with us from UT. I believed we had a 4 person tent that was quite nice. After setting up our tent...well it was a bit small. Let's just say Travis and I cuddled real close that night! We had a fire, great dutch oven cooking, s'mores, and some beautiful scenery. We missed my family for the annual Labor dat vacation but it was a pretty good substitute. Thanks to our friend Kyle and Tess for the great company!