Coffee Table

  Caitlin and I bought a coffee table from Goodwill for $15 with the plan to fix it up and paint it.  Sounds easy enough right?  Well... Now that I know how to do it, it would be easy, but I didn't really know what I was doing, so it took forever and I had to repeat a bunch of steps.  When we bought it, it was all gross looking and the finish looked all bubbly and cracking and the table was very wobbly, so I had to strip off the old finish, sand everything down, prime, and paint.  Yet again, this isn't a very exciting post, but since it took so long to complete, we felt it deserved a blog post.  Here's some pictures -

Before

I actually finished the legs and sides pretty quick. But we were topless for a long time and had to use a Home Depot box as a coffee table in the middle of our actual coffee table.  Way ghetto, I know...

Caitlin sneakily took pictures of me working on the table.  Here I'm stripping off the old gross finish.

Painting

After

Here's what it looks like in the room

This may have been our first DIY project.  In fact, I'm sure it was.  We think it turned out to be a pretty good-looking table.  I'm excited for when I graduate and start making tons of money and have a garage where I can put my tools and work on other projects that will be fun and not a nightmare like this coffee table. 

Grad School

  Hey this is Billy.  I apologize in advance for how boring this post will be to read, but I wanted to make this post so I remember what it was like to start grad school.  I'll try to make it fun to read though! 
  Two weeks before school started we had "Foundations" which was like an orientation type thing to get to know the campus, the other incoming students and also to take some crash courses in Excel and Economics to get us ready for classes.  We also did this really big group project called the G5 Summit which was kind of reminded me of a model UN type thing.  Monday through Friday we were kept busy from 8am until about 8:45pm and on Saturday we went from 8am to 5pm.  We were organized into cohorts and I was put with the Hawks.  Caitlin thought it was funny like EFY when she came to the closing ceremony of Foundations because each cohort had their own cohort shirt and chant, and we had to do our chants a lot that night.
  The first module has gone by pretty fast and I just finished finals yesterday! I really like Thunderbird.  I'm learning a lot and I feel that I am being prepared to have a really good career.  Here are some pictures from school, mostly from Foundations.  The skateboarding pictures and the marketing group picture are from after Foundations during the normal term.

Hawks Cohort
Bottom: Lucas Mohammad, Jessica, Jonaki, Nikita, Luca, Victoria, Pallavi. Top: Braden, Carlos, Laura, Scott, Gloria, Ruowei, me.

I was trying not to land in the water.  Nailed it!

We had to dress business casual everyday except for College shirt day where we wore shirts from our undergrad universities.  We also did a scavenger hunt-type team competition that we won!

Pizza party after the festivities of College Shirt Day.

Here's a weird cohort group selfie

G5 Summit group: Kim Jong Hwa, Remi, Aayush, Shawn, me, Caroline, Roger, Jempsy

One morning, the cohort group leaders took us outside for a "group photo", but really it was to watch them dance.  Maybe another EFY type thing?

Here are a lot of my classmates

Foundations closing ceremonies.  Our cohort won an award and we had to go on stage and do our chant.

Hawks cohort.  During the last day we had team competitions which involved water which is why we're wearing board shorts.

Scott from my cohort is from San Diego and likes to surf and skateboard, so we went skating at the local park one day after classes.  We were planning on starting a skateboard club at school, but felt overwhelmed by our workload from classes.  Maybe we'll start up ThunderSkate during a different term.

Not to brag, but this photo was reposted by Thunderbird's Instagram as the photo of the week...

Marketing group presentation on Volvo.  Someone in class took this picture and sent it to us and pointed out that we had lined up gray to black.  So from gray to black it's Jorge, Harsh, Christian, Yash and me.

New School Year!

So we're going back in time a bit again.  School started August 5th and it's been a crazy whirlwind of a year so far.  Teaching is easier but I have a lot of more difficult students than last year.  I'm also randomly the cross country coach at school which is fun, but also a joke, and a LOT of extra work and stress!  We only meet once a week but that once a week is super stressful for me.  But it's been a learning experience for sure.  Here are some fun pictures of random things from the year so far:

Funny note I found on the ground in my classroom.  This is SO middle school!

This was pretty dang funny.  I got invited to a student's birthday party, and I was the only teacher invited.  It was quite the gossip around the teacher's lounge for a while.  Just FYI, I didn't go.

"Describe a biological observation you made over the summer".  "I'm going through puberty.  I don't know what puberty is, but I'm goin through it"  Hilariously sad.

First (and only, so far) cross country meet of the season!  Woop woop!

I just realized I don't have any pictures of my classroom this year!  It is much different than my classroom last year...much less work :)

Another thing I don't have pictures of is that me and some of my coworkers have started a book club which is super fun!  We meet once a month-ish to discuss our book.  It's been pretty fun.

Billy's year has started too!  He needs to blog about his foundations weeks and everything probably.  He had 2 weeks of "Foundations" when he was placed in a cohort of people to get to know.  During foundations they took a few crash courses to get them familiar with Excel and Econ and stuff.  It was a crazy busy two weeks.  At the end-ish, he found out that he qualifies for the MBA program at Thunderbird!  Say what?!  So he switched from the MS in Global Management to the MBA program, which is just a faster and better degree.  We were way stoked!  It's been super hard for him, he is really really busy ALL the time!  But it is good for him.  He is learning a lot and working so hard.  It's awesome!  He actually has finals next week!  This first block went by crazy fast.

 

My dad was awesome and milked everything he could out of Microsoft/Nokia before he had to leave his job, so he scored Billy a sweet tablet fo free!  It was awesome and Billy was so surprised and excited!!  You can tell from the look on his face...

Nametag

Thunderbird quad statue thingy

My Dad came out one day for a job interview and had dinner with us!  It was super fun and he was able to fix stuff around the apartment for us and hang some pictures.  It was so nice having him help us!  He is fixing our outlets here, they are all super loose.

Thanks Dad!

Billy on one of his first days of school!  Woo!

 

This was the temperature a few days before school started.  Gross!

Labor Day was also around the start of the school year.  We went over to Bruce and Karen's and had a huge, delicious BBQ dinner!  We had ribs cooked in Jon's smoker!  Yummmmmmm

RIBS!  They were super super delicious.

 Our 4 year anniversary was also in the beginning of the school year time.  We didn't do anything too special, we were both too busy.  We have been trying really hard to not go out to eat as much, so we decided to make an exception for our anniversary and went to Oregano's, which we had never been to before.  It was pretty good!  It was super rainy that day which was weird.  4 years!  Can you believe it?!  That's as long as high school!!  Crazy long time.

Some other new things are that we have made some pretty fun friends in our new ward!  It's been really good for us here.  We both got callings in the ward too.  Billy is the young men's secretary and I am a young women's adviser for the Mia Maids.  We have both been enjoying our callings so far!

One of our first weeks in the ward we got asked to speak in church.  It was super scary and I was dreading it like crazy.  I took the entire day Saturday before to organize my thoughts, and write out the talk.  We both spoke on the Priesthood.  It was actually a really great experience.  I liked it mostly because from then on people knew who we were in the ward and they weren't afraid to talk to us so we were able to meet a lot of people.  Billy did a great job.  He always gives good talks.  He can pull a talk out of thin air so fast, it's kind of annoying.

I have started a little running group with some of my friends from the ward which has been great.  We run on Tuesdays at 5:15 AM.  They are champs for waking up that early to go with me.  I really like them a lot and it is really fun that we all live so close to each other. 

Anyways, there are still a few more blog posts I need to do in order to be completely caught up!  So stay tuned!

End of summer trip to SD

After my family left, Billy and I spent the next couple of weeks getting organized, hanging out with Jody and kids, and mentally preparing for the start of school for both of us.  We got really busy shopping for things for the apartment, and getting it as organized as we could.  I decided to head down to San Diego for one last hoorah before the school year begun.  Here are some pics!

Some of my awesome finds for the apartment

Work in progress.  We didn't keep all those pillows on the couch don't worry.

Karen was SO KIND and gave us her amazing green Pottery Barn dresser!  Heck ya!  We love it, it's awesome!

We found this coffee table at GoodWill for 15 BUCKS!!  Can you believe it??  We decided to buy it and then re-do it, little did we know how much work and money that would be!  It deserves its own post.

My trip to San Diego was short and sweet.  My mom's birthday was on Sunday, so it was perfect timing!  My Dad also lost his job the day I was heading out there so that wasn't perfect timing...but it was good to be there to support my family.  It was a stressful weekend but we tried to have some fun amongst the stress.  Here's some pics--

Goofy brothers

After our 9.5 mile run to the beach on Saturday!

Padres game!!

Hilarious pic of these two

Hilarious "water" guy.  He looked like the Lorax.

Creepin on my mom cutting veggies

Me and Pennie with similar facial expressions

Salmon dinner for my Mom's birthday!

We went to the beach one day and it was super crowded!

Got a pedicure one day with my mom.  I still have this polish on my nails...yikes

It was a fun, short trip!  I'm actually heading to San Diego again tomorrow (Oct 6th) to pick up a new car we just bought!  Stay tuned!

The big move and time with Cait's fam!

My family came to town on June 28-ish to hang out with us and help us move into our new apartment!  They got in way late Saturday night so we met up with them on Sunday for dinner at one of their old ward member's houses.  They had just recently moved to Gilbert from San Diego.

Cody fell asleep on their couch.  How rude.

 Monday was a fun day that we spent at the Main Event in Tempe bowling and laser tagging and arcade gaming and ropes coursing.  It was a good time.  We left a little early to go eat at Gecko Grill with Billy's parents, Jenny, and Jody.  All the adult siblings (except Jon) without kids for the evening.  It was so fun!

Tuesday was the big day!  My family came over to Bruce and Karen's to help us load everything into a U-Haul attached to the Suburban, our small Toyota, and my parent's van.  We managed to fit everything so we only had to make 1 trip!  Craziness!  My dad is an amazing packer!  It was the hottest day of the summer so far on the day we chose to move.  112 degrees!  Needless to say, we were all pretty sweaty that day.  I was so glad we had my Dad and brothers there to help with all the heavy lifting.  We couldn't have done it without them!

Trying to fit our entertainment center.  Our couch fits in that van!  Impressive!

Walking in for the first time...

Kitchen

Moving is such a mess

Me and my mom spent a TON of time that week looking for stuff to go into the apartment.  We definitely found a few gems.  We got some awesome lamps and rugs and other miscellaneous items.

Looking at art with Mom

Karen bought us this super cute bookshelf that is now in our family room area

Here's what it looked like the first few days after moving in.  We had already put mostly everything away.

Oh and this is our apartment gym in case you wanted to see.  Pretty impressive for an apartment complex!  It was the biggest one we had seen.

Another day that week my parents took us all go-kart racing!  Say what?!  It was a blast.  Derek turned out to be a champ go-karter and was kicking all of our trashes.  I sucked really bad, people kept having to go around me.  It's all good, can't be a pro at everything.

Awesome head covers they make you wear under the helmet

Jayce...

Ready to go

Boo ya don't mess with these guys

Billy throwing up gang signs and Derek looking scary

They were discussing how to escape a zombie attack while cooling off under the misters

This is later that night, not a very flattering picture of me but I was laughing so hard I was crying.  That's what happens when I am around my brothers!  This is in the hotel room.  We stayed with them a couple nights because they had a bed for us and it was a way nice hotel.

 Breakfast all together as a fam one morning:

There was also one day that week that we went to the Gilbert temple with my parents and Derek.  Then we went to Cafe Rio for food after.  It was super fun!  

Friday that week was the fourth of July!  So we decided to have J-dawgs for dinner, go for a swim, and light off fireworks.  I think my mom and I went somewhere that day while the boys got the fireworks, but I can't remember the details anymore!  Anyways, here's some pictures.

Sparkler time!

Lighting a firework

Illegally lighting fireworks in a big open field of dirt

It was a super fun fourth!  It was a great week with my family and I was pretty depressed when they left.  I wish we lived closer to them, but I guess that makes the time we get to spend together that much sweeter!