Ahh Sunny California!!!

This last weekend we visited Hen's step brothers and sister in Sacramento to Celebrate Ryan's ITT graduation and see the new baby JJ. Here are some pics. The weather was a beautiful 75-80 degrees and we came home on Sunday to a front yard covered in snow....sad day....

Here is Ryan (the graduate) and Hen
Josh, Hen, and Jenna
Hen and JJ (Ryan & Crystals new baby) Autiana and Crystal

I just love the expression on Autiana's face! She is such a diva!

Out to Lunch!

Last Friday before my sister had to head home to Nebraska we went to Lunch up on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building downtown. I am so sad that they are moving to Japan this Summer!

I'm Leavin on a Jet Plane....

This past weekend's adventure brought me to Manassas, Virginia, home to Hen's Mom & Stepdad, Grandmother, and Sister. I was working late Friday night and Hen was like let's just fly somewhere this weekend, anywhere.... So I suggested why don't we go see your Mom, but let's not tell her, it will be more fun. So the next morning we hopped a Delta flight to Virginia. The adventure begins.... So we get to Enterprise where we decide to rent a car, and as we are signing the paper work we inquire about the insurance because something told us to..... Normally I would just decline, but for some reason we decided to pay the extra $20 a day and get it. So Hen signs his name on the dotted line and we drive off towards Manassas from the Washington Dulles airport. We weren't ten minutes from the the car rental place when Hen turns on the windshield defrost. Before we knew it the windshield had cracked nearly a foot and was growing! We never even heard a pebble or rock hit it. We turned off the defroster to see if it would stop growing and sure enough it did. We called the car rental shop and they told us to bring it back, they also said that we were smart to take the insurance because we were covered. They swapped us out with another car no questions asked and we were on our way. So moral of the story is, unless you know you have stellar car insurance at home, pay the extra $, because you just never know what could happen! And by the time we brought the car back the length of the crack was nearing 2 feet!

The next part of the trip was one of my favorites, it is a good 45 min drive from the airport to Hen's Mom's house and so we chatted it up with her and Grandma on the phone all the way there. Of course little did they know that we would be arriving there shortly. On a side note we hadn't seen everyone since just before Thanksgiving last year. As we pull up the driveway we hear Grandma on the phone talking to Hen's Mom.

"Cheryl....Cheryl....there is a car pulling up the driveway...."

Then Rick comes to the window in the front room to peak out at the unidentified visitor.

Next is Cheryl at the window...

Hen steps out of the car....

That was the end of all sanity as we knew it, Henry might as well have been Ed McMann with a $10,000,0000 check!!

It was priceless! Cheryl was jumping up and down and screaming at the top of her lungs!

It was so cute and nice to have someone so excited to see us!

Plus it was so fun to suprise her for a change, since she is always suprising everyone else and constantly bending over backwards to help anyone in need!

Then that night her and Rick took us to Kobe Japanese Steakhouse. I have to say I am quite a fan!!! So if you ever pass one, you might just need to turn around and try it for yourself!

Also on this trip I had the opportunity to attend my first Bingo Night....

This was a HOOT!!! Let me tell you for those that have never attended, especially those that live in the Utah bubble like I do that do not know about this outside bingo world.......

These people are serious!!! No kiddin around!

First I walk into this big spacious room. People are sitting everywhere the eye can see. Some have anywhere from two bingo pages to twenty! It is as quiet as a library, you could hear a pin drop, and oh boy you better turn your cell phone on silent or you can bet somebody will make a comment about it! Hen goes and gets us a couple of cards and we sit down to play.

Next I am introduced to the official "BINGO DABBER". For those of you new to this object (which I was), it is a type of marking object used special for bingo. The end is spongey and it is filled with ink. See the below picture. (Mine is the pink one)

Next is concentration, if you want to look around the room for a minute, you can just forget it! It is so easy to get behind, especially when you are playing 6 cards at a time!!! It took a few minutes for me to come up with a rythym, but then I felt like a pro in no time! Ok, maybe not a pro, I know I couldn't have handled any more cards, but I still thought I was doing pretty good.

My eyes wandered for a second and I started to notice just how serious these people were. Not only did people have many bingo cards they were marking at once, but more impressive were the bingo dabber collections people had brought with them!!! They even had them stored in these special dabber purses! I never even knew about these dabbers, let alone something made specifically to carry them!

Anyway we didn't win any money, but we had a blast just the same! I now know you haven't lived until you have been to one of these Bingo Nights! Here are some pics of Grandma you won't want to miss!

What exactly does your Husband do again?

So after posting the previous post about my career, I thought I would share with you what Henry spends most of his time doing, when he is not spoiling me with first class flights to whereever I want to go....

Henry works for Skywest Airlines. As of Monday, he is officially a Supervisor for the GEM team, (Ground Equipment Maintenance). In english, basically he manages a bunch of mechanics. Ground equipment can be anything from de-ice trucks (that take the ice off of airplanes), to push-backs, (this pushes the plane away from the gate), to luggage carts, Bag Tugs, basically anything your eyes can see powered and non-powered on the ground except the planes at the airport.

Henry started working for Skywest in January as one of their mechanics. For the weeks after that Henry traveled daily to places like Billings, Montana, Pocatello & Twin Falls, Idaho, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and a few others. He would fix equipment at these airports and then fly home that same day. Sometimes the temperature was -8 below and he had to work outside for 8 plus hours! Now he enjoys the warm comforts of a desk, while he sends other mechanics outstation.

Now where in the world, did Henry learn how to work on equipment of this magnitude you ask???

A few years back Hen worked at Dulles International Airport for Airlines such as US Airways Express, Atlantic Coast Airline, and Delta doing the very same type of work for 6 years.

Other jobs Hen has had to name a few:

Kenny Rogers Roasters-this reminds me of that Seinfeld episode, lol

Hechts (Clothing department store, now Macey's)

Shady Oaks-ponies & amusements-lol, Hen is telling me about this as I type.

Man Power (Fairfax county gov.)

Rack N Roll (Bouncer at a Night Club)

Mark VII Equipment (Chemical Solutions Rep)

AAA-tow truck and battery sales

Ken Garff Car Sales

Celebrity Limo

So what is it exactly that you do?

So I seem to get asked this question quite often and I thought I would share what it is I spend most of my time doing away from home and how it is I got there.....

I am currently an Accountant, Assitant to the CFO/Controller at Wasatch Advisors. Wasatch Advisors manages our now 18 Mutual Funds- called the Wasatch Funds. We just launched a new website http://www.wasatchfunds.com/ and while we were hit hard last year with the way the Market went, our funds performance has improved greatly since the beginning of the year. They say it is always "darkest before the dawn."

My job responsibilities include processing payroll twice a month for now 75-80 employees, overseeing all GL Accouting including acct recs/bank recs etc, budgets, financial statements, and I am currently spending alot of time with our external auditor as he conducts his yearly audit. I am  also over the processes of all Accounts Payable, and Accounts Recieveable. My department is very small. I am one of three in this juggling act of due dates and deadlines. I have worked for Wasatch since May of 2006 and currently have a fabulous office in downtown Salt Lake that lets me look at the Mountains everyday.

I am impressed if you are still awake to have read this far. Many would find my job boring, but especially with the current state of the economy my job is never dull.

So how did I get here you ask.....okay maybe you didn't ask, but I am going to share anyway.

I moved to Logan when I was seventeen to attend Utah State University. As a freshman I started taking a variety of classes to see what I wanted to be "when I grew up". I had taken sign language classes in high school and continued on that path in college thinking I would be a Deaf Education major, but after a few semesters I realized I just enjoyed signing and since you couldn't get your signing certifications through there I decided to go down a different path.

Next was Psychology. I had taken a class one semester and found it to be really interesting so the next semester I signed up all my classes as a Psych major. After the first day of the semester, I realized what am I going to do with a "Pscyh" degree? Would I ever be able to find work, especially without getting a masters degree? So I walked to Old Main and sat on the front steps, as I started to cry because I had just dropped all the classes on my schedule and panic was setting in "I have no direction, what am I going to do with my life?, At that point I did what every other teenager in college does.... I called my Mom! It was in that conversation she suggested, why don't you try the business school. I said "Moooommmmm, It is the first day of the semester all of the classes will be full, I will never get in. " Glad no one can call me melodramatic! So I started to add my classes and sure enough I was able to get every last one! Amoung those classes was one for Accounting. By the end of the semester I was sold. It made sense to me. Accounting was so black and white. "Assets=Liabilities + Equity", this was a world that made sense, where 2 + 2 always equaled four. So it was from then on that I raced through the rest of school, making sure that I graduated in 4 years at the age of 21. Now looking back.....especially every morning when I get up at the same time to go to the same job and have the same stressful responsibilities, mortgage, housework, yard work etc., "I ask myself why was it I was in such a hurry to be done again????" But I did love my college years looking back I took some fun classes as well, "Money Well Spent!!!", Billiards, Horse Back Riding, Snowboarding (okay I only lasted in snowboarding one day... and that was one cold ride down the mountain on my butt....) I also enjoyed many naps on the quad and visits to bear lake for their insane shakes! I moved four times...... I wouldn't recommend! And my first year I was without a car and shared a door room with 5 girls and only one bathroom!!! I do remember some interesting bus rides that year....

After graduation in 2005 I found a job as an Accountant for a trucking company in North Ogden, while the commute was not fun, especially during the winter, to drive through Sardine canyon twice a day from Logan, I really enjoyed everything I learned there and the people that I worked with. I was there for 7 months and moved to Salt Lake in the process. After moving here I ended up finding my job at Wasatch where I have been ever since.

Now if you have made it this far you deserve a COOKIE!!!! And so I will share with you some other jobs I have had in my past that may entertain you.....

1. VideoVerns
2. Canyon Sports-many winter seasons
3. Warehouse Music-i think this place was haunted....
4. Lane Bryant-fashion place mall
5. All-a Dollar (one day) it was a nightmare!!!
6. Salt Lake County Voting office- side note, I had to drive to one of the voting stations on election day, and drove one of the counties 15 passenger vans, the worst part was that I couldn't park the thing and ended up hitting another car in the process..... EEEEkkk!
7. Dusted at a department store in a mall (1/2 day....) (I was working for a temp agency at the time)
8. Computer Lab Consultant on USU's campus- 3 years!
9. KeyBank-teller- ahh how I loved to count the money!
10. Convergys..... one long summer on the phones! Yikes!!!!
11. ATG Trucking, first accounting job out of college

I like to...
My old office roomie Kati did this on her blog and I was curious so I thought I'd try... Google "{your name} likes to" (with the quotation marks) and see what the first 10 hits say about you.

Kara Likes To:

1. Run, read, and play volleyball. (i can only honestly agree with the second two, what is this running you speak of, I would rather relax at the beach)

2. play on the internet and boss people around (Hen is this true?)

3. to take photos, (definitely!)

4. go to the pool, e-mail her friends up north (not sure who this is), and hang out with her new husband, (yup!)

5. likes getting rubbed-(scratched, massaged, etc., who doesn't?)

6. to tease, (can't disagree here.... I had this old roommate I used to torture, like hiding under her bed and grabbing her ankles, or in her closet, or in the shower while she was brushing her teeth, I haven't heard from her in years.....)

Now on to Hen:

Hen Likes To:

1. sew, (really I didn't know that honey...)

2. dance! (definitely, he has quite the moves!)

3. snuggle in the sheets, (yes he is notorious)

4. listen to music (yes, but it is not what you would think, he loves sinatra, classical, opera, but if you turn on the radio he is great at knowing all artists old and new, and letting me listen to country whenever I feel like!)

5. ride on the dash of our motor home (i am assuming this was in reference to a dog named Henry, not really sure)

6. watch football and go out with his friends to eat (we have a winner!)