Growing up, Josh liked reminding everyone that he was the oldest and that put him in charge – as if his massive size suggested doubt. He spent hours tumbling around with me (never hurting me on purpose) and even though I sometimes hated it, I always loved the attention my brother showed me. Watching WWF, American Gladiators or just going for a drive in the VW bus, Josh was a really fun brother and he was really good to his dorky 7yrs-younger brother. To him I was “Chubba-lubba” and Jacob came to learn that if he was rough with me all I had to do was yell for josh and that usually settled things pretty quick. We always had a special bond since I was young, and that bond has continued to the present - going to concerts, sharing music, jokes, video games and just hanging out. I like watching Josh interact with his kids, he's a fun dad and you can tell how much he loves his family. Thanks Josh for being a great bro'
This last month has been an interesting month. Angie has been having problems with her left eye. About a month ago it started getting blurry. She said that it sometimes happens when she gets migrains so she didn’t think much of it, but those usually only last a few hours and after a couple days she thought she should talk to someone about it. So we went to the doctor and he told her to go see an eye doctor. We did (it was the same eye doctor who wasted an hour and a half of his day trying to get contacts into my eyes years earlier. He was really smiley and nice. He told her that her eyes checked out 20/20 and that what it could be is optical neuritis, which is a swelling of the optical nerve. He said it usually last around 4 weeks. We could have her head scanned to be certain, but since we’re not insured the doctor said we were probably fine waiting it out and seeing if it gets better. So it’s been 5 weeks now and angie hasn’t noticed any improvement. She tried to call the eye doctor again this week but he’s out of town until next week. Its really been slowing her down. She can’t watch movies or read very long or even look at the computer for extended periods of time. She says the brightness outside gives her headaches etc. Which is a shame because its been so nice out the last couple of days. We go for walks about every day and we like to play Frisbee a little, but can’t do it for too long. Everyone is keeping her in their prayers and she’s been given two blessings. The rest is just up to her I guess.
We had an awesome trip to southern Utah with Josh, his kids, jake, annie and two of annie's sisters. It was lots of fun. we went to goblin valley and little wildhorse canyon. we camped under a moonless sky and even had dutchoven dinner! we had some late night coyote problems, but besides that it was all fun and games! It sure was nice to get out and adventurize a little bit.
I’ve been getting pretty anxious about graduation. I have only 3 weeks left and I have been searching desperately for employment. I’ve applied to about 6 places, most of which are only seasonal summer jobs or internships. I’ve applied to positions in Alaska, Wyoming, Colorado, Flaming Gorge, Cedar City, and am just finishing up an application for an internship in Washington state. I’ve really had to jump out of my comfort zone and talk with all my GIS instructors to try to get some letters of recommendation or permission to use them as references. It’s been good for me. I only hope I can get something arranged for this summer. It’s a really hard economy to be graduating in. I heard from someone in one of my classes that students graduating this year will make less in their lifetime than any other graduates from the last X amount of years. Bummer. I guess money can’t buy you everything anyways, right? I’m really hoping I am considered for the Grand Junction or Puyallup, WA jobs. They’re both GIS internships that would be really great for me and give me some excellent experience. Some of the other jobs were just field tech jobs where I wouldn’t be using GIS hardly at all. The cody WY position is a full time assistant planner salary job with their planning and zoning division. That would be awesome!
For angie’s 30th birthday I bought her Lost Cities the board game. She wanted Dominion but its been out of stock everywhere (even online) since Christmas and if you want to buy a used one online it costs $150!! So that will have to wait, but Lost cities is really fun. We’ve played it a few times with family and with our neighbors the Rodgers and had a good time.
I got to teach my first Hunter Education class this last weekend. It was fun. I taught it with 2 other students from my Living With Wildlife class and we taught 7 other students from the same class. Angie's cousin Jackson was one of the students. It went well and was really a breeze. I wasn’t planning on teaching any more than the required one, but I may since it was so easy and a pretty good time.
Conference was last weekend and we drove to Kaysville for priesthood session. Mom and dad come along with Deborah and Steven. They had all just come home from Italy just 2 days earlier. It was fun to see them all and to talk about their trip. 2 days after priesthood there was a 6.3 earthquake in central italy that toppled a bunch of old buildings and killed 90 people or so. We were glad they were out of their. Becky and david said they felt it in the middle of the night, but that it wasn’t big where they were and they went back to bed. Sunday after dinner Janet had her traditional conference quiz. I scored the lowest of anyone besides grandma, but I still got a consolation prize of raspberry jam J
