Welcome to Gatorville

We have been in Gainesville for almost two months now and have made it out to the La chua Trail twice already to observe nature and the slew of alligators that live in it. Our very first visit to the trail was with my brother, Alex, and his family along with my sister, Amanda, and her daughter. The second time was with Ryker, my sister's husband, when he came to visit. It's almost gauranteed that if you come and visit us in Gainesville, you will get taken down to this La chua Trail, which is also refered to as Payne's Prarie, to see the gators. The first 500 yards or so is fenced in and raised above the water. But after that its wide open with no fence-- just water, gators, and a nice little trail to walk along. The aligators haven't shown any hostility so far, and unless that changes we plan to continue our frequent visits.
Trent's usual involvement with this blog that I call "ours" is slim to nothing, the exception being this very post. I think he has reminded me at least once a day for the past week or so to post the pictures of the gators. So, per Trent's request, please enjoy the following slide show.

California, Arizona, Orlando Trip

This is so frustrating... I have so much to blog about, but so little time. And before I can blog about anything else, I have to get this post off my chest. It's another picture post, this time featuring pictures from our little trip from sea to shining sea.

We left on May 26th, our three year anniversary. We stayed the night at the Marriott Renaissance, which is some fancy hotel near the airport that we found on hotwire.com.
ps: hotwire is awesome for last minute reservations. However, you may think you are getting a good deal for a four star hotel, and you are, except for the fact that you have to pay though the nose for everything that is supposed to be free-- like parking, internet, etc. oh, but the weight room was amazing and it was free, phew.

Here is Trent in the little waiting area by the elevator, the hotel decor was wild

From Orlando we flew to Orange County where we got to see Katie and Joe again! I was in awe on our short ride from the airport to their adorable apartment in New Port Beach because it was so beautiful. It was around 2 o'clock, the sun was out, but it wasn't too hot, and there were tall palm trees lining all the huge roads. But the very next day June Gloom set in and we didn't get to see too much more of the sun. ANYway, Katie and Joe did such a good job entertaining us. Katie took us to Balboa Island via bike ride and ferry, made amazing smoothies for breakfast, had our favorite casserole pre-made, ready to throw in the oven, and took us to two of our favorite restaurants- Sweet Tomatoes and Red Robin. We had so much fun with them. Here is a picture with Katie right before we left.
From New Port Beach we headed to Temecula where we got to see Emilee and John at their rehearsal dinner. They are such a cute couple- we love them.
From there we headed south for San Diego to go to the wedding. The Temple was so beautiful, but I didn't get a single picture because it was raining. After the wedding we went to Balboa Park and Anthony's Seafood Restaurant, a favorite from Trent's childhood memories. We had a nice veiw of the Pacific Ocean
After our short stop in San Diego we went up to Menifee to go to the most fabulous reception I have ever been to. It looked like it was right out of a Martha Stuart magazine, everything was simply perfect.
Here is Trent shaking Johns hand towards the end of the night
Trying to capture the scene, it was so fun.

Next stop: Arizona. We flew into the Phoenix airport and got to see my Grandma, Uncle Brent, and cousins Ashley, Celeste, and Michael. Here we are with my adorable Grandma Jessie.

The next day we went to the community beach park at my sister's in Gilbert.Trent's sister came all the way up from Tucson (2+ hour drive) just to spend a few hours with us at the beach then turn back around and drive us back. On top of that she is pregnant with baby #2. We only had one full day in Tucson but we were able to cram a lot of fun stuff into it. This is easy to do when your host lives in a neighborhood with its own water park type of thing, gym, mini golf course, jogging trail (which I wouldn't recommend using at mid afternoon--but hello? it's Arizona, who would ever even think to try that one?). Here is a nice shot of their whole family at the mini golf course.
And our entire family too.
Trent with little Addie. It was so much fun spending time with Sabrina, Brett, and Addie.
After our quick stop in Arizona we flew back to Orlando where we stayed with my other Grandparents, Meme and Lee, for a couple of nights at their timeshare. Here we are at Downtown Disney.
We found a store called "Trent," at least that's what it appears to be at first glance.Trent found the neighboring ESPN store to be much more entertaining.We had Kalil choose her favorite helment.
I think she was a little more excited about the UF one than the FSU one :( She has that, "why is this on my head" look on her face.When we got home Kalil got to take a bubble bath in Meme's tub, so I put my swimsuit on and jumped in too.
Meme and Lee took us out to eat at a really nice seafood restaurant, Landry's- it was so good.
Lastly, our trip to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Since this post is already too long, I consolidated all of our NASA pictures into one.

job-search-story

To keep my long and excruciating job-search-story short-- I started my new job yesterday!! If only the double exclamation point could fully express my excitement...
So far it has been fantastic. Job heaven, if you will. Nothing beats the first few weeks on a new job when all the training/learning/deep thinking occurs.
The deal sealer was the location. One day I will have to pull out my stopwatch and get the official time it takes me to get to work, but until then the following map will have to suffice.

I almost forgot

In my last post I almost forgot to include this fantastic picture

With the exception of our other car, the above picture has everything that Trent and I have in our possession. After selling off most of the items we no longer wanted on Craigslist, Trent and I managed to stuff everything we owned into a little plywood box that Trent's step dad and my dad constructed on the back of our Isuzu Hombre.

It must have weighed a ton and a half. And those tiny little tires couldn't handle all that weight, hence the flat tire that we got. Did I mention we were only 60 miles from my parents house when we pulled over and noticed the flat? But we think we may have driven with the flat for some 50 miles before we decided to pull over. Whoops.

We finally made it

After stopping for 4 sit down meals, driving for 3 long days, sleeping at 2 different hotels, and repairing 1 flat tire, we can now say we survived our long trek to Florida. Life was nothing short of crazy before, during, and after the move, and it hasn't been until recently that it has started to slow down. Hence, a typical photo recap of the last few blog-less months of our life.

Our good friends Katie and Joe came to Utah from California during the beginning of April and we were able to spend the weekend with them in Park City at their grandparent's vacation home that's only a few small strides away from the ski lift. Here we are after lunch at the summit house restaurant.

Trent skied and the rest of us snowboardedSince we had so much fun with Katie and Joe, Trent and I had to go again before the big move. This time we checked out Snowbasin, which is one of the few resorts in Utah that has covered lifts that take you up the mountain. Here we are inside of one (gondola).Remember how I mentioned something about chemistry goggles in my previous post? Here you have it. Trent and I couldn't find either of our ski goggles before leaving so Trent brought his chemistry goggles and I bought some youth goggles up at the resort.
Here's Trent posing with his awesome goggles on.And remember how I mentioned something about black eyes? Here's what happened. I led Trent down a black diamond, going as fast as possible, when out of no where a big dip comes up and I start tumbling. Head first. Of course I freak out. It didn't help that I had just heard about Natasha Richardson's accident.
After a quick visit with the ski patrol we headed back up the mountain for a few more runs before the resort closed. Here we are on our way out, swollen eye and all. After our ski trip we hit the books and studied for finals. Once we finished our finals we packed. And then there was graduation. This is what our big day looked like:Here is a picture at the breakfast of me and my best friend from the accounting program, Katie.

We made several walks from our apartment on the southeast side of campus to the Marriott Center on the northwest side of campus. Wearing strappy heals was not a good idea.
Here is Trent showing us all of his teaching awards
And here we are in the Tanner building. I didn't get any teaching awards myself so the best we could do is stand in front of a statue and plaque about service.
This is at the Marriott school reception. They had a slide show going with all the achievements received by the various programs this year. The accounting program got bumped up to number one this year. Too bad no one knows this in Gainesville.
So happy to be done.
After the long graduation both of our families met at wallaby's for dinner.