Nichole's birthday

I know I have been terrible at blogging lately, but I have just been insanely busy! We just got back from 6 days in Idaho and Utah and I'll have pictures of that to post soon. We had a great time visiting with all my Utah friends, but the time went too quickly, and the drive was pretty long! I think the older I get, the harder that drive becomes. As soon as I took my 2nd job, my regular job got insanely busy. I have been working anywhere from 35-50 hours a week plus school. Its been a lot to say the least, but I am doing my best to make it work. Luckily there are only 2 weeks left of this term, I am really looking forward to a week and a half off school, and then starting my final semester, woohoo! In other really great news, Rick found out this week that he ranked in the top 8 managers for his region for 2009. He works so hard, I am so proud of him that he is finally getting some recognition. He was actually offered a different job recently, in Seattle. We thoughtfully considered the job for some time, and weighed all our options. After everything, we decided to stay here in Portland, and I think we both feel really good about the decision. Anyways, because Rick won this ranking, it means that we both get to go to Scottsdale, AZ on a trip for AT&T's Summit, to recognize all the top people in the company for last year. We are both so excited to take a trip to sunny AZ in April, and especially since it'll be free! Again, I'm so proud of all of Rick's hard work!
Well back at the beginning of February was our friend Nichole's birthday. I only have a few pictures, but I'll get them up here. It's a good excuse for a post :)
The birthday girl and I at The Loft (inside Grand Central Bowl)
Enochses

Heidi and I

And one last one of Jaime and I

Some of you may wonder how my New years' experiment is going for this month. The theme is love. Well, I sort of feel like I've failed miserably. I have tried to do some little things for Rick to show him how much I love him, but I honestly have had nearly zero time to do anything besides work and school. So I've just been trying to be kind and say "I love you" as much as I can to not only Rick, but everyone I love. The interesting thing, I think, is for a month that I am trying to focus on loving other people, I have instead been shown a lot of love. Its funny how sometimes when you try and do nice things, and maybe it doesn't work for whatever reason, you instead learn the lesson because someone is doing the same thing to you :) Rick has been wonderful in doing extra things around the house. He bought me a watch that I love this month, and has even been cleaning out the litter box for me! So, I hope all of you know how much I love each of you, but even more so, thank you for loving me back!
One last piece of good news: we got our taxes back and I paid my car off! I would have paid it off in July anyways, but it still feels great to have it paid off 5 months early, and no car payment is going to be sweet!
That's all for now. TTFN!