We finally did it!!!

On Sunday, July 15th, I was able to receive my College diploma! It was an exciting experience and I am so glad that I decided to go through the ceremony. It will rank up their as on of the most special moments in my (our) life(s). It was such a journey and I get teary eyed about all the hard work and lack of work that I did during my time at Oregon State. I also get teary eyed thinking about my grandparents (Grandpa and Grandma Rice) and how happy they must be that I finished. I know that they were high fivin' each other in heaven as I got it.

I want to thank Joo Lin for giving me that extra push to go back and finish up. WE DID IT!!!






I also want to thank my family for coming to support me during this special moment. It meant a lot to Joo Lin and I that you attended.








If you would like to see some more photos from this special day, please click on the this link.

Here are some silly photos from my graduation. I love silly photos!



Was it really that boring???


One of the ways that my family was able to spot me was because of my orange flip flops.


Here I am making sweet love to my diploma!


It was so hot that I had to cool off after the ceremony.


My mother ordered a cake from Albertson's and they accidentally screwd it up. It was suppose to be orange and black frosting with a Beaver on it. By the way, that is a Bulldog on the front of it, my high school mascot.

Graduation Pre Funk

I was curious what I would look like in my cap and gown yesterday so I surprised Joo Lin when she got home for lunch yesterday. She had the cutest grin on her face when she arrived home to this surprise. I didn't take a picture of her expression but I wish I would have. Instead she took a picture of me and I thought that we would share it with everyone. Please note that I will not be wearing sweat pants underneath my gown come Sunday and the gown will be ironed.

Is that an animal?

Last week while Joo Lin was getting ready to come home from work, a lady that works below her office came over to her and asked her if that was her car. She was pointing to Jasmine and Joo Lin said "yes, that's my car."

When Joo Lin first started telling me this story I thought to myself that someone had hit and ran our Jasmine. There has been quite a few incidents in that parking lot lately so I was relieved when let Joo Lin finished her story. I guess the lady thought that we had left our pet in our car. It was a scorcher that day so she was concerned when she looked over and she saw this in our car (the brown thing between the orange jacket).

Joo Lin chuckled and politely informed the lady that it was a stuffed Beaver in the car and not a "real" animal. I guess the car was a bit messy and we had some blankets and hiking gear in the back seat. The lady was relieved!

The moral of this story is don't store your stuffed animals in your car because someone might actually think it is a real one.

Graduation!!!

The final step in my journey that I called "college" will take place this Sunday at 1 PM at Reser's Stadium. This final step is the Commencement Ceremony. I am super duper excited! I started college a long long long time ago. Lets just say that the price of tuition has tripled since the time that I started to the time that I finished. At first I wasn't going to participate in the walking ceremony but as time got closer I thought that it would be worth it since it was a journey to finish.

If you are going to be attending the ceremony, keep a look out for the bald man with rosy cheeks. That will be me!

PS...We are having a BBQ afterwards if anyone would like to attend. It will be at our apartment's clubhouse.

So You Think You Can Dance!

Joo Lin loves this show and while we were watching it last night she paused to tell me that "So You Think You Can Dance" (SYTYCD) is her all time favorite show. She said that she loves it more than "Little House on the Prairie" and I even asked her if she loved it more than "Quantum Leap"...she just looked at me funny and said yes.



So far we love Twitch and the Mormon Girl (Hightower is her last name, well, I love her, not sure if Jooge does) and we hate the skanky school teacher.

Here are some of our all time favorite performers from last season.




SKREET DANCING???

sewing machine

My birthday was in March but somehow I neglected to write about it... oops! We celebrated at the same time as Easter since it was just days apart. It was so fun having family and friends around. My family and friends are so generous with their love and gifts! Many things made me SMILE... dinner out, gift cards which bought me clothes, shoes, books, and my first flower pot for our porch, a BYU sweatshirt, hand-knitted pot holders, hand scrubs/lotions, cash which provided cool rubber stamps for scrapbooking, a cool CSI scene cake, and the most used....
my sewing machine! I asked Kelley for one when I got the whim and he got one for me. The coolest thing is that it is RED!! We picked it up at Symantec (where he had it shipped to surprise me) and I held it in my lap on the way home looking at the cool features.
The point of this was that I was all into the thought of sewing for whatever reason. I bought fabric and a simple pattern to make work out / lounging pants (we will see what they will be used for - ha!). Red fabric and off I went! I cut them out and did the inner and outer seam. I then tried them on and realized they were ridiculously LARGE on me. I was positive I measured correctly (and my mom even double checked, probably thinking I didn't know how to measure :). Fortunately they're just pants so I sewed the outer seam much farther in on each leg. Still no luck. Although I took a looong break from sewing then (why? not sure... maybe lazy...?) , the story doesn't end, thank goodness!
I FINISHED my pants yesterday - YAY!! I cut off the sides and did a bigger "seam allowance" (HA!). I finished off the directions with the elastic and ribbon. Hemmed up the bottom and realized.... I CAN'T sew a straight line! Either I get too excited and sew super fast or I have no hand-eye coordination. Votes for either? But they're done and huge in the waist but I rationalize that they can expand with me so they'll last forever.... or not. I'm excited and they're pretty comfy. I was on a roll and even fixed Kelley's pj pants and my pj pants. I'm a regular little seamstress! (my mom wishes!!)

Couch-to-5K running plan

I've gotten a couple questions about the running plan. Here is the link:

http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

It's a good schedule and very do-able. Good luck!

BEACH TRIP!!

I loved my wife's 5k run but I had to tell about our fun trip to the beach that we had a couple of weeks ago. We decided to grab our kite and we hopped into the car and headed off. It was soooooooo windy and we lots of trouble getting the kite in the air (well, I had trouble, Joo Lin was able to get the kite off into the air without any issues) but when we finally did it was a blast.



Afterwards we went to Mo's and had some tasty clam chowder! We love that place. Not sure what my hands were doing but don't worry they are not gang symbols.

slow and steady finishes the race!

I did it! Saturday morning I was so nervous I woke up WITHOUT AN ALARM CLOCK at 6:50 AM. Can I just say ridiculous?? That was WAY too early. I couldn't sleep so I walked around the apartment and read a book. I have no idea why I was so antsy and nervous but my behavior was completely silly as I was trying to get ready. Kelley finally said he was going to drive me because he didn't trust me to get there on my own (he was planning on coming when the race started, not the early registration time). Off we went!

It's all for a good cause!

I was so full of nervous energy it was ridiculous... just bouncing around! Good thing I didn't run out of juice when the running was supposed to happen!Stretching... and thinking "Really? Can I do this?"

Kiss for luck!

Group photo when we're fresh and ready to go! Joo Lin, Amy, Rebecca, Ron (L-R)

Don't mind my form... I'm the girl in the back... both pictures... but dang my hair looks cute :)
Go Amy Go!Finished!!
Amy & I were successful and met our goal! We rock!

Results for the 5K (3.1 mi):
Joo Lin - 30:28
Amy - 30:51

So, this was a great experience and it feels super good to meet a goal! My goal was to jog the entire thing without walking or stopping. Amy and I did the Couch-to-5K Running Plan and it works really well. Please don't get confused that I love running, far from it... I do it to keep in shape and meet my goal of running a 5K one day. Sure, I'll run more of them but nope, never a marathon :) I think I'll max out at 5 miles...

Shout out to my mom for coming down to Corvallis to support me! Then we all went to breakfast at Elmer's. Yum!

5k Run

I am so excited for tomorrow (Saturday). My wife has been training for a 5k run and all of her hard work will come together tomorrow as she participates in this years CARDV 5K run. For people that don't understand the metric system, that is 3.1 miles. I am so proud of her and I know that she will do great! Plus, I can't wait for her to get her tshirt, I think she is more excited about getting a shirt than she is about running.

Happy Easter

This is obviously long overdue... Kelley assigned it to me and I slacked... so here it is!

Easter was fabulous! We invited our families down to our place to host our first holiday. Although we were a bit nervous, I think it turned out splendid thanks to Kelley. He attempted to do dinner all by himself but gave in when it came to the deviled eggs - silly him! Fortunately we were able to get the clubhouse so we had plenty of room for all. The spread was delicious... loads of ham, au gratin potatoes, funeral potatoes, homemade rolls, green bean casserole, asparagus, stuffing, veggie tray, deviled eggs, and sparkling cider... yum!

Here is Kelley hard at work slicing up the yummy ham so we can get started eating!

What a lovely table we had... complete with a pink hyacinth and golden bunny rabbits for the centerpiece, compliments of my dad.

My mom added to the festivities with her traditional easter egg bread - braided bread with actual colored eggs baked in. Delish!









After some good feasting we sat around and enjoyed one another's company. Guests: Dale, Ruth, Sherril, David & Ashley, Mindee, Tanner & Michelle & their kids Wyatt and Maya.

We missed Evan & Dana & their kids Trevin, Amanda & Ella, Kendy & Ken, and Klorissa & AJ! Next time!










Mindee and Wyatt became coloring buddies while the rest of us cleaned up. Mindee provided the colors for Wyatt to do his masterpiece... which is...? I never saw the finished product :)












Look how adorable little Maya is! She had the cutest little easter dress, but of course got down to the basics for the feasting :) I love babies!











So, it was a wonderful day! I have to give thanks to everyone who came and helped. We love all of you and appreciate all you do for us! We have fabulous family and friends!

This is also a day especially to remember Jesus Christ - his sacrifice for us and his life for us. Without Him we wouldn't have eternal friends and family. Happy Easter!!

The Myth behind Four Twenty (420)

I was trying to do some research about 420 (the stoner holiday) but I could never find the real reason behind it. I found lots of evidence on how to celebrate this day but I wanted to find out the truth behind this day because my mother was born on April 20th (420) and I wanted to make sure that she wasn't the real reason behind this day. Lets just say that I didn't find any evidence that tied her into this holiday.

Joo Lin and I were able to visit her on her birthday. It was a fun trip and we got to eat at my mother's favorite restaurant. I don't really like her favorite restaurant though so it was a lot of sacrifice on my part. Her birthday was a bit sad though, her daughter Klorissa (my sister) was not able to attend because she lives in another state now. Besides that it was a fun time. Happy Birthday MOM!! We love you!

Here is a link to the photos for our little adventure.

My favorite photo is this one:

Flowers on I5

On Monday Joo Lin and I took a trip to Eugene to eat at the Olive Garden. On our way down I got a little adventurous and pulled off the highway to go grab some lily's for my wife. She had no clue why I had randomly pulled off the road. I told her that I wanted to grab some flowers for her and then she lit up. As we were walking down the highway looking for safe passage to the patch of flowers a random car pulled off to see if we need assistance. I went to talk to him and told him that we had just pulled off to get flowers. I was quite surprised to see that someone would pull off and ask. He thought that we had ran out of gas and he just laughed at us when he found out what we were doing. Here are some photos of the event. If you want to go grab your own flowers you can find them located near milepost marker 226.

Happy Birthday Maya

Our friend Maya had her first birthday yesterday. We decided to make her a cake and here it is. We ran out of frosting so we were able to cover the whole cake though.

First Photo!

Here is the first photo from our new camera. It's a picture of me!!

New Camera

We finally decided to buy a new camera. I had won some money from playing Fantasy Baseball last year so we had some extra money burning in our pockets. We had numerous ideas of what we could get but I finally decided to get a camera when I went to Costco and I saw it. It was RED and I realized that this was a sign to get it. Plus they didn't have Rock Band for the PS3. I was going to take a photo of the camera but I thought that it would be easier to grab one of the net.

March Madness = Kelley Madness

The other day I tried to convince my wife to fill out a NCAA 2008 March Madness bracket. At first she didn't want to do it but then I told her that it was a tradition and that she had to do it. She looked at me funny and said "What tradition?" I then informed her that I was being silly like my mother because she always says that things are traditions when I think they otherwise not traditions. Finally Joo Lin laughed and she broke down and filled out a bracket yesterday. I thought that it would be fun to post the results on our blog.

Link to March Madness Bracket

P.S. The overall loser has to make dinner for a week!

March Madness is gone. The games were fun to watch and the wife and I had a nail biter with our bracket challenge. I thought that I had won for a couple of weeks. The funny thing is that I scored my bracket one way and the wife scored hers another way so that added some confusion. I thought that I had our challenge won, the wife only had one Final Four team and she only had one win in the last three days of the tournament. I had the wife make dinner the last two nights in a row. They were great meals too! Then I was cleaning up my office last night and I tried to give her bracket back to her and she said "Can you please find out what my final score was?" I told her I could but that it would be a pain because of the way that she scored it. We fought, no punches were thrown though. I rescored our brackets and the final score was 71-69. The wife had won!!!! :(

I contemplated whether or not I should tell her or if I should add a few points to mine. She had already made two meals and I thought that she would be hysterical at me. I decided that I had to tell her the truth. I went to tell her and she was mad, she started yelling at me...ok...can anyone picture Joo Lin yelling at cute little me? She just laughed...and now I have to make dinner for a week. I wonder what she will have me make?

BABY!!!

This title is a little misleading...Joo Lin and I are not having a baby but my little sister, Klorissa is pregnant!!! How exciting is that??

Easter Dinner

The Rice's are hosting Easter dinner this year. We are extremely excited as we have never hosted an event like this before. We are having bits and pieces of each of our families over and we are also having a one of our close friends family coming over too. I think we have over 11 or so people coming. So far we have bought 15 pounds of ham. Hopefully that will be enough, I think it should be. Since our apartment is extremely small, we are having it at our complexes club house. It's extremely large and it should be more comfortable for all of us. We will have to take some photos of the event.

To everyone: MERRY EASTER!

as the days go by...

Whew! We are into March already and life is grand. Kelley loves his job at Symantec and has funny stories on a daily basis. He is so good at what he does and has gotten high scores on his surveys. Besides the commute (he is a champ for the good attitude!), he looks forward to going to work everyday... his co-workers, the weekly treats work provides, and helping others. His weekends consist of Sundays and Mondays, which is different but he enjoys the "Kelley time" on Mondays. These days he spends his free time on his fantasy baseball database. It's intense and very cool!

CLAIR Company is still treating me well. I enjoy keeping busy and my friends at work. One of my favorite "tasks" at work is organizing various areas with Amy. During my "Joo Lin time" on Saturdays I read (don't laugh!) my old Sweet Valley books (Sweet Valley Twins & Sweet Valley High). It's dorky, I know - ha! On the non-dorky side of my leisure time I jog - see the next entry.

Life is fabulous. We love each other. The days go by....

jogging... love it... try it...

Amy and I are planning on jogging in the CARDV Mother's Day Run for Safe Families [Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence]. I have to give a shout out to Amy because she is my example and motivator - woohoo!! It's a 5K and the goal is to jog the entire thing. We are doing an 8 week couch-to-5K program and I feel good about it. I'm pretty excited to do this with Amy :) Wish us luck!

I have to give a plug for working out. I love it and I feel soooo good once I'm done. Ironic that I am saying this because I used to be convinced I couldn't jog any length of time. I hated track in high school (still can't figure out why I did it for 2 years!). When I started I felt like I was dying after just 1 lap. Now look at me! If you don't exercise, try it... even if it's just walking... life will seem better...

A Perfect 10.0

Kelley surprised me by taking me to a women's gymnastics meet between OSU and BYU last night. It was really fun. Those girls amaze me with the things they can do athletically. OSU is ranked 8th and BYU isn't ranked and I have to admit that it showed last night. The level of competitiveness was very clear. The highlight was Tasha Smith from OSU scoring a perfect 10.0 on the floor exercise. The performance was outstanding and was a lot of fun as a spectator.

Kelley and I both sported BYU apparel although Kelley wore his OSU jacket and was very clearly a Beaver at heart. The security guy was supposedly talking trash to me when we walked in by asking me what BYU stood for. Naive girl that I am, I didn't pick up on the clue and Kelley thought it was funny when I actually responded with "Brigham Young University - the other team here tonight." Fun times!

Late Night Scare

Wednesday night... about 11:15 pm...

Background: Since Kelley has to be at work by 7 am every day he goes to bed early (about 10:30 pm). I tend to stay up a little later since I am a night person and I don't have to get up so early. Most nights Kelley is sawing logs when I crawl into bed. The same scenario tonight: I crawl into bed while Kelley is sound asleep.

Then picture this....
Kelley is dead to the world... in his new favorite spot: the middle of the bed. I don't have much room and it's pretty warm so I lean up to open the window. I did this last night and Kelley briefly woke up to the noise of the blinds, leaned over, gave me a kiss then went back to sleep. Tonight when I touched the blinds (are you picturing this??) he half sat up, gave a (manly) little yell then sat up, really yelled, and grabbed his pillow to either attack me or shield himself. It definitely startled me and I didn't know what to do so I started talking.. "Hello, it's me. What are you doing? I'm just opening the window. Are you ok??" He calmed down a bit and told me I scared him (obviously), that he was sorry and then lay down and was completely out again. I had to then open the window - yep, wasn't successful the first attempt - then laid down trying to analyze what just happened. Then it struck me as FUNNY so I started giggling. This is the beginning of what Kelley calls my "laughing fits" and I can't stop. Then it turns into full blown laughter because I realize I am shaking the bed by laughing and thinking Kelley will get mad if I wake him up yet again. So I quiet down and then really wonder.... was Kelley going to attack me with the pillow or was he really just protecting himself from little ol' me....

Couch

Back in January, Joo Lin and I decided to purchase a new couch as a treat instead of going on a trip together. We thought that we would get more enjoyment out of a new couch. We did run into one problem, what to do with our old couch??? Here is a funny picture of what we decided to do with it. Luckily that night we were able to find a new home of our other couch and it didn't have to stay like this for too long
.

Bravo Zulu!

I had some free time today so I thought that I would give everyone an update on my new job. It has been over two months, so I guess I can still call it a new job.

For the past two months I have been working as a Technical Support Engineer for Symantec's Priority Support group. Symantec is the industry leader in antivirus and security software market and their software is used in 99% of the Fortune 500 company. They provide over 150 different software applications to these company's. You might be familiar with Norton Antivirus, this is antivirus software suite that is provided for home users while Symantec antivirus is mainly their antivirus suite for corporate users. I am providing support for these corporations or for anyone else that provides them with big bucks for English speaking technical support.

The colleagues that I work with are the best and it makes for a fun and entertaining work environment. I believe that I am make a nice addition to their group and have been accepted quite easily among them. It must be my charming/quirky personality that they like.

From the beginning, I was thrown into the line of fire and I think I have been holding up my own. They randomly survey customers that call in and so far I have had three survey's report back. Two of them were top scores 7 out of 7's and the other was a 6 out of 7. When you get all 7's they call it a Bravo Zulu which is a naval signal that means "Well Done". The flags at the beginning of this post represent the Bravo Zulu.

I have also had one of my calls recorded and graded. Out of a score of 5, I got a 4.61. I got marked down for saying "Cool" during the conversation. I will have to work on not saying cool for future callers.

The commute to Springfield does get tiresome at times but when I get to work I am excited to help customers and work on challenging situations that are always changing day by day. Basically, I love my job!

Klorissa and AJ Farewell

My sister and her husband are off to Arizona to start their new life together. AJ is in the Air Force and has been stationed in Tucson. A couple of weeks back we met up in North Bend and had a farewell dinner for them. It was a great time to get together as a family and to hang out with AJ's family and get to know them better. It was sad and fun event when all was said and done. Here is a picture of the event, check out the hat that my mother is wearing. I dig it. Best wishes to Klorissa and AJ as they start their new life together in sunny Arizona!!!

Bruce is back!!

Bruce, our car, got back from the autobody shop this week. We are so glad to have him back and I know that Joo Lin is excited that she doesn't have to crawl through the passenger side door anymore.

Thanks for being patient wife! You are the best!

It's "KETCHUP" time!

In grade school my teacher used to have "ketchup" day.... a day to get things in order and get caught up on old stuff. So here I am doing the same:

Dec 10 - Kelley started his new job at Symantec!! We are both extremely excited for this opportunity.

Dec 14 - We had dinner with some old friends at Bishop French's place. Friends, both old and new, are fabulous. We saw "I Am Legend" and enjoyed it. Who doesn't like Will Smith? Plus the storyline was interesting.

Dec 16 - Christmas at the Stephens House! It was a great day of visiting, laughing, eating, and exchanging gifts. Thanks to everyone for their thoughtfulness!! My Dad got new pigeons... Bonnie & Clyde.... they're a nice addition to the family.

Dec 17 - HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE RICE'S! Two whole years and we're still going. We enjoyed a nice dinner out. Kelley got me 14 long stemmed red roses and I got him a box of LIFE cereal. We are cute! The coming year holds more exciting memories for us.

Dec 19 - Happy early Christmas to us. We opened our gifts to each other (we tend not to wait until Christmas.... that will change when we have kids, don't worry!). I got Kelley a PlayStation Portable and the book "Baseball Between the Numbers". He got me a beautiful red cashmere sweater and a pedometer. Lucky us!

Dec 24 & 25 - Merry Christmas!! We headed to North Bend for Christmas with Mama Rice and the fam. It was traditional pizza for Christmas Eve and just visiting with family. Christmas brought some exciting oooh's and aaahhh's. Thanks everyone for their generosity!

Dec 31 - Happy New Years Eve! Kelley and I both worked today. We did our traditional dinner and a movie... Applebee's and "PS I love you". I love that movie... Kelley loves it because I love it. What a sweetie!
Please note Kelley got his first paycheck - exciting times!

2008
Can you believe it?! Another year come and gone... this one brings some VERY exciting things!

Jan 1 - Kelley worked to make some extra bucks. I lazed at home and it was fabulous. I slept in, woke up to Mindee calling over and over. Then I read and watched re-runs of "Charmed" and paid our bills. It was very relaxing and much needed.

Jan 2 - We have a new addition to the family. Nope, not what you're thinking.... a new COUCH! It's luxurious!! We got it into the apartment and get to re-arrange the living room tomorrow. Woohoo - Kelley & I are both looking forward to it.
Please note we FINALLY get Bruce fixed next week!! No more climbing in and out of the passenger side for me!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The Rice family would like to wish all of our friends and family a Merry Christmas and a happy New Years!

O Christmas Tree....

Joo Lin and I went and got our Christmas tree last weekend. I have been slow to put up pictures so I thought that I would do that today. We decided to purchase our tree this year from a boy scouts troop, it was just to cold to go out into the forest to cut one down, but we are really happy about it. While we were deciding which one to get, a boy scout was telling us what trees were which and I thought that we picked out a spruce tree, so I called the tree that we picked out "Spruce Almighty" but when we went to pay for it, they told us that it was a noble. Instead of renaming the tree, I really liked Spruce Almighty, we kept it. Hopefully the tree will not have an identity crisis.

Here are some pictures of Joo Lin and I decorating the tree. I hope that everyone enjoys them and Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!

Bruce has a boo-boo!

I started work this past week at Symantec and during my lunch hour on my second day, I went to go get something from the store for lunch and when I came out I noticed a man was swearing. At first, I didn't understand why he was so upset but when I went to enter Bruce I noticed that he had hit my car. Usually I take Jasmine to work but that day I took Bruce because the wife was headed up to Portland for a meeting so luckily it didn't happen to her. Here are some pictures of Bruce...they are graphic so you have been warned!

I'm DONE!

I finished my last final yesterday! I am excited to be completely done with school. It feels like a 5,000 pound weight has been taken off my back. It's a great feeling! I have already gotten two of my final scores back and I did extremely well on them. I ended up with A's in both of those classes. I was hoping for a C- or better, I guess I did better.

Now I am just skanking out until I start work next week.

One Final to Go!

I completed two finals today and I only have one left. I am starting to realize that I am done with school. It is an amazing feeling and I can't wait to be done so that I can start "Video Gaming Week." I decided to get done with finals early so that I could take the rest of the week off and focus on fine tuning my video gaming skills. As I only have a week off before I start up work I am going to make the most of this week.