It's Been A While

Cory and I started up a photo website so we can share pictures of all our adventures with our loved ones. It's been great, but I've been updating that far more often than I've been blogging. We're well into the school semester and it's been going great so far. Cory is finally starting research on people, and that's going great too... after we worked out a few kinks in the system. Olivia still has a few rough days (and I'm sure that will always be the case), but we really couldn't have asked for a better, happier baby. School so far has been fantastic. Only taking 2 classes and actually getting about 20 hours of work a week consistently is wonderful. I've never felt so relaxed at school. Even with a baby. I love my classes. I actually understand the materials. AND, I finally took the GRE. I feel like I did pretty well. We'll see how well I really did once they score everything and give me my percentile grade. That might not be for another week. My new goal, now that I've taken the GRE and don't think I'll have to take it again, is to get my letters of recommendation and letter of intent. I've talked to, and set up appointments with various professors to write letters. What they want me to do, since apparently my 3.6 GPA isn't that great (BYU.... geez), is to write a resume, essentially, of all the experience I've had with anyone who has/had a disability, delay, or any other kind of special need. Well, I started writing a list, and it turns out to be a pretty short list... even though I do have a lot of experience compared to most people. So hopefully I can get that together by Monday when I have my next meeting with a professor. The letters will be the easy part. The hard part is this letter of intent. I have to hook these admissions boards. I need to show them my innermost desires, without being cliche about it. They need to get to know me. But I have to do all that in 500-1000 words. Yikes. My goal is to have that written in the next 2 weeks. My overall goal is to have these applications completed and submitted by November 1st. That's well before finals, well before most applicants will be submitting, and it will give them an opportunity to see that I get things done early, and I mean business. What's plan B? Well, if I can't get into any of the grad programs we're applying for, we'll go where Cory and I feel is best and I'll apply to that school again the next year. Right now our #1 school is in Buffalo, NY. It's far away, but it's a phenomenal program in what I REALLY want to do. And it offers Cory a dual Master's degree in audiology and business. The other draw to Buffalo is that the housing market is actually affordable. For us. We could probably put an offer on a house. A HOUSE! Many of the suburban homes there run in the 50k-100k range. And we're talking 3 and 4-bedroom homes! They're older, and smaller, but still! We would have a yard and I could plant a garden. Olivia could play outside, and we could potentially get a dog (after I graduate)! We would have enough space to have another baby before we graduate. Our #2 school is University of Washington in Seattle. It's a much more expensive program and higher ranked. They also have a program that really appeals to me in what I actually want to do. The drawback there is that there is no way we could get a house. No way. A condo, maybe. The big pull, though, is that it's MUCH closer to family. And we LOVE the Pacific Northwest. LOVE IT! No matter what happens, the Lord will help us go where we need to go. And we're the kind of people that grow where we're planted. We're not particularly fond of Provo, but we have grown here, and we love it for that. On another note, Olivia is growing like a weed! She's roughly 14lbs. now. She's rolling from her front to her back pretty comfortably, she can roll from her back to her front but it's harder for her, she squaks like a little bird all the time, she scoots around on her back by pushing off the ground with her heels (and gets pretty far!) and she is JUST. SO. HAPPY! She is the cutest kid. She loves her Daddy so much. She just lights up every time she sees him. He can make her laugh like crazy with just a look. It kind of makes me want another baby right this minute. I guess we'll have to wait, but I love my little family, and I'm excited to watch it grow through the years. We sure have had some fun, and there's a lot of change coming in the near future. If you want to keep up on the actions and want to see any of our photo site pictures, here's the link: http://oneplusoneequalsthree.shutterfly.com/pictures The password is: trio2012