Tomorrow morning we leave for Amsterdam. We are pretty excited! I think we are all packed and ready to go except for the things that we are going to need in the morning before we go. Our flight leaves at 8:36am and we get to the JFK airport in New York at 3:10pm after 4 hours and 34 minutes in the air. We then get on a plane headed for Amsterdam at 5:25pm and arrive in Amsterdam at 7:20am on Saturday after 7 hours and 55 minutes in the air. This means we’ll be in the air a total of 12 hours and 29 minutes. It will be a long flight and we will be very tired when we arrive in Amsterdam. Once we get there we’ll have to get a hold of the office for the apartment we are staying at, find a cab and then get all checked-in. We hope everything goes smoothly and that we like the place we are staying!

We’ll make sure and get some good pictures posted either while we’re there or after we get back, not sure how often we’ll be able to get to the Internet while we’re there.

The new IKEA store opened in Draper today, it caused quite the commotion as well. There were people waiting in line since Monday to be some of the first people in the store. I don’t know how people can justify spending that much time just to be the first to do or see something like this. We weren’t planning on going today but decided we wanted to check it out before we go to Amsterdam. The place is HUGE! It is really cool how they have it laid out, on the second floor they have kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms and living rooms laid out with their product everywhere. There are price tags on everything but most things on the second floor are for display only, even though they do allow you to sit on and touch things. The first floor is where you actually pick out products and purchase things, it is more of a “normal” store.

We didn’t spend much money at IKEA today, only bought dinner and a desk lamp. We had some of their famous meatballs, french fries, and apple cake. It was all really good and only cost $11. I also bought a new desk lamp for my desk that is brighter than the one I currently have. The one I have now uses LED lights and doesn’t produce very much light and I have been wanting a brighter light. It was super easy to put together and works great. It came in an interesting box too, flat and all straight edges, guess that makes it easier for shipping and storing. We decided this will be our new $100 store and plan to spend lots of time and money there in the future.

Jodi and I are going to make it out to Kansas in August and we got everything all booked tonight. We have an American Express Blue Cash card (I highly suggest everyone get one) and I stumbled across American Express Travel a few days ago and we decided to use them to book everything through. They have a feature on their site that will help you find the cheapest rate for a flight within the next several months and this saved us several hundred dollars over what I would have expected to pay for a flight out to Kansas. I’m use to paying around $300 for a flight to Kansas, but with American Express Travel I found a flight for $163 round trip. I was able to get the same deal straight through US Airway’s website, but I couldn’t have found it as easily through them. We decided to book our flight and our car through American Express because it gives us double the rewards on our card. It was also rather convenient because I didn’t have to enter any payment information since they already have a record of everything on their end!We are only going to make it out to Kansas for about 6 days, just a Thursday to Tuesday trip, but it will be nice to get out there and see the fam. We haven’t been out there yet this year.

We purchased some shelves for our garage from Costco over the weekend. These are some pretty sweet shelves, they only cost $50, claim to be able to hold 1,500 lbs per shelf and don’t use any screws. They were super easy to put together and have laminated wood shelves. They are also easy to adjust where the shelves are which may be nice if we want to put some bigger items on them. I think we are going to purchase another set and put them in the corner next to these shelves which would give us quite a bit of storage in the garage. Now we just need to make sure we don’t let it get too cluttered!

I bought some new biking shoes yesterday at Salt Lake Running Company. I purchased some Shimano SH-TR30’s. They are my first pair of bike shoes like this, I’ve never used clipless pedals with cleats before so it will be a different experience, I just hope I don’t fall over while trying to get my foot out! They are even meant to be used for triathlons so they only have one strap and have a good sized loop in the back for quick on-and-off action. I also purchased a new pair of Shimano pedals and cleats for my shoes, I am excited to be able to use them. I’ll have to give them a few tries on the bike I am renting the week before I actually go to the triathlon. The gym that we go to has spinner bikes with pedals that I could use my shoes on as well, I would just need to get cleats that would fit in them.

Jodi and I also have been going to the gym more regularly as well. She has been swimming while I have been running. Today I ran 3.28 miles in about 35 minutes. I wore myself out pretty good too, but I can tell that I am able to go longer and harder than even last week. Tomorrow I plan to do some biking. We plan to work out pretty regularly for the next few weeks and hopefully keep it up after the triathlon as well, although maybe not quite as rigorously.

I finally graduated from college! Last night I attended my college convocation. I went back and forth about attending because it took me so long to finish and because I don’t know a lot of people from school. However as I sat there last night amongst my fellow graduates I was happy to be there. My degree is in Mass Communication with an Emphasis in Public Relations. The Communication department at the University of Utah is part of the College of Humanities. There were roughly 2,500 graduates from the College of Humanities, about half of them were Communication majors.

Dean Newman honored several of the faculty members, alumni, and graduates. It was impressive to hear the resumes of some of the faculty at the University. I was always impressed with the caliber of professors I had at the U. About 96 of the faculty members turn out from our college to support us which Dean Newman said was a record. A couple of my teachers received their PhD’s last night. It was good to see them finish. They were some of my favorite faculty members.

I’ve been thinking a lot about graduation this last week and reflecting on all that I went through to get to this point. All day yesterday my co-workers and friends were congratulating me. I keep thinking that everyone was making a big deal out of it. But as Dean Newman asked that all of the Mothers of the graduate’s stand last night I looked up at my Mom and got teary eyed. Then my Dad got to stand up and then Bernd. As I watched my family stand up to be recognized I realized that I had done this not only for myself but for my family. It was hard not to get emotional when I felt so much love and support from my family.

There are so many people that helped me get through school. From the moment I met Bernd he encouraged me, supported me, and pushed me to finish. This last semester he helped me so much with my classes. I couldn’t have made it through without his love and support. On those nights that I just didn’t want to do my homework Bernd would be there to encourage me. I want him to know how much I love and appreciate him and all that he does for me.

My parents have always been there for me. They taught me to work hard for the things that I want. They were always there to listen to me when I was frustrated with school, and listen to me talk about all of the new things I was learning. They let me live at home with them so that I could pay for school and concentrate on my school work. They were always so supportive and encouraging. I think aside from my wedding day and the day I went through the temple I have never seen my parents be happier for me. They told me yesterday that they think I’m awesome, but they are the ones that are awesome!

Bernd, Mom & Dad, Gram, Josh & Bina, and Jake all came to support me at my graduation. They are all so great! My in-laws have been so supportive as well. Mom VanSkiver is always asking how school is going and checking in to make sure I’m doing my homework! I love my family so much. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.

I’m really excited to be done with school. One day I want to go back and get my Masters, but for now I will just enjoy my free time. There are so many things I want to do now that I have some time on my hands. There are so many books that I want to read and so many movies I want to catch up on. Now if we could just get Bernd done with school! I’m excited for this new phase of life and the new challenges that I will be faced with. I’m looking forward to finding new ways to learn and grow and expand my mind.

Jodi graduated from college last night at the Huntsman Center at the University of Utah. She has been working hard on getting through college for a few years and was very excited to be done! She got her Bachelor of Science in Mass Communication with an emphasis in Public Relations. She didn’t go to the commencement ceremony, just to the convocation ceremony, which still had 2,500 undergraduate students! I am glad that she went and that I was able to go and see her walk. Her parents, gram, brothers and sister-in-law came as well. After the ceremony we all went to Cafe Trang for dinner, that place is good!

I took a few pictures and got a short video clip when her name was read but the lighting was not very good so some of the pics that I took were blurry and then the battery died so we didn’t get as many as we would have liked.

Yesterday Erich at work came over and told me and another co-worker about a desk that a company (Orange Soda) across the hall from us was selling. Erich heard about it because he knows a few of the people over at the company from another company that they all use to work at. They recently moved there and had some extra furniture that they were no longer using. The desk that we bought is an IKEA desk that they purchased from IKEA’s website for $135. They sold it to us for $35, a pretty sweet deal! It is our first piece of IKEA furniture, and I’m pretty happy with this one. It is fairly simple and easy to put together, I had to take it most of the way apart to transport it to our house. It is also quite sturdy, especially for the original price. This may not be a desk that we keep forever since it doesn’t really match anything else that we have, but it is better than the plastic table she was using before! Now we just need to get her a new chair, luckily we might have a hook-up on some nice new chairs in the next couple months.

I have been an Oakley sunglass wearer for about 10 years now, and I bought my third pair of Oakley’s today. My first pair of Oakley’s were a pair of eye jackets that I bought when I was 16. A couple of years later I purchased some polarized A wires. These were the sunglasses that I have been wearing on a regular basis for the past 7 or so years. They have done a good job of protecting my eyes from the blinding rays of the sun in Kansas, Nevada and Arizona while on my mission, and now in Utah for the last few years. I think I sent them in to Oakley once for new lenses and reconditioning during this time and they came back to me just like new. I have been wanting to have this done again the past couple of months but I haven’t got around to mailing them in and waiting the 2-3 weeks that it takes. This morning something tragic happened, I stopped on my way to work to get gas and when I got out of my car I tossed my sunglasses in my seat thinking that I needed to move them before I sat down. Well, I forgot and ended up sitting on them, which made them very much unwearable. I thought about trying to bend them back in to position, but I didn’t think I could pull it off.

Now I had the option to get my current pair fixed for $80 and a 2-3 week wait or purchase some new Oakley sunglasses, a different brand just wasn’t an option. :) I checked out Oakley’s website and looked at their Polarized wire sunglasses and found two that I was interested in. I still like the A wires and I found some new ones called the Whisker. During my lunch today I decided to go out and see if I could find a pair of sunglasses to purchase so that I wouldn’t have to wait and be without them. I ended up finding the pair that I saw online that I thought I would like, the black Polarized Titanium Whisker. They were super light-weight, shiny black and have very thin frames. I was sold especially after the girl told me they were 10% off.

The only complaint I had about my A wires was that after extended wear they would be uncomfortable around my ears, my new Whisker’s are much lighter and I almost don’t even notice them so wearing them for long periods of time should not be a problem. They are some expensive sunglasses but I expect many years of use out of them, I just need to make sure that I don’t sit on them again!

Now I am still planning to send in my old sunglasses and get them fixed and then I am planning to sell them on eBay. I should be able to sell them for $130 or so, that can help pay back some of the cost of the new sunglasses.