We're Aunt and Uncle!

Our niece Analise Dorian was born on Thursday to Beth and Daniel. We got to meet her today before she went home from the hospital.

She's awfully cute!

Current Observations

Some random, current observations from the Sewell household:

• Mike can (and will) drink almost an entire 2 qt container of apple juice in one sitting. While eating lasagna, which I personally think is a disgusting combination.
• The sumac bushes (at least I think the garden shop said the sample I took in was a sumac) on the side of our house are OUT OF CONTROL!!! These things have been driving me nuts ever since last fall when I finally noticed how stinking big they were. Kirk lopped them off for me before spring arrived, way way short, but to NO avail. They are growing like weeds. I think they are weeds, despite what everyone else says to the contrary.
• The microwave, which is above the stove, we believe to be dead. It started making weird noises, giving off a burning plastic type of smell, and had no heating effect on the food. Bummer. Guess we'll have to reclaim one of the microwaves from someone (i.e. a sibling) we let borrow ours from college. Thank goodness Beth and Daniel already have one of their own and want to get rid of the borrowed one anyway.

Mid-June

What?!? It's already the 17th of June?

Well, I'm not too sure where the time has gone, but I do know that it isn't going to let up anytime soon. Thankfully, I only have 6 days of review class left. We started our last section, Regulation, yesterday and will finish up next Wednesday (we don't have class on Friday!) Even though the class will be over, the fun isn't over. I have many many hours of studying ahead of me as my exams are coming up very shortly. I scheduled them last week. I will take Regulation on July 16th, Financial accounting and reporting on August 6th, Auditing on August 27th and Business Environment and concepts on October 18th (the exam isn't offered in September). As soon as I am done with this post, it's into the other room to start cranking out the flashcards.

This weekend officially starts the wedding season for us. I have something wedding related to attend for the next 4 weekends!! I have a bridal shower for my friend Jenna in Springfield, for whom I am also a bridesmaid for her July wedding. The following weekend brings Emily Gradle's wedding in Mattoon. Emily and I went to Jr. High and High school together and were in band together. She and her fiance are moving to Bloomington after they get married! The next weekends bring a bachelorette party for Jenna and Bethany Stewart's wedding (Jenna's future sister-in-law). Much fun to be had, but it's sure going to make the summer go very quickly!!

Somewhere in the midst of all of the busyness in the next week or so, our niece will be born. She's officially due tomorrow, but the doctor is only going to give her an additional week before they induce Beth. Maybe she'll be born on Thursday the 19th (my half birthday!) Mike wants to be called to matter the time they go to the hospital, so I'm just waiting for the night that my cell phone rings with loud trumpets at 3 A.M. and I shoot out of bed like my hair is on fire.

Last week Mike's grandparents from Dallas were in Illinois and Kirk and Claudia brought them up to see the house. There just wasn't enough time when they were here for the wedding last year to make a trip to Bloomington. But the house looks more complete now anyway, so it all worked out. It was great to see them and spend time with them this weekend.

In some non-busy news, we planned a vacation for mid-September. We're going to Disney World!! We're both really excited, although I think Mike might be more excited since he's never been. He's already been online looking at all the cool things to do and found out about some surfing lessons you can take at one of the water parks (they have a huge wave pool) before the park opens. I want to get us signed up really quickly for stuff like that, or all the spots will be gone!!

Guess I had better go work on my flashcards.....

Kristina

I think spring has finally arrived, just in time for it to turn into summer. We've had some pretty nasty storms yesterday, and there are supposed to be more this afternoon and tonight, as well as hitting the 90 degree range sometime this week.

After 1 week of freedom after graduation, I started a CPA review course here in Bloomington, on the ISU campus. It meets 4 hours every day. I thought by signing up for the live course (the company also offers a self-study online course you can do from home) that the professors would actually be doing the lectures. Boy, was I wrong. Instead, they put in a lecture CD and we watch a 4 hour long video. Then they give you a copy of the video at the end of class. no, I am not kidding. I was a little annoyed at the beginning and was thinking of switching to the self study course, but as Mike pointed out, I need the structure. That, and as we go along, the professors will clarify or update us on some things that have changed in the last couple of months that the company didn't have time to change before they created the review materials. So I've been pretty busy and am already behind since this is a pretty short, crash course for the CPA exam. It's 5.5 weeks long and I'm already into week 3, thank goodness. I paid for the exam this week and can now contact the locations where I want to take it and schedule my exam dates (of course, there isn't a facility in Bloomington). I have 6 months to take all 4 sections for the first time. My plan as of right now is to take 3 over July and August and take the last one in October. (The exam isn't available in September)

In job news, I sent out 2 applications about 2 weeks ago. One at a local hospital in their accounting department and the other for a local accounting firm. I haven't heard anything from them yet, so I'm going to follow up and make sure my name stays or comes to the top of the pile. I also replied to State Farm about the position I interviewed for and said that I wasn't interested in that particular position. They hadn't made a decision about who to hire yet, but wanted to know if I was still interested. I had thought about it and Mike and I had talked about it, and I just came to the solid conclusion that it wasn't the job for me. It was basically going to be a liaison position between the IT department and the finance/accounting department. The item that pushed me over to not wanting the position was the fact that part of my duties were going to entail providing support to the accounting department when they had problems with the software, so I would be expected to be an expert on how the software worked. So hopefully something will work out soon, but in the meantime, I'll be studying for the CPA.

Tonight, Mike and I are going to an Illini Meet and Greet and is here in Bloomington. The coaches (football and basketball) tour around Illinois in the spring/summer and now that we are season ticket holders, we find out about all of that kind of thing. Bloomington is lucky since not all of the coaches make it to all the locations, but Bloomington has the FB head coach, and both the men's and women's basketball coaches attending. Mike is super excited, and I'm sure he will want to get their autographs and pictures (that is part of it) I guess I'd better make sure the camara has fresh batteries in it.... I'll be sure to post them if we get any.

Mustaches and Mayberry...

Despite the persistent wintry, rainy chill outside that still refuses to surrender to spring, the sun is shining on my heart as I write this, owing to just a few minutes separating me from a nice three-day-weekend.

We go to Colfax this evening for Kristina's cousin's 8th grade graduation, then to Springfield tomorrow to celebrate Daniel G's birthday with much ado. There will be a very pregnant woman in our midst, which has recently prompted me to consider, "I'm going to be an uncle. What the heck does an uncle do?" The best I could come up was dictated by my own experience with uncles: An uncle should grow a mustache, tell bad jokes (I think I have that one covered), and carry myself with a general air of what can only be called "weirdness" (again, check that off the list!). The only trait I lack going into this esteemed affair is a mustache! Won't Kristina be tickled?

Otherwise, all is as it should be. My lovely wife keeps me well fed and out of trouble. My job is going well - I was able to get re-appointed as Village Engineer for the town of Heyworth (read: Mayberry).

I'm also the proud husband of a recent University of Illinois Masters of Accountancy graduate. That puts a fourth plaque on our Wall of Fame and more plaque on our teeth from graduation cake and sweets. We celebrated with both of Kristina's parents and sister, my folks, and B&D at a fancy restaurant in Bloomington. I had a slab of ribs that looked like it could have come from a brontosaurus. Yummmm.

Well, AFN.

I would like to state that I am done with college FOREVER. I just walked out of my last college final. Now just a 6 week review course and 4 exams stand in my way of being a CPA. yay!!!

Well, it's definitely time for a substantial update from this set of Sewells.

I am down to 1 take home final and 1 open book final, both of which will be complete by Tuesday afternoon!! Then I am officially DONE with my college education. Woo-hoo!! It was kind of weird walking out of my final lecture last week. But I'm very glad to be done. While I only drove to Champaign twice a week, I'm glad to be done with it, especially in light of the way gas prices are going! I'm going to walk for the College of Business Convocation ceremony on Saturday and skip the campus wide ceremony on Sunday. Then we're coming back to Bloomington for dinner at a nice downtown restaurant and cake and ice cream back at the house.

On May 19th I'll be headed off into CPA review land. I'm signed up to take a 6 week review course here in Bloomington through Illinois State University. It's a pretty brutal course. It meets 2-6 M-F plus I'll have a ton of homework to complete. The great thing about it is that they company that makes the materials has a really good pass rate if you complete all of the homework and go to all the classes, etc. Also, if I do everything I'm supposed to do and still don't pass a particular section the first time, they either let you enroll in that section of the course again for a really reduced price, or maybe even free. I'm not sure yet. I guess I'll worry about that after I don't pass something :)

A couple of weeks ago Marnie and I hosted the baby shower for Beth here in Bloomington. It went really went, but unfortunately, I was so focused on hosting duties, that I didn't take any pictures, so I have nothing to post here. Sorry. :) It went well and I think everyone had fun. We had a smaller group of people, so I decided last minute (well, 2 days before, but that is last minute for me) that we would paint onesies with fabric paint for her to wear when she gets here. They all turned out really cute.

Mike had a trip at the beginning of April that took him to another office to be trained on the latest and greatest Civil Engineering design software. Apparently everything is moving towards 3D stuff, so that is what the software implemented. They don't have it here in the Bloomington office yet, but when they do, he'll be ready.

In some disappointing news, Mike wasn't able to take his PE exam in April. He had jumped through a million hoops and talked to several different people about what he had to do to be able to take it in April, and then low and behold, the guy above all of those people said no. So now he has to wait until October to take it. He was disappointed after studying for so long. So he's taken a little break from that, but I think plans to get started again when I start hitting my CPA review hard and heavy.

No news on the job front for me. Just the status quo. In more positive news, we are pretty darn close to making some solid plans for a trip this fall. Where, you might ask? Well, Disney World, of course! :) Mike has never been to Disney World, much less Florida (which I'm totally appalled by. But then he's been lots of other places that I haven't, so I guess we're even) So we're going to go while we don't have a bunch of commitments tying us down. We're way excited about it!! It will be our first vacation that we plan together, as the honeymoon was a surprise for me.

funny moment of the week

So once a month at church, I volunteer to help out in one of the nursery rooms. Normally, I'm in with the 12-15 month old kids, but they moved me to a 2-year old room because they were lacking adults in that room. So, at one point, this little boy comes over to me and tries to put something really small into my hand. It was not a toy. I couldn't figure out what it was for a moment, as it was so small and kids that age don't quite have the finger dexterity to easily transfer this size of item. I thought it was something he had found on the floor, like a piece of cheerio, etc. But it wasn't that either.

It was a booger, which I'm assuming came straight out of his nose. :) I'm not kidding. Never an uneventful moment when you're talking about 2 year olds. :)

Just thought I would pass along this funny moment.

Kristina

Well, it's back to the grindstone. The last 5 weeks of the semester have begun, and boy are they going to be busy!! I had put all of the upcoming assignments from my mind for the last week and a half and now I had better hit the ground running if I'm not going to go crazy the next month. But it will all work out as about 7 weeks from now, I'll be done and walking across the stage at graduation.

My friend Deborah is coming tomorrow to spend the day and night with us. She is in school out near Washington, D.C. I think my program is hard. It is nothing compared to hers. But she's into science and I avoid science like the plague, so more power to her.

Mike was also able to lock us into a lower interest rate this morning for the house (yay!) to be refinanced, so we are meeting with the mortgage people tomorrow. Yes, we are taking advantage of all the nasty stuff that has been going on in the economy lately.

We are headed to Chicago Thursday night for a little getaway. We haven't been anywhere since the wedding except for family related trips. So we are really excited. I found a great deal on a 4 star hotel on Michigan Avenue, right by all the museums and other things we are going to go to while we are there. I'm super excited about it.

I think that is about it from our neck of the woods right now. Hopefully I'll have (positive) job related news in the next couple of weeks....

I've found the secret

Well, I think I've finally found the secret to a clean house.

Consistently have visitors, and the house will be cleaned out of necessity.

I discovered this as I was appreciating the fact that the house has been in pretty good order the last couple of weeks. And then I realized that we've had visitors every week for the last couple of weeks. Coincidence? I think not. This light bulb moment works out nicely since Mike and I have been wanting to do things with more people more often. We'll kill two birds with one stone: Having a better social life AND a clean house. It doesn't get much better than that.

My spring break has been excellent, minus the fact that I still haven't begun my homework yet. I need to do it today so that I have the weekend free when Mike is home. However, I have accomplished some other goals on my list. I finished the baby shower invites yesterday as well as got them all addressed. I even discovered that I had the perfect size of envelopes in one of my scrapbooking boxes, so I didn't have to special order them. When I made the original template invite, I wasn't really thinking about the size and made them a weird size for which envelopes aren't as easily available. You never know what you'll find when you go through your stuff!!

I also have been reading quite a bit, and I even made a point to start a series that I hadn't read before that was on my shelf. I've read 3 this week already, and have 1 left that I own. The last two in the series I'll have to try and find at the library or maybe a booksale some day. The series I've been reading is the Glenbrooke series by Robin Jones Gunn. It certainly isn't a series that knocks your socks off with how great it is, but it is certainly enjoyable and are just nice, easy reads. Some people I know don't like to read unless it's a just a stupendous book. I am not this discerning. Most of the time I just want something mindless, fun, and uplifting when I read. Also, I think it matters more to some people what they read because they don't read very often or maybe very quickly, so it's a major investment to them to start a book. As I said, I'm on to book 4 for the week, so no major commitment to a book here. :)

I'm going to make a pot-pie for dinner tonight. I've never made one, but I found a recipe for it in my Simple and Delicious magazine. It actually makes two and the 2nd one you are supposed to freeze. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that, because first, I only have one pie plate (somehow pie plates escaped the wedding registry), second, given Mike's appetite, we could probably eat both over the next couple of days for lunches and what not, and third, my freezer is tiny, and due to the location of the pantry door, the freezer door doesn't open up all the way. This means I can't really fit larger items into the freezer. One of those live and learn things that you don't learn until after you've purchased the fridge. Guess I won't make that mistake the next time we are looking for a house. :)

Well, I'm officially on spring break. YAY! Although, one of my profs decided to not give us the details for our project that is due right after break is over until yesterday. So, I'll still have to do some homework over break. But all in all, it won't be too bad. I think after break is over, I only have 5 weeks of class left!

In terms of job stuff, I'm still waiting, although I have heard from both State Farm and Country in the last week and a half. SF called last week. They said they didn't have an opening at the moment, but wanted to know if they could pass my resume on to another department as well. I told them that was fine, but that I still wanted to be considered for the department I interviewed for as well. All in all, I took the conversation to mean that I was at least in the running and that my resume wasn't in the recycle bin somewhere. As for Country, I got an email early this week from the HR lady I have dealt with the whole time, and she said that they didn't have a specific timeline for when they would be doing 2nd interviews or making offers, but that if I hadn't heard from anyone in 3 weeks, to email her back and get an update on their process. Again, not on my time frame, but at least it sounds like they like me and my resume at least a little.

It's absolutely beautiful outside at the moment. The sun is shining, the sky is blue with big white puffy clouds, and it's a fantastic 55 degrees. I have the windows open!! The trees that we planted all have buds on them, so we are hopeful that they all survived the winter and will flourish this spring and summer. The bummer part is that it's only going to be in the 40s all of next week, but even that is an improvement over 2 weeks ago when we had our last 3 inch snow fall.

Some plans over my break include: finishing up Beth's baby shower invites, homework, dinner with a friend from springfield, and reading!!! I haven't decided what yet. I just finished reading all of the Mitford books by Jan Karon. This is a series that I wasn't sure I'd ever like, but I gave it a shot and really ended up liking them alot. One of these days I'm going to try out the orange marmalade cake that is in the book. I have a ton of books on my shelves that I've picked up at library book sales that I still haven't read. I should probably work on some of those. I just have too many authors that I like to read now. In early high school, I probably had only about 3-4 authors that I read all of their books and purchased them as soon as they came out. Then I started working in a Christian bookstore. Let's just say that experience was pretty detrimental to my paycheck. :)

Well, I had better go get dinner in the crock pot. In the middle of writing this post, friends just called wanting to know if we wanted to hang out tonight. There is an Illinois bball game on at 5:30, so they'll come in time for that and then we'll probably play card and board games after that. How fortuitous that we cleaned the house up last night!! No running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to make it presentable!

Look who's back???

It's me. Your rarity blog poster. I got a bit of a scolding for being so infrequent with my updates, so I hereby pledge to do better...

Actually, you should cut me a little slack. I just got my (our??) home theatre all put together down in the basement and who could blame me for wanting to devote every spare minute of free time basking in the scintillating glow of 110" diagonal splendor? That's what I thought.

Things are going good in other areas too. My job is going well. I have a beautiful cook who treats me well. And we just had our first 50+ degree day yesterday. Aside from a car that's rapidly approaching the unenviable "I've-put-too-much-money-into-this-stupid-car-to-sell-it-at-this-point" standard, all is well.

We even have some new friends on the horizon. An attorney I work with down in Heyworth and his wife are going to join us at our place some upcoming weekend. And we even have a tentative double-date scheduled with a random couple we bought our new couch from! Who'd a thunk?

Well, AFN. LTA. And DBAT!

Stir Fry and a Martian child

We had a pretty fun weekend, by our estimation, at least. Friday night we went out to dinner with some friends from small group and got to spend a couple of hours just talking and having fun. Saturday brought Mom's birthday. I'll protect the innocent and refrain from publicizing her new age. :) She came up to Bloomington and stayed with us Saturday night. We went out for lunch on Saturday to a new restaurant that we had wanted to try, but didn't think we would ever be able to. And no, it wasn't the price that was keeping us away!! Due to my nut allergy, I literally haven't set foot in a Chinese, or any sort of Asian restaurant, in almost 20 years. Since my reaction is so severe, Mike hasn't set foot in one either in a very long time. The name of the restaurant is Flat Top grill, and it is a stir fry place, where you combine your own ingredients and make up your own sauce, and they fry it up for you on a big grill and then bring it to you. While this would normally be a big no-no for me, we had heard from people in our small group that they were really good about handling people with allergies. Basically, you put a little white stick in your food to signify that you want it stir-fried separately!! Besides that, the only nut they had in anything was a peanut, which I'm not allergic to. Needless to say, Mike and I are both pretty excited. It's a neat restaurant, good food that we couldn't get anywhere else, and a really good price. I have a feeling it will become Mike's new favorite restaurant.

We also stopped by Hobby Lobby after lunch to pick out curtain fabric for the basement windows. I'd already recruited Mom to make them for me, so it was good to have her along to determine how much fabric I needed. I think the basement is going to look pretty good after we get the curtains up and the remaining wall painted.

To continue breaking in the new projector, Mom, Lindsey and I stopped by the video store and rented 'Martian Child' to watch after dinner. It was such a good movie!! I highly recommend it. I hadn't seen a movie that was that heartwarming and well-done in a long time. It is based off of a book, which I believe is the same title, which is based off of a real life event. Obviously, the movie version of real-life books always take some creative license, but it was all believable and just a great feel good movie.

Mike and I have 2 more Illini basketball games to go to this week, then the season is over. Well, there is the Big Ten tournament next week and then the NCAA March Madness, but we probably won't go far in the conference tournament and definitely won't be getting into the NCAA tournament, so the season is essentially over. There is hope coming in the next couple of years, and we're faithful to the Illini in both good and bad. But we're still ready to put this season to rest. It's been exhausting to watch.

We had a hint, and I do mean a hint, of spring yesterday. It was in the 60s and sunny for the majority of the day. I was able to open some windows and let in some fresh air. But today the temp is supposed to plummet back into the 20s after only reaching a high of the low 40s and we should expect to have 1-2 inches of snow back on the ground by tomorrow evening. yay..... (please note the sarcasm) :)

That's all from here. We would love to hear from everyone sometime!

Bragging rights

So, I'm going to brag on Mike a little here, because well, he deserves it! His office has been planning a workshop for the last couple of months. As a part of this workshop, Mike was going to be one-on-one with some attendees from surrounding municipalities and talking with them about their needs and basically outlining a rough 5 year plan for them during a breakout session. Needless to say, Mike was a little intimidated, because there was no way of knowing which town he would be paired with, or what kinds of questions they would ask him. So, being the proactive person that he is, he pinned his boss down this month and got a lot of questions answered for things that they don't teach you in school. I even learned something interesting in the process, because I helped quiz him a couple of days before. Did you know that when a city plans a water tower, they plan for each person to use 100 gallons of water a day? This seemed like an astronomical number to me!

Anyway, after all of his hard work in preparing for the workshop, it went super well yesterday. He was able to talk with two gentlemen for awhile, and I think he really knocked their socks off with how intelligent and knowledgeable he was. Because it went so well, he (and his boss) are hopeful that the office can start doing some work for this town. It was quite a bit of pressure to perform well yesterday, and Mike passed with flying colors!!

Let's see. Other news. Mike is in the basement as we speak mounting his new projector. I don't know all the specifications as how it is fancy, I just know it is. He ordered it before Valentine's day and has been working ever since getting the basement ready for it. This included rearranging furniture, buying a new couch, running wires in the ceiling, mounting shelves and painting the wall that we are going to project on with special white paint. I'm going to work on painting the other wall after I find curtain fabric. No, I won't be making the curtains myself. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate, no, make that loathe, sewing. One thing Mom wasn't able to pass on to me. :) So I've recruited her to make them for me.

The rest of life has been pretty normal lately. Just school and work and back home again. About the time April hits, life will start picking up and not slow down until September, so I'm enjoying this current lull for the time we have it.

Our Dallas trip went really well. We had lots of time with Gram and PaPa where much food was eaten and games were played. We were also able to spend time with Mike's friends in Dallas. The flights both were on time and no luggage was lost, which is always a success. We never used to check our luggage, but now with the new no liquids requirement, it's almost impossible not to check your luggage.

After we got back, I had a whirlwind of about 36 hours. I had to finish some homework after we got home Monday night and then had class at 8 the next morning in Champaign. I also had the career fair at school on Tuesday, so I had to take my suit with me so I could attend that. Then, I had a special late lecture for my finance class in the evening and was unable to drive home to Champaign because the roads were super icy by that point. Thank goodness Beth and Daniel live in the Champaign area!!

Thursday night and Friday morning brought us almost a foot of snow. As of now, the grass is starting to peek through again in some areas and it is super foggy outside. Mike and I took advantage of the snow on Saturday and went sledding at a nearby golf course before heading over to Champaign for an Illini basketball game. Yesterday afternoon/evening brought the Superbowl game which we watched with our small group.

As for today, one of my college friends asked me to be a bridesmaid at her wedding in July. I'm super excited. I kind of did the whole thing backwards since this is my first time being a bridesmaid. It's kind of ironic because Jenna and I met freshman year of college and we are both accounting majors. It gets more ironic because her fiance is a civil engineer, and then even more ironic because he grew up next door to Mike. He and Mike and Dan used to play together all the time when they were little. So I'm really happy for them and am excited to be there for her on their special day.

I had better go think about pulling leftovers out since Mike has a board meeting in Heyworth tonight and won't be home for too overly long before he has to leave again.

Things are moving along at a fairly brisk pace once again. I'm already in my second week of classes. I think it's going to be a really good semester. I've got 3 classes again, 2 accounting and 1 finance. I'm always a little scared when it comes to finance classes, but I think this one is going to be fine. It is basically discussing all aspects of starting your own business. While I don't have the intestinal fortitude to start my own business, I'm hoping that some day the information I get in this class will help me to help/guide others through the process. The job search will start up again here next week. I never have heard a single peep out of State Farm. I'm hoping that means that I'm at least in their 'pool' of people to hire if a position comes available. But who knows. I'm keeping all kinds of options open and keeping my eye on the newspaper for postings.

Mike and I are headed to Dallas for a long weekend on Friday. We'll be leaving from Champaign before the sun comes up (literally-6:30AM) and coming back on Monday evening. We're going to stay with Beth and Daniel in Champaign to avoid the hour long drive to get to the airport. We're looking forward to hanging out with Gram and PaPa and Mike's Dallas friends.

Since I last posted we had a nice break and lots of fun stuff going on. Mike was able to take off the days between Christmas and New Years, so we had tons of free time. Between both sides of the family, we ended up with seven, yes, seven Christmas celebrations!! We also attended a wedding in there. We went to Chicago for a day to go to the Museum of Science and Industry. There was a special 'Star Wars' exhibit that Mike really wanted to see. For New Years we hung out with friends from small group for dinner and board games. We even introduced them to Pounce while we were at it.

Mike is gearing up to take his P.E. exam in April. He's down to 3 months, so he is starting to really focus his studying time. I know he will be relieved when it's all over.

I think that is about it from this set of Sewells. Hope everyone is doing well!