2008 Year in Review

2008 Year in Review

January 31, 2009
I usually write my little year in review every year right at the end of the year; no later than January 1 of the new year. This year I’ve been caught up with work and studying for one of my CPA exams for the final few weeks of 2008 and the first few weeks of 2009; hence, the delay.
I can’t believe I’m already at the end of the first month of 2009. 2008 was such a blur and this year has already started off on a torrid pace. I always think about how each day changes your perspective. What I write today is probably different than what I would’ve written just one month ago. Anyways, my memories of the year 2008.
January- January 2nd, a Thursday, I start my first day in my new career at KPMG. Just a couple weeks after graduating, just a couple days after leaving my four-year stint at Comcast, I start my new life as a bona-fide accountant. Pretty boring first day. I leave the following Sunday for a 10 day, over-the-weekend training session in Orlando, FL. It was the first time I’d ever been longer than one day away from Rachel and obviously Cannon. Staying the weekend was brutal. The one bright spot was meeting up with my buddy Jonathan Stevens on Saturday afternoon and hanging out with him until Sunday night. It’s a great feeling to be thousands of miles away from home and have one of your best friends pull up to the hotel and pick you up. Fortunate that he’s down in Florida at school.
So I get home in the middle of the week from this training and get told that Friday that I’ll be spending the following two weeks in Seattle. Quite the gut-punch to think I’m coming home only to get shipped out again. I had never been to Seattle. I had Rachel fly up over the middle weekend and we got to see the city: Pike’s Market, the Space Needle, the Music Experiment Museum, and the Aquarium. We ate at the Crab Pot on the pier on the Saturday night. Obviously great seafood up in Seattle. My favorite part of the trip was the Space Needle. Pretty sweet view of the city and the shoreline from up there. We went up on Saturday in the night and on Sunday during the day. Spectacular both times.
Sunday night Rachel’s flight got delayed so we ended up hanging out together for quite a few hours at the SeaTac airport. We found out there that night that President Hinckley had passed away. He is kind of “our prophet” for our age-generation if that makes sense so it was a big deal to hear that news.
So I spent the entire month of January out of town and basically didn’t see Cannon, but I did get a sweet weekend trip with my wife to Seattle out of it.
February 14th, on Valentines day, I got my braces off. Yes, I was one of those people that had braces as an adult. I would’ve never got them but since my wife is an orthodontic assistant she was always examining my teeth and telling me to get them. The main reason I got braces was to be able to tell my kids that I did it when we are forcing them to do it. If we did anything that night for Valentine’s Day, I don’t remember what it was. Must have been something super special!
February-March was just a blur. I was at Mrs. Fields Cookies doing an audit. I liked being there because it’s right by Rachel’s work so we were able to hook up for lunch dates. Our favorite place to go for lunch dates has always been Pistol Pete’s or Apollo Burger. Sadly, she just told me the other day that Pistol Pete’s went under. Too bad, it was one of my favorites.
Not too much in April or May either. This is NBA playoff time so I’m sure we were engrossed in playoff basketball. We went to our first NBA playoff game ever. Game 3 against the Rockets. Nate and Shantel Harrison came with us. Of course, after having the most dominant home record during the year, we lose game 3 to the Rockets. So my only playoff game to date in my life is a loss. We still be the Rockets and ended up losing to the Lakers in the next round. I hate the Lakers. I also took my first two sections of the CPA exams in May. I just crammed for both and passed, which is what I should’ve done for the last two but I was stupid and delayed (hence the delay in writing my memories because I had to study for the final one. . . stupid!).
June was a big month for our family. We went on a Super Vacation! We went down to Florida for over a week for tons of fun. We went to Sea World, on a 4-day cruise to the Bahamas, and to Disney World. I can’t believe in retrospect we took Cannon. Taking him now would be the worst nightmare ever. He was at the perfect stage where he would ride in the stroller all day without any problems. One of the funniest memories is he kept peeing on me! We would give him drinks non-stop but keep forgetting to change his diaper until inevitably it would leak all over me when I’d pick him up. Obviously with all the heat and humidity we wanted to keep him hydrated. I guess it was the price to pay for keeping him from getting sick from the heat. My favorite memories were SeaWorld and the swimming with the stingrays in the Bahamas. The water was so clear you could see the bottom even a hundred feet off shore. I’m interested for my future visit to Hawaii (not in the near future-but someday). After having been to Puerto Rico and now the Bahamas I have a hard time thinking Hawaii is better than the Caribbean. Probably just as good, but I’ll have to see for myself to judge if it’s better. My favorite part of Disney World was the Epcot Center, which is funny because I distinctly remember HATING the Epcot Center when I went with my mom and dad when I was 7. It’s definitely more fun for adults to see the different culture centers so close together. The only downer was we ate at some crappy Mexican fast-food thing. We bit the bullet for the costly food on every other occasion, for some reason we decided to go cheaper on that one meal and I’m pretty sure all agreed that it sucked. If I remember correctly, we made up for it that night by eating dinner at my favorite: the always reliable McDonalds!
The rest of the family flew back Saturday but I stayed the weekend for another training session with KPMG. So all in all I spent pretty much a month of 2008 in Florida. My memory of my second week at the training was hitting up the “Downtown Disney” and I bought Rachel a ring with her name carved into it. She wanted it when we were there but decided not to go for it, so I brought it home as a surprise.
4th of July! I took this week off as well and just did chores around the house. Kind of nice to have a relaxing week off without a vacation to power-pack every second. We spent the 4th of July at Rachel’s mom’s. Cannon was scared of the fireworks; he pretty much cried at every one. This upset Rachel quite a bit as the 4th of July is her favorite holiday. I felt pretty bad and we didn’t even end up staying up for late night fireworks because Cannon was A) beat and B) scared. Hopefully next year this holiday goes a little better for us as far as fireworks are concerned.
July was the start of a 4-month stretch of me being out of town during the week pretty much every single week. I’m assigned to work on the Department of Energy up in Washington state in Richland. The work isn’t bad and it’s only a 4-day workweek so the 3-day weekends were nice. Richland is a small town (part of the “Tri-Cities”). I don’t know why they call it Tri-Cities because it’s really like referring to something like Draper-Sandy-South Jordan combos as the Tri-Cities, sizewise at least. The cities are right on the Columbia River, which I think is beautiful. My hotel was right on the river and there is a nice trail right along the river that is fun to jog along at night. Richland is also home to the sweetest Mongolian BBQ restaurant ever (“Three Flames Mongolian”) and an “Anthony’s” restaurant that has the best Lobster Tail. I’m excited to have Rachel come up to Richland for one of the week’s this coming year to try these places with me. Rachel basically lived at her mom’s house while I was away. Fortunately for us we live close to family to help us out when necessary and fortunately they’re willing to help out when I’m out of town. I even made the drive to Washington about once a month to get the mileage (cheaper than a flight so a good deal both ways). It was on one of these drives in October that I got my first speeding ticket ever. I was in Oregon, flying at like 95 mph. As soon as I passed the cop I knew I was finished. He was nice to me and dropped it down to 20 over so it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. The real problem was when I told my manager about it the next day he said, “Well, you can’t get your miles reimbursed if you got a ticket. The firm won’t support illegal activity.” I was floored. Rachel was going to KILL me! Wasting all of that time to drive and not get reimbursed for the mileage because I was such a moron I was speeding in Oregon! (NOTE: Don’t EVER speed in Oregon). He kept it up for a while but finally told me he was kidding. I had a heart-attack. I hate Oregon. They don’t let you fill up your own gas there. Some weird law. From now on I make sure to fill up right on the border in Idaho and not refill up until I cross over into Washington. It just bugs me.
Luckily enough I was home the week of Cannon’s birthday in August. August 14th the “bro” turned 1 ( I call Cannon my “bro”. I don’t know why). We had all the family over from both sides and had a party for him. We had pizza, a Thomas the Train cake, and even got a little cake that we let Cannon dive into. Most days I still can’t even believe I have a kid, let alone a kid that’s over 1 (now approaching 18 months!). We love him more and more as he grows.
I passed another section of my CPA exams (4 total) in August. One to go. I should’ve just cranked out the final one but I was lazy and put it off until October.
September-I’m up in Washington for one week. Come home, and find out I’m going to Boise for 3 straight weeks: this time Friday included. I’d never been to Boise either (besides driving through on my drives to Washington). Interesting town. I only experienced downtown. It has a much smaller feel than SLC, which for some reason surprised me. I thought it would be kind of the same. That’s pretty much all I have to say about Boise.
For my birthday Rachel got me the P90X DVDs. I love watching infomercials and I had watched that one 50 times over. I’ve used it and I love the exercises but I really haven’t been able to do it exactly because I can’t follow the eating. Seriously, I’m either out of town or working late. Either way all of my meals are brought in. Not exactly the best option if you’re trying to eat healty. It’s still one of the sweetest birthday presents ever. I hate that I turned 27, officially my “late” twenties. 26 was still “mid” twenties. I’m in this eternal feeling that I’m in the 21-23 age range. Nope. Getting old. All I need is to see and actual 21-year old and it confirms that I am a full-blown bill-paying, for-the-man-working, “sir” calling adult. I can’t even claim college anymore. Where does the time go?
October-my supposed final month of travel. I come down to the final two weeks of DOE in Washington. Coincidentally, my final CPA exam is the Saturday after these final two weeks. Well, the final two weeks turn out to be bears and I don’t study at all. I cram on the final night before the test. I fail by one point. What a bitter, bitter feeling. I have never failed a test in my life. Truly a learning experience for me that failure is a possibility in life if you don’t prepare properly. I reschedule for January and thus delay the writing of the ever important year-in-review as this time I actually put in some study time.
November-work slows down for the final two months of the year. For Rachel’s birthday her dad took us out to Red Lobster (her favorite restaurant). I got her a new digital camera. Our old one was top-of-the-line when we got it five years ago for our wedding. We basically got the same model, just the 2008 edition: slimmer, more megapixels, better memory, etc. BYU loses to Utah in one of the most disappointing season’s I remember. I had bet a buddy at work that they would pull it out. Max Hall and his six turnovers made sure we didn’t. I now have on the back of my car a Utah Utes license plate frame for the next year thanks to Mr. Hall. It’s just a game, right?
I took the final week before Thanksgiving off and just hung out with Rachel and Cannon around the house. We spent Thanksgiving weekend up in Idaho in preparation for Rachel’s cousin Kim’s wedding and her grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary. We went up the following weekend for Kim’s wedding. Good times all around.
Christmas season is always one of the best times of the year. Cannon wasn’t quite in the full swing of things but obviously he appreciated Christmas more this year than last. I’m excited that next year he’ll understand that he’s waking up to Santa’s presents! Our top gift was a camcorder from Rachel’s dad! It was a killer gift particularly because it is a luxury item that we probably would’ve never bought for ourselves. Notable other gifts include some sweet “Sham-wow” towels I got from Rachel (yet another infomercial item I desired!).
For New Year’s we headed up to Bear Lake with friends at Gehrke’s cabin. Rock Bank all night baby! I need to get a Nintendo Wii and that game. I’m excited for when Cannon is old enough to play video games with me.
Quite a year. My overall memory of 2008 was that it was a big adjustment year. Overall, I spent nearly ½ the year out of town, when I’ve basically been a non-traveler for my whole life. I’m now a platinum Marriott Rewards member in just one year. Obviously a big adjustment year in the fact that we have a growing child, a new job for me with the travel involved, new challenges for Rachel to deal with my crap. I’ve really learned to appreciate family time as it’s become a bit more valuable in the past year. Some of the best times when we’re home together is just sitting on the couch with the tv off and Cannon just climbs all over both of us playing and laughing. Looking forward to more of that in ’09. . . and passing this final CPA test! If I didn’t pass this last week, don’t be surprised if you can hear my roar of anguish from your house.