Tuesday, March 17, 2009

My new home

So Provo is my new home...it was my first home since I was born here, and even though I've been up here for awhile for school, CB has still been "home." But this is where my family is now, so this is home. Thought I'd share a couple interesting things I read today about my new home:

"Provo was ranked the best mid-sized city in the U.S.--Provo has the best quality of life among 124 mid-sized metro areas in the United States, according to a new study.

Bizjournals, a national network of business publications, rated Provo ahead of every other mid-sized city of at least 50,000 people in the country. Boulder, Colo., and Madison, Wis., rounded out the top three, while El Paso, Texas, and Bakersfield and Visalia, Calif., came in at the bottom of the rankings.

Provo's healthy population growth, low unemployment rate and inventory of large homes -- more than a quarter in the area have at least nine rooms -- helped place it at the top of the list, according to the study. Other criteria looked at include median household income, percentage of residents with higher education degrees, and average commuting time to work.

The designation is not new to Provo. In the past few years, the city has received the following recognition:

Nation's top city for commercial growth performance by The Milken Institute in 2008

Metro area with highest volunteerism by The Corporation for National and Community Service in 2008

One of "10 Great Places to Live, Work and Play" by Kiplinger's Personal Finance in 2008

One of the "Best Cities for Married With Children" by Kiplinger's Personal Finance in 2007

One of "50 Smart Places to Live" by Kiplinger's Personal Finance in 2006

Eighth-safest mid-sized city by Farmers Insurance Group of Companies in 2005 "

http://www.heraldextra.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=303180&Itemid=79&s_cid=afternoon_update

Not bad, not bad.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Tjonge jongen!

Should I make this a post about what's going on in my life or my thoughts on some things going right now? I think I'll just write and see what comes out. Bill Buchanan died- wow, that bites! I bought season tickets for football season next year. I think I may have gotten season basketball tickets too, cause there was some sort of promotion with that, but I'm not totally sure. I seriously have no idea what America will be like in let's say 5 years. Yeah, a lot will be the same, but gosh what is going on with the government and the economy? The Idaho trip was fun, always nice to see a sealing. It was fun playing werewolves with the ole group and then some Balderdash, chill time, Jack in the Box, staying at the Andersons and driving home with Jared and Cannon. We saw the Malad Gorge, Shoshone Falls and a huge gorge outside of Twin Falls. We kept on calling it the Great Valley, from The Land Before Time. It's weird that Provo is home. I've been here awhile now, but home was always Council Bluffs. Buying a home and settling down with a steady job sure changed all that pretty fast.

Emily saw Ninja Turtles 2 for the first time and she loved it! That's good to hear, I trust that she will raise our kids with Ninja Turtles. That was my favorite movie growing up and I purposely made it the last movie I saw before my mission. We need to watch Ninja Turtles 1 sometime, even though #2 is much better in my opinion. One of the reasons it's so good is because of the Ninja Rap. Speaking of the Ninja Rap, we saw Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer in concert. It was good- Vanilla doesn't have any moves left and sounds like a frog. Hammer definitely has it still. We almost saw a fight at the concert. We all dressed in 90's clothes- I can't believe we're already dressing in 90's clothes, though early 90's is pretty much the 80's. I wonder what the 2000's will be known for, actually I want to know what they'll even call the 2000's- probably that.

Go BYU! I forget how much I enjoy BYU basketball. I definitely LOVE football and I really enjoy basketball. That is one thing I am definitely excited about the next several years we're here in Utah- living so close to BYU. We have a lot of friends and family moving away from BYU going to jobs and school away from here. It's definitely sad that they're leaving and gets me a little anxious for a change, but then I remember how much our little family has been blessed with the circumstances we're in, and I'm glad we'll be here for 5-7 years. After that...law school in Hawaii???

There's so much to love about life! It really isn't worth worrying or wasting away. There are so many opportunities to have fun and just be happy. So much to see, so much to do, so many people to get to know, soooooooooooooooooooo muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch!

Be sure to check out Becca's Blog