Phoenix, AZ

David loves his job. So do I, actually. I love that he loves what he does and that he loves the people that he works with. However, as we head back into busy season - that means longer hours... and business trips. Because David works as an Auditor for a public accounting firm that means that he goes to his clients place of business and works with them to audit their financial statements. He gets to work with a lot of neat clients and most of them are fairly close by. Some of them are a little bit further, and he spends 4-7 weeks a year traveling to different clients to work on their audits. This last week he was in Phoenix, AZ, working hard. There were several days that we only got to talk for a couple of minutes and one day that we didn't get to talk at all because he was so busy. (We talked more when he was in Kazakhstan!) But one thing that is nice about the people/clients that he works with is that they all make an effort to make sure that they eat well and usually get to do one fun thing while they are there. David loves the Phoenix trip, because they get to go to a Diamondbacks baseball game. They try to time their trip for when the Diamondbacks play the Dodgers. Here are a couple pictures from his trip: 

Buffalo Wild Wings

Diamondbacks vs. Dodgers 

While David was busy playing/working hard, Lydia and I decided to pack up and head to Morgan to spend the week with my family. I'm not a huge fan of hanging out at our house alone, and I'm so grateful to have family so close that we are able to visit whenever David goes away. Lydia loved spending time with my parents and her Uncle Jacob. But I think everyone knows that her favorite part of every day was being able to "play" with Dante. Dante is my family's giant dog who would happily eat Lydia for a mid-morning snack. (Okay, I exaggerate. He isn't mean, he's just a really friendly dog. But when you are 4 times as big as your playmate, friendly is the equivalent of very scary.) Lydia loved Dante so much that she spent the entire day either staring at him out the window, whining/begging me to take her out to be with him, or convincing one of my parents/Jacob to take her outside. It was ridiculous how much she was obsessed with him. We spent a lot of time at the side of my parents house where there was a fence to the backyard that you could see Dante. This way she got to be close enough to him to make her happy and I didn't have to worry about him eating her. She would cry and cry until we took her out, and she would giggle and laugh as we took her out but as soon as he got too close or barked at her she would get scared/cry. These pictures are a great illustration of her relationship with Dante. 

Look at those eyelashes baby! 

I wish I could figure out how to upload videos. There is the most darling video of her teasing him by putting her foot right by the opening. She was playing with her cups and when he barked, it startled her and she dropped them right by the opening. He immediately grabs them and pulls them through the crack. She was so sad and it was SO funny. My favorite part was after she cried for a second she looks at the fence and in an indignant voice says "Dante!". (Sounds more like Dan-deh, but it's totally his name.) I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. 

When we weren't outside, we were usually by the back door looking through the window - but when we wanted to mix it up, we'd go to my parents room and look out their window. Seriously, I can't express enough the level of obsession that this girl has with that dog. 

If we got really crazy - we even let Dante inside. 

When I could finally distract her from Dante, she spent her time spinning the picture of her daddy in the corner and climbing on things. 

I am seriously exhausted. Looking at these pictures reminds me why. She has so. much. energy. Luckily for me there was a park by my parents house and Lydia has learned how to go up the steps and down the slide all by herself! All I have to do it sit at the bottom of the slide while she runs her energy out. (Until she gets distracted and starts running away.) Again, I have the sweetest video of her running around the playground and going down the slide. She is so fun. 

Most of all, we just missed this boy so much. I'm so glad that he is home with us instead of having to skype at night. Although, we make some pretty cute skypers. 

I'm so glad that David has such a good job and that we are blessed with modern technology to not only be able to talk - but to be able to see each other. I'm even more grateful that he is home now and I get to go cuddle with him on the couch while we watch the BYU vs. Utah game. 

p.s. Mom & Dad, I'm sorry that I didn't get a single picture of us together. We really are so grateful that you let us come and crash your house!

Announcing...HBM's Merger with Eide Bailly

This is a "Guest Post" written by David about one of the big changes coming our way. Read on...


Hansen, Barnett, & Maxwell was founded in 1965 when Keith Hansen, Keith Barnett, and Paul Maxwell merged their practices. Since then the firm has continued its growth and now has 9 partners and more than 50 employees. In the fall of 2010 Shantel and I went through the recruiting process to determine which firm we would choose to work for. Our final two options came down to Deloitte (a large National firm) and Hansen, Barnett, & Maxwell (HBM).

We really liked Deloitte and I had a lot of good friends that were going to work there. However, working at one of the "big 4" accounting firms requires a lot more hours and a lot less time at home. I knew that if I joined Deloitte, I probably would not want to work there for more than 2 or 3 years at most. In retrospect, I don't know if I would have lasted that long. They require a lot of hours and I wouldn't even get to see my family much during busy season. However, HBM was the perfect fit. We really liked the culture and the people we met. While busy season is certainly busy, they don't require the same kind of hours and have a much better work/life balance. HBM also has a great client base where I would have the opportunity to work on some really good clients. In addition, all the partners started their careers with HBM and I knew that if I wanted, I could start and finish my career with HBM.

We made our decision to join HBM and knew right from the start that it was the right choice. In January, I will have been with HBM for 3 years. Shantel and I are so grateful to work for such a great company. I really enjoy my co-workers and we have fantastic partners who really care about the employees.

With that being said, I am happy to announce that on September 1, 2013, HBM will merge with Eide Bailly, a large regional firm based in North Dakota. You can check out their website and the big announcement. Over the years, HBM was approached by numerous firms about merging and never even got past initial discussions because the culture and fit did not work. When Eide Bailly approached HBM they felt like it was a much better fit and after a ton of due diligence, knew that it would be a fantastic opportunity. Joining Eide Bailly will allow our firm to provide more services to our customers and allow the partners more time to focus on doing what they love, which is providing great service to our clients. The merger will make Eide Bailly the first regional firm in Utah.

The merger came as quite a shock to most people in our firm. Shantel and I were a little hesitant (Shantel is still a little hesitant) to embrace the change, but having met with numerous Eide Bailly people and talking to HBM's partners, we can see what a great opportunity this will be. Eide Bailly is one of the 25 largest accounting firms in the nation with about 1300 employees (including HBM).

With the merger comes a lot of changes, but more importantly, a lot of things will stay the same.

The Same:
Office (for now we will be in the same office although we be moving in the next year or two as we will be combining with Lake Hill Myer, another recent Eide Bailly acquisition)
Partners- We will continue to work for the same great partners.
Clients
Co-workers
Software- Eide Bailly and HBM both use Prosystems Engagement, so no big change.

Different:
The name
The CPE location (for the first 5 years of CPE is usually in Fargo, ND and other trainings are often held in Minneapolis, which I am excited about as I have never been to either of those cities.)

Overall it is going to be a fantastic thing. Although I must admit the change has made things quite crazy at work. We have had numerous meetings about the transition and trying to get ready. Plus I help a ton with recruiting which means that we have to get everything ready knowing that come September when recruiting starts we will be Eide Bailly.

We are grateful for the many partners from HBM (current and past) who did so much to establish such a great firm. As we say goodbye to HBM, we give them our thanks. We are excited for our future with Eide Bailly and are grateful to have a job with such a great company.

Friday Five

1- I'm finally all caught up on blogging our crazy life adventures. The only things left on my list is to blog about my pretty new (not-as-new-as-it-used-to-be-but-still-new) washer and dryer stand and to finish a blog about "things that I think" that I've been adding to off an on over the past month or so. I'm so relieved to be caught up with all of the things we've done and so ready to get back to my normal schedule of blogging.

2-Last night was HBM's Summer Party. Yummy food and playing at a park? Yes please. (There was also a bounce house that was too big for Lydia, and a balloon animal artist but the line was too long for David and I.) We really like HBM and had a great time at the party.

  

3-Because of the summer party, yesterday we went and dropped David off at the Frontrunner station so that we could just pick him up at his office and head straight to the party. (We hate having to come home in two cars.) This is different than the usual routine where we wave goodbye to Daddy from the kitchen/garage door while he gets in his car and drives away. When we got home from dropping him off, she looked around like "Hey, where is my dad? Why did you shut the door? Isn't my dad coming inside, too?" It's totally natural, because we never go anywhere with David that he doesn't also come home with us. I didn't even think about it until she started looking for him. I told her that Daddy went to work and that we would see him later - but she just stood by the door for a full five minutes, waiting for him to come in. It was so sweet. I gave her her cheerios and sippy of milk and she just sat down by the door for another 10 minutes. Seriously, a whole 15 minutes she just sat by the door. She didn't cry, it was just like "It's okay, I'll just stay right here and wait for my dad. He's coming soon." So sweet.

4- I know that I've mentioned this before, but Lydia climbs on EVERYTHING. She barely plays with her toys anymore - all she wants to do is stand on them or try to climb on whatever else she can find. Our chaise lounge is the perfect thing for her to climb on and she can start at the bottom and get all the way to the very top. (We now have pillows and a chair sitting on top of it so that she can't climb on it where we aren't there. Some of her other climbing adventures this week include climbing on and scooting off: the rocking chair in her bedroom, the small square ottomans (that she will stand and balance on if I let her... jeez, they are only 1 foot square!), her pink chair, a 7-gallon water container (see #5 below), the small couch in the family room, the window-blinds box in our bedroom, and even learning to climb up onto our large leather ottoman using some of her toys as stepping stools. Seriously, this girl is a climber! Heaven help me, because it is exhausting!  

5- This week Lehi City went into water supply crisis mode. The dry winter, hot summer, and large population influx combined to create a pretty serious water shortage. Earlier this week they were reporting that if there weren't massive changes in the populations water conservation efforts, homes would be running dry by this weekend. We aren't allowed to use our hoses/spigots outside, as those use culinary water. Odd numbered houses can only use irrigation water (sprinkler systems) on MWF, with even numbered houses only on TWTh.  Other conservation efforts are encouraged. Reports are now saying that things are starting to get under control - but for a while there it sounded like we weren't going to have any water this weekend. It made me so grateful for counsel of the prophets to have emergency food storage and supplies because I was able to go downstairs and get several large water containers and fill them up in our kitchen sink (they were empty because we still hadn't filled them up again since moving them in). You never know when you aren't going to have any water or other important supplies - and I'm so grateful that I am able to feel confident that we could last for at least a little while without running water.  It's kind of the same with everything - what if all the sudden you couldn't buy peanut butter, or sugar, or whatever else because of some state/national shortage. I don't think it's always a natural disaster that requires the use of food storage. My testimony of that has grown this week.

Happy Friday everyone!