October - last month before cold

We have been slacking on our blog, so here is an update for the past month. 

Matt has finally gone to a sleep doctor and has been working with specialists to improve his sleep. As part of this, he did an overnight sleep test at the University of Utah and he sent me this wonderful photo below of him after the techs had hooked him up for the night.

The test basically told us what we already knew - that Matt has sleep apnea among other issues. So now he will be going back to do another overnight sleep test, this time hooked up to a CPAP. We are looking forward to getting him a new CPAP with a custom fitted mask and the proper settings. I think Matt might be the youngest person to wear a CPAP - and let me tell you it is sexy :) 

I was given the opportunity to sing in the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference the first weekend of October. My stake, along with several other stakes from Sandy & Draper, put together a special family choir for this session. 

I loved the experience and the people that I met while doing it - although I ended up get a nasty head cold a few days before. My favorite part was sitting in the Conference Center after the session ended and watching everybody wave to President Monson as he walked out and waved to the audience. You just should have seen the huge grins on everyone's faces - they looked like little kids on Christmas morning. Being in the choir was a lot of work and a lot of time - not to mention the challenges it posed to me with the strict appearance restrictions - but it was definitely worth it!

Many people missed me as they showed me during the very first song so below is a screen shot from the session. I am in the bottom right with a dark blue shirt - next to a blonde lady.

Keri, along with the other 4 singers from the ward (Sister Rhay - bishop's wife, Brother Houggard, Bro. & Sis. Buhleman). Each ward was only allowed to select 5 singers.

Matt has been enjoying both BYU & University of Utah football this season. Since he is now a student at the U he has begun to appreciate the U and we even went to one of their football games. Below is a pic of Matt watching the game at the Rice-Eccles Stadium. He is sporting his new Steve Young jersey. His friend C-Bass hooked him up with a contact who gets authentic jerseys for cheap so we went ahead and got Matt 4 - yes 4 - new jerseys. He got this Steve Young 49er jersey, a throwback Gwynn Padres jersey, a white Phillip Rivers Chargers jersey and a Dwayne Wade basketball jersey. He is just lovin his new threads!  

We are looking forward to Halloween coming up - well I am mostly - since it is my favorite holiday. I had to spend almost 10 minutes this morning convincing Matt to dress up with me again this year. Initially he said no because my idea was "just too crazy" for him but thanks to my relentless persuasion he agreed to do so. I just have a great idea for our costumes and it wouldn't be as good without him. Stay tuned for pics of our fabulous costumes :)

September = Victory!

Do you remember the 21st night of September?

Love was changing the mind of pretenders

While chasing the clouds away

Hey hey hey,

Ba de ya - say do you remember

Ba de ya - dancing in September

Ba de ya - never was a cloudy day

Yes, first and foremost we did dance the night away on September 10th... at the Utah State Fair... while watching Boyz II Men perform. Well mostly Keri and her friends, Nicole, Charlotte, & Sheree did while Matt and his friend, Bryan Tanner, enjoyed laughing at us, eating fatty carnival food and getting compliments from other carnies on their ridiculous wigs. 

Keri didn't think she could ever be embarrassed by Matt, but somehow he managed to pull that off.

 These boyz... now men... were seriously impressive. They were so classy and sounded fabulous!

Keri (not sure why I'm tilting my head), Charlotte & Nicole in search of a FAT corndog to satisfy Nicole's craving.

Bryan Tanner (Matt's high school friend) & Matt looking RIDICULOUS! 

 What else can you say? :)

The pinnacle of the night... and by the way, this pic was taken after the concert - obviously not the end of the road for this concert. We just hadn't quite gotten the Boyz II Men out of our systems yet.

Besides chillin' with the carnies, KerMatt has been busy as ever with the usual routine. Matt is back at school. now working on his Master's while also interviewing with the Big 4 accounting firms again. He loves that he doesn't have to shave everyday at the U - quite the difference from BYU.

Keri put on her 6th Heart Walk event - having record breaking numbers of attendees (around 4,000). For example, we grew from 150 runners the past two years to more than 500 this year. We had a wonderful event and one of the most seamless Heart Walks I have worked on. The best part of the event was a tie between the bag pipers who led out the walk and Rory (Keri's cousin's husband) and his Ghost busters Club. And to top it all off, for the first time in my Heart Walk history, I haven't gotten sick right afterwards. Yeah!

Ghost buster's Club of Salt Lake

We couldn't finish this blog without mentioning FOOTBALL which has taken over as a priority in our lives (like it or not :) But in the biggest upset of our marriage, KerMatt went head to head in the Family Fantasy Football league - and Keri took the win by just 2 points! 2 points! And you know Matt helped me pick up a star quarterback the night before which made the difference. He is a good man and took the loss well... surprisingly.  He says "like the Chargers, I will finish the season strong." Check out the pic below for proof of Keri's victory, complete with our smack talk.

P.S. Check out the website we put together for Keri's dad's business - http://wire-riteelectric.com/ 

The house that built me...

Recently I've heard the new song "The House That Built Me" by Miranda Lambert (country singer). At first I hated the song because of the incessant twang but then one day I listened the words. And I loved them! I felt like the words were honest and real - and very relatable.

The song is about a woman going back to the house she grew up in and asking the people who now live there if she can walk through to feel her old memories.  

"I know they say you can’t go home again

I just had to come back one last time
Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam
But these handprints on the front steps are mine"

As she reminisces, she is hoping that these old memories will take away some of her current  sadness.

"You leave home and you move on and you do the best you can

I got lost in this old world and forgot who I am

I thought if I could touch this place or feeling
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself"

Now not having actually grown up in one house in my own life, I am still touched by this song and can relate to wanting to go back to my care-free childhood instead of having the stress and responsibility I have to experience now. 

And when I think about all of the homes I grew up in, I think about how much of "me" I took away from each of these places.

For example:

Marigold House

• I learned to tie my shoe.
• I still remember the day that I figured this out with the "bunny ear" technique and experienced my own self-sufficiency. 
• I got trapped under the garage door (TWICE!).
• I learned that sometimes when your parents caution you, they actually know their stuff, such as staying out of the way when the door is closing.
• Dad did work on the new Jelly Belly factory and brought home endless goodies 
• I learned to appreciate the sweet things in life :)

Elmhurst House 

• My brother, Bo, spent one of my birthday parties running around outside and tripping over the garden hose to entertain my friends. 
• I learned that boys do stupid things to "impress" girls and brothers will try to steal your thunder :)
• Our house burnt down in 1988 while my family and I were across the street at church 
• I learned that if you are in the right place at the right time, you will be blessed - even through trials.
• I experienced the spirit of giving as I was overwhelmed with all of the kindness and unselfishness people offered us. Every day more and more boxes of clothing, dishes, blankets, etc would be given us. The children in my primary even did a penny drive and raised enough money in weeks to buy new scriptures for all 6 of my brothers and sister.
• We lost pretty much everything in that fire yet we were able to bounce back. I learned that material possessions are temporary and replaceable and it was the love of my family - and extended family who took all of us in - that carried us through this hard time. But they made it so fun for me that I can't remember this being a hard time - it just felt like an extended vacation at Grandma's house. I'm sure my parents would feel otherwise but I was 7 years old.

Lily House

• It snowed in Fairfield in December 1988 for the first time in like 8 years. 
• I learned that nothing is impossible - and brothers are mean and silly as Rocky picked me up out of bed, threw me in the snow and locked me outside in my nightgown. And then Bo and Josh were trying to ride their bikes down the snowy hill for the thrill of sliding all over.
• I learned that sometimes the best things in life are free - as we "somehow" had free cable in that house. 

Evergreen House

• Since I spent my formative pre-teen and teenage years here until I moved away to college, this is the house that 
• I learned to play the flute, the bells, sporadically practiced the piano and spent countless hours singing around the piano as my Mom played - deepening my love for music.
• I got to redecorate my room during high school for the first time and my mom let me pick everything, building my creativity.
• I experienced the joy of prank calls & TP'ing houses for the first time - then I worked on perfecting these skills.
• I learned to drive - and learned my mom was a much more patient teacher than my dad.
• I attempted to learn to drive with a stick shift but failed miserably until I was left without a car and with determination tried to rock the "Gator Man" truck. Some things are best just left alone though.
• I learned about dealing with crazy people such as neighbors.
• I started going to church dances and then dating - and oh the hours I spent getting ready with my friends for church dances.  
• I probably should have never discovered the joys of skipping class and finding creative ways to cover it up.
• I moved away and then experienced what it was like to come home from college and appreciate your home's sameness again.

"If I could walk around in I swear I’ll leave

Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me"

The simplicity of these memories seems so surreal now as I juggle my career, being a wife and a support to my husband, being a good friend and a good person overall and also keeping myself healthy and fit while developing my own individuality and creativity. So I hope to continue to appreciate the simple things in my life as it grows even more complex.

I realize also that it is not the homes that build you, but really the people that truly build you in those homes -whether it is yourself, your family or your friends.

Let the games begin...

Matt started his Masters program and is working on getting a TA position to discount some of his tuition. Apparently his intense BYU ISYS core has prepared him well for his masters classes as they are covering material he has already studied. He is also staying quite involved with the BYU ASM club and is applying this week to the Top 5 accounting firms again.

Keri's Heart Walk & Run is now only 3 WEEKS AWAY! Eeeh! While much is done for the prep, she still feels like she should be stressing out. This is her fifth Heart Walk to implement and she has a great planning committee of mainly young professionals and U of U or BYU students who have worked very hard to prepare. It will be exciting to see how this year's event turns out.Check out the article that Deseret News ran for us to highlight some of our top fundraising companies and our partnership with Ken Garff's Road To Success program. We will doing another follow up advertisement this next week with our Top 4. This has been an exciting piece for us as our companies have loved the attention, we have caught the eye of many in the community and now other offices have wanted to copy it.

Let's not also forget to mention the impending doom - or excitement, depending on which part of KerMatt you ask :) - of NFL beginning - and Fantasy Football taking off. Matt will be playing in three leagues this year - Family league, Friends league and an BYU ISYS Alumni league. Keri will be managing a team in the Family league and then co-managing a team with Matt in the Friends league. Keri had to restrain Matt at our ward activity last night as he was heavily recruiting others to join us, bless his heart. He just gets so passionate about his Fantasy Football :) Love him!

Keri also finished another home project inspired by the shutters that she previously restored. She turned a cd crate into a fake window box to sit right below the shutters in our kitchen. This project has been in the works for a couple of months and we are both quite happy with the finished product. Check out the pics.

We want to say congrats to our recent friends who have had their first babies - Brad & Sharee in Spokane with the little baby girl, Finley Rae, and then Dawn & Steve Hoem in Irvine with their little baby boy, Jensen. We are so happy for both of them and can't wait to see them in person!

We hope you all have a wonderful week!

- KerMatt

KerMatt springing for the Masters

As many of you probably already know, Matt has been accepted into the Master's program (MSIS or Master of Science in Information Systems) at the University of Utah. He also found out on Friday that he will receive Residency Status, which means that we will save on tuition BIG TIME! Now the third, and final step, of this piece is to find out  if we will be receiving any financial aid which may change our opinions on actually entering the program.

We are so excited for Matt and looking forward to this next year and the increased knowledge Matt will receive - even if it does mean another winter here in Utah. Although if it is as mild as last winter was, we will be just fine :)

Matt begins classes in just one week! And he will finish anytime between May 2011 and August 2011. He begins with a program orientation this Friday and a barbecue for both of us to attend on Saturday.

Keri is excited to have Matt going to school closer to her work now so she can see him more - maybe even have lunch together sometimes. She has been busy as usual getting ready for her Heart Walk coming up in just 5 weeks. Thanks to some great company donations, she was able to reach her fiscal year goals for the first time since she started with American Heart and she is looking forward to potentially reaching her event goal of raising $175k as well.

Also continuing with the exciting news, Keri has been invited to sing in a special Draper/Sandy Regional Choir for the afternoon session of General Conference in October. She will be having special practice sessions for the next 6 Sundays and looking forward to this experience. Though she does not own a black skirt well below her knees or a non-shiny earring so she'll have to work on that one a little.

Overall KerMatt has much to celebrate!