KerMatt is leaving early

A recruiter from Deloitte called Matt last week and asked Matt if he would be willing to start working earlier than September 12th. After a little deliberation by him (because it meant he would lose a month of his summer) we decided to take the opportunity. His new start date is August 8th.

It's a good thing we had a trip planned to San Jose this weekend to go find an apartment.

Keri also had to bite the bullet and tell her work that she is leaving. Her boss and team took it exceptionally well and were happy for us. They said they knew she was a risk when they hired her but that she was worth every penny, which made her feel so much better about leaving before even finishing out the year with them.

So off we go this weekend to find our new home (apartment)...

Downtown San Jose, where Matt's office will be located

You may need to work this weekend...

I had an interesting experience at the hospital this last weekend that bothered me. 


On Friday evening, the hospital received a call from a man saying he was a manager for Toby Keith and that they were coming the direction of the hospital to bring a very large check (over $3 million to beat the Telethon, he said) and that Toby was bringing out country singers with him (Clint Black, Carrie Underwood, Allan Jackson, and a secret surprise (Keith Urban). They were doing all of this because they were disenchanted with the fact that Primary Children’s was excluded from a NASCAR race where some children’s hospitals were named beneficiaries of a large competition. 

This guy came to the hospital (which 99% of these crazies don't ever do). 

He presented a check for $3.3 million, then he turned around with a cell phone to his ear and said, "I need to take that back. Toby wants to bring up a cashier’s check." 

The guy never showed up on Sunday of course. 

I kept getting calls from my boss saying to standby in case we had to go in on Sunday to make this happen and if I were her, I would have been very upset about losing my weekend to this crazy. She spent almost 5 hours with him on Saturday, then an hour on Sunday to meet him and his "crew".

To be honest, I think she was way nicer than I ever would have been. I mean what is wrong with people?! What would possess someone to do something like this? I am amazed at the lengths this man went to pull off his stunt, which we have all decided was some kind of prank. He wasted his own weekend on this and my bosses and for what? Not to mention the fact this is a children's hospital and we are trying to save lives!!!

One of my co-workers and I have decided the best solution to this problem is to find where this guy lives and do an old-school egging. ;-)

Artistic Interpretation

We have been blessed to receive some beautiful drawing from nieces and nephews recently and I just had to share these because they are so cute and show each personality so well :)  A couple of them are still on our front door, which is where I found them last Saturday night. I had gone out with Matt's mom and came back to find the first three on my door from the girls along with a clean home and a Funfetti birthday cake that they had made with Matt. They tried to distract me while Matt searched for candles and offered me glasses of water and then they sang to me right after giving me these homemade pictures.  

Johanita's Happy Birthday drawing for me. Notice the special scrolly handwriting. She also signed it "Truely Johana"

Jeraldine's avant garde bouquet

Jamie's version of the "warm fuzzy".  Notice the large Daddy Long Leg/mosquito eater (we are still debating) on the left (not Jamie's addition) which I did not even notice  until after I uploaded the photo.

  

Drawing from Carys, who signed it as Carys McGhee "Princess"

Little Calay's drawing which Dan fittingly titled "Masterpiece With Crayons"

Probably the most articulate and witty drawing I've ever seen from a child. This is from Cayden  who not only drew this dinosaur by hand and but he glued on a copy of Matt and I at last year's  BYU graduation to make it look like we were about to get eaten. Then his witty meesage to Matt above "Try not to get eating in the Real World, Uncle Master Matt" 

Pomp and Circumstance - Master Matt has graduated!

Matt graduated on May 6th from the University of Utah with his Master Degree in Information Systems. He would like to be called "Master Matt" now which I definitely do not do but oh well, he tried.

I am so proud of him and so happy to be done! Matt has had a long, hard journey through college and I could not stop thinking how amazing it is that he has persevered and stuck through it all. I have never seen so much hassle through financial aid EVERY SEMESTER.  It seems like every semester, they lost his paperwork and he had to worry up to the last minute whether he was going to have to drop his classes.

Matt in his all his graduated hotness with his wife on his arm

We also love that he was the last of his siblings to get his Bachelor's Degree but the first to get his Master's Degree. And he is the first cousin on the Folsom side to get his Master's. I like to brag for him if you couldn't tell :)

We were honored to have his Grandma and Grandpa Folsom join us at the ceremony. It was not an easy event for them with all of the crowds, the walking and the sitting but Grandma was determined to make it since she was not there for his BYU graduation last year. I got to shuttle everyone around in a mini-van while Grandpa told me I'm definitely not a Utah driver. I took it as a compliment but I'm not quite sure if that's what he meant. Since we were in the Sugarhouse area, they even had me drive by the house where Grandma grew up.  It was nice to hear her share stories about her life and the area.

Matt's parents also came out for the trip and the ceremony and Johana and her three girls joined us as well. They are probably the only 3 kids I know that would sit through a whole graduation ceremony without complaining - especially since they came to the BYU graduation last year and definitely knew better. 

All of the Business school graduate students during the Graduation Ceremonies

Jeraldine and Johanita waiting for Uncle Matt's name to be called

Proudly displaying his diploma

Matt with his cute nieces who sat through the whole ceremony for him

The morning of Matt's ceremony, we went down to Provo to watch the twins Chinese Presentation. It was weird to not be able to understand anything but it was so cute to watch and they did a great job. Below are some pics from that.

The girls standing in front of their artwork for their Chinese presentation.

Our Cruise of Sunshine and Laziness

KerMatt enjoying a night out.

Matt and I had a fabulous time on our cruise and LOVED the break from Utah soaking up the sunshine and perfecting the art of relaxation. We ate more food than you can imagine. We slept in almost everyday. And we basically just did whatever we felt like.

Our highlights were:

• mountain biking through the Sierra Madre jungle in Puerto Vallarta (complete with a swimming pool/waterfall at the top)
• ice cream and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies every day
• kayaking and snorkeling in Cabo San Lucas
• live karaoke 
• the warm sun
• the beautiful beaches of Cabo
• meeting awesome locals 
• having someone clean our room twice a day

Our disappointments were:

• both of us getting sunburnt on the tops of our feet 
• forgetting to grab our garment bag out of car before we left Matt's parents house (with all of our formal clothes). If you even know the anguish that Keri went through in packing these clothes, only to forget them in the excitement of leaving for port.
• seeing the poverty in Mexico
• the cruise activities, timing and entertainment all catered to a VERY older crowd
• our Mazatlan stop being canceled last minute due to violence in their town

We left out of San Diego and this was our wonderful view of downtown from the ship.

Our ship, the MS Oosterdam.

We stayed at Matt's parent's house the night before we boarded the ship. And Lane did not waste anytime putting Matt to work in the backyard in the rain before his relaxing began. I had to take a picture to document this cuteness.

KerMatt in the Sports Bar after realizing we could not watch the BYU Basketball game in our room.

Keri modeling our life jackets while Matt wastes no time getting his relaxation on.

Matt in our little tiny room with the curtain wall.

This is just an example of our breakfasts we ordered each morning  to our rooms, because we never could quite make it to the dining room early enough.

This was our dessert almost every night along with a glass of milk. We often kept a stash of these in our room. And this photo was taken to show the difference between Matt's normal bite (left) and Keri's normal bite (right). Matt was teasing me for taking such small bites!





Puerto Vallarta was our first stop where we spent 2 days to make up for the day we lost in Mazatlan. Though there were some beautiful places, it had a very Mexico feel and we liked Cabo more.

The first day in PV we took a cab downtown and walked on the beach. There was many people out on the beach trying to get some of the tourists money with their unique talents. This particular guy stacked random rocks without any adhesive. 

A mama whale and her baby some people made on the beach.

Our second day we rented mountain bikes and a guide biked with us through the Sierra Madres jungle. This is Matt and I before we began our journey up. And let us tell that there is a reason why we were the only ones crazy enough to do this, instead of renting the ATV's and buses that most others did. The ride was NUTS and the bikes were not the best quality. But it was worth it for the experience!

Keri had a hard time transitioning to the mountain bike since she has never ridden one before and is used to the smooth ride of aroad bike. It didn't help that we started out our trek going uphill on cobblestone roads.

This is why it was so worth it. That and our awesome guide, Enrique.

More foliage of the jungle.

Our guide, Enrique and his dad, Enrique Sr. at the restaurant we ate at near the top of the jungle. Enrique Sr. just happened to work at this restaurant and we got to meet him. Such great people!

Matt and I enjoying the break before we hit the last 20 minutes to the top to the waterfall.

A photo of "the restaurant" but it really doesn't do it justice. It was such a cute restaurant and it had only opened 10 days before we got there.  Luckily for a gringo who came by for lunch, we were able to communicate a little better with the Enriques. And thank goodness because we soon realized that in trying to ask young Enrique if he has a girlfriend, we actually had asked him if he had a sister. No wonder he looked at us weird because we had already established that he had no brothers and sisters.


After the gringo taught us how to say girlfriend and boyfriend, we kept teasing Enrique about having a girlfriend.

 

On the way back down and we could not have been happier!  The ride down was so much easier than the trek up.

Along the way, we passed many cows just like this chillin' on the trail.

Keri and Enrique at the end of our ride. He was such a champ putting up with KerMatt and I swear he did not even break a sweat. 

Picture of downtown PV at night

Back on the ship, Keri enjoyed singing karaoke, with a live band, of course.

Our next and last stop was beautiful Cabo San Lucas. We loved the small town feel of it. What we did not love was all of the haggling and harassment we got from everyone wanting our money.

We rented kayaks and Matt terrorized Keri with his crazy paddling. As soon as we got out on the water, he started racing against all of the other couples in the group. It made for quite a laugh but Keri was hoping to have a nice ride across the water, not be tossed into the ocean.

The famous Cabo arch that our guide led us out to.

And next to the arch is the popular Scooby Doo rock.





We also went snorkeling right off of this little beach.

Matt chillin on the boat.

Keri chillin with the dead.

Only in Cabo will you find a Michael Jackson who cannot dance - in fact he refused to dance!

Back on the boat after we fried the tops of our little feet in Cabo. We had such a hard time walking around the boat that night.

One of the best part of the night was coming back to our room and finding these little treasures - the towel animals. She had to take a photo as soon as we saw it before Matt would take it apart. This is what we decided was a sting ray.

A turkey?

A puppy

A butterfly? Not quite sure on this one.