Holidays

This past week we celebrated Thanksgiving with our Foote Family! I love Thanksgiving, and we have so many things to be grateful for. I honestly wake up each day and wonder how I got so lucky. I have a wonderful husband and family. I have the gospel in my life, and we are blessed in so many other countless ways. Growing up in Canada with an American mother, I have always had TWO Thanksgiving celebrations (Thanksgiving is in October in Canada). I consider my double holidays another thing to be thankful for.

For this Thanksgiving, we had a big family dinner with all of Steven's mom's side of the family. Besides the traditional feast, the weekend was full of family dodgeball, BYU Football, shopping, games, and lots of fun. All in all, we had a great Thanksgiving...

We also wasted no time in setting up our house with all of our Christmas decorations. I absolutely love Christmas, but I am a firm believer in no Christmas until after Thanksgiving. So, all of my excitement is contained and gets fully let loose all at once.

Since we are still in the small apartment stage of life, decorating for Christmas definitely has its limitations. For example, "our stockings are hung by the TV with care" instead of the chimney.

I love this time of year, and we can't wait until we get to go home to Canada for a Peterson family Christmas!

Six Exams and Thousands of Dollars Later

To say that I'm proud is an understatement. This is the good kind of pride, though. A few weeks ago, Paige took her last CPA Exam, prerequisite to her becoming a Certified Public Accountant -- the very culmination of the education she has striven for the past five and a half years to obtain. Yesterday, Paige's grade for that last exam was posted. 94. Her scores on all the exams were in the 90s. On an unrelated side-note, these exams are pass-fail, and 75 is a passing grade. On another side- note, only about 10% of potential CPAs pass all four exams on their first try.

 Everyone else taking the exam. Good luck.

Paige doesn't want to brag, so I will. She's amazing! And, in January she will have completed the experience requirements (2000 hours working under a licensed CPA) to qualify her for the CPA license. Needless to say, we will be going out to celebrate tonight. New Moon here we come!

San Jose, California

Now that our news is "official" and Steven has accepted a job offer, I can finally announce that after Steven graduates we are moving to San Jose, California! He has been interviewing for jobs in San Jose at all of the big accounting firms, and he will be working at Ernst & Young.

In accounting, it is crazy, but you have to pick a place and interview for jobs a year before you graduate. I am so grateful that we know that Steven has a great job lined up, especially with jobs being scarce right now. I will brag a little bit about how amazing he is, because he got multiple job offers, and all of the firms told him that he was a top recruit. Here is a picture of Steven reading his E&Y offer with his "Paige, why are you taking a picture of this?" smile:

Now, I am genuinely thrilled and excited about our adventure. However, I never thought that I would live in California and this definitely wasn't in the plans. In fact, we had all of the applications submitted to apply for Calgary, so we could live by my family. However, we kept finding out difficult things about transferring our education across the border, and as much as my heart wanted to go, we both knew that it wasn't right (at least not now... I still have hopes for the future). So, with one day left before applications became final, we felt good about San Jose and switched all of the applications. I feel at peace and I know that it is the right thing for us, but it is definitely a scary unknown. I am moving to a place where I have never been, and I will know probably about three people. Some of the main things that I am so excited for are-

• Amazing weather. Not way hot, but sunny and warm almost year round. Yes!
• Tons of fun stuff to do really close: San Fransisco, the beach, amusement parks, everything.
• Great for Steven's career: He will be in auditing and E&Y does Google, Facebook, HP, Apple, pretty much all the big technology names.
• The church is strong and there are a lot of other young couples there.
• My sister will be living in LA and so we sorta have family close.
• 

Some things that I am way not excited for are-

• Not being really close to any family. I know that this will be hard. I love family!
• Expensive!!! We won't be improving our standard of living from the student life at all. Everything, especially housing is so expensive.

The good outweigh the bad and we are excited. Moving is still over a year away, but it does feel like the Provo student chapter of our lives is coming to a close. I love to plan ahead and so the saying, "Life happens when you are busy making other plans" has always been hard for me. This was not in the plans, but I am learning that life is definitely an adventure that you have to take as it comes!

The life of a sugar mama...

I have been thinking lately that I really need to update our blog and make it a little more interesting. But, we have been really busy lately and most of that has just been work and school. Honestly, not that interesting. But, since this is my life, here are a few tidbits of what I am up to every day:

Here is a pictures of the girls that I work with in the "basement." Our office has three floors. The auditors are on the top, the partners and support staff are in the middle, and the tax department is in the basement. I actually really like it. And not just because the break room is also in the basement and so when they bring in treats, we are the first to get them.

One of my favorite parts about what I do is really helping people. We have so many clients that do not understand money, taxes, or finances at all, and I get to help them. That makes all of the years of school and hard work worth it. I also love figuring out hard problems and feeling like a real professional.

One of my least favorite parts about my job is tracking time. Yes, we have to "bill" our time in 15 minute increments. Crazy, eh? I understand the purpose, because even my billable rate is $80/hour (I wish I made that...) and we need to make sure that we are being accurate with how much we charge. It is helpful to stay productive, but it drives me nuts!

And.. for some good news: I took my last CPA exam on October 29th and I finished the two state exams this last week. I don't know if I passed yet, but if I did, then I AM SO DONE!!!! It feels great to work so hard for something and to finally reach my goal.

Life is Good.