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!