the adventure of 2013!

Boy, 2013 sure was a year to remember... so many major life changes and accomplishments! Looking back at the highlights from the year, I still can't believe what a year we had!

In January, we put our deposit down at Creighton Dental School, not knowing where we'd eventually end up.In February, Spencer worked hard on submitting his military scholarship applications. Wow, that was sure a process neither of us ever want to repeat. In March, we decided that I should take the bar exam in Utah, knowing that if we ended up in Nebraska, I could transfer my results to that state. In April, I graduated from BYU Law School and Spencer graduated from BYU in Exercise Science!

In May, we took a 2 week trip to Orlando and the Caribbean, celebrating both of our graduations and our  2 year wedding anniversary. Let's just say, it was absolute heaven. Give me a beach AND Disneyworld AND the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and I could die of happiness!

In June, I turned 25, and turned on bar studying to full-force drink-through-a-firehose kind of information overload. In July, I took the Utah Bar exam! Biggest relief when that was over. We also took a trip to my favorite sunny town of California, San Diego. In August, we moved to Nebraska and Spencer turned the big 2.5. Spencer also started dental school and I accepted a job as in-house counsel for Fidelity National Title.

In September, we found out that Spencer had been awarded the 4 year scholarship with the Army for dental school. I can't even begin to describe the relief and gratitude we feel for this amazing opportunity.

In October, I found out that I passed the bar! Yipee!!

In November, we took a weekend whirlwind trip to Chicago for Thanksgiving and absolutely fell in love with that city!

In December, we went back to Utah and visited our friends and families back in Salt Lake after our first 5 months of living away. We loved every minute and can't wait till we get to see them all again.

2013 can go down in the books as the year of PATIENCE! Patience on waiting what dental school Spencer would end up at, patience on waiting to find out where we will be living for the next four years or even eight years, patience on waiting 8 MONTHS to hear if Spencer got the Army scholarship, patience on waiting on my bar results, patience on waiting to hear back from job applications.

If anyone knows me, they know that patience is not necessarily my strongest suit and I am a crazy planner who feels like my life is only in control if I have set plans. So not knowing what lay ahead of us what incredibly stressful for me. However, I just kept repeating to myself, it will all work out for the best, it will all work out for the best. And guess what, it DID! Everything didn't happen exactly as I had first planned, but all I can say is that looking back, I know that everything has worked out exactly how it should. We are right where we need to be at this point in our lives.  I am honestly SO grateful for everything that we have been blessed with this past year and am looking forward to whatever 2014 brings our way! Happy New Year!

xoxo

the bevans

the adventure of the negotiation

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to go to San Francisco to participate in the ABA Regional Law School Negotiation Competition. Spence and I just went to San Francisco two months ago but I was super excited to go again because I absolutely LOVE this city!

My partner Jessica and I figured out a way to stay there cheaply since BYU only paid for our plane ticket. We called the bishop of the Santa Clara ward and a host family volunteered to house us. The family we stayed with was extremely nice but let's just say it was an interesting experience. She picked us up in her ten person white van fully furnished with cow print seats. We were shown to our room which was painted purple and pink with unicorn decorations. All weekend, we were told how homeschooling was pretty much the only way to go and that children should crawl for 15 min a day to increase brain development (even as 15 years old!) Wow, we just happily enjoyed our free stay and nodded and listened to all these thoughts!

We got to spend the first day we were there is San Fran. I pretty much took Jessica on the exact same route as Spencer and I took because I knew it worked and was a great overview of the city. We once again ate delicious waffles, saw the funny sea lions, ate at Boudin's (this time I got a crab cake sandwich-highly recommended!) and saw Chinatown. The biggest difference between the two trips is that we could both SHOP to our hearts content. Spence would have never have lasted that long and it was sure nice being able to shop till we dropped.

The competition the next day went well. We both felt good about our negotiations and got good feedback from our judges but only 4 of 28 teams moved on to the next day and we didn't make the cut.  During our break between the two negotiations I got a call from Spence and found out we had to choose a dining set we were getting for Christmas, right then, over the phone! I was super excited about this but it was sure interested figuring out a way to decide states away! We picked one (hopefully my little iPhone picture did it justice) but I am really looking forward to it since our current set already is starting to break!

The last day we pretty much spent traveling and were able to sleep in. The whirlwind weekend really wiped us out. It was so fun traveling with Jess and we really had a fantastic weekend together. However, I was so happy to see Spence's cute face at the airport! (Apparently all weekend we both kept worrying one of us would die!) What a great weekend to give us a small break before the crush of final study begins!