A Very Merry Christmas!!

Dave and I had a great Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The previous post shows that we went shooting with a lot of my brothers. And after that we went eat delicious soup my sister-in-law Ann made. Then we came home, put dinner in the crock pot, Dave went to Costco to get his snazzy new glasses, I put together our never-too-late cookie plates and then my brother Joe and his wife Liz and son Peter came over for dinner. So we ate dinner and played UpWords (AKA best game ever). Then when they left we delivered the rest of our cookies. Hardly anyone was home, as expected. But it was fun anyway! We ended the night by watching one of our favorite movies, "White Christmas". 

The next morning we awoke early so we could unwrap our presents before talking with Dave's sister Juliana on the phone. She is serving a mission in Portugal, so Dave's family all conference called with her. It was nice to hear from her (especially since I don't know her well, we've only met once really).

Dave and I really enjoyed giving each other presents---we both did a good job, I feel, on picking what the other person really wanted. So it was fun. We also made sure to start our own tradition of reading about the birth of our Savior in both the Book of Mormon and New Testament. And we watched a portion of the video "Reflections of Christ" which is really good!

After we finally go ready for the day we drove up to Perry to have dinner/celebrate with my family. It was a lot of fun. We played games, opened more presents, ate lots of food and just hung out. I even started to learn how to knit--thanks Brooklyn!!

We had a wonderful Christmas and are so grateful for the reminder and emphasis on Christ's birth each year. We went earlier in the week to the production "Savior of the World" at the Conference Center downtown. It was so beautiful and so great to see their portrayal of Christ's birth and resurrection. I highly recommend you go next year, if you are close to SLC. We love you all and hope you each had a wonderful Christmas as well!!

 Our beautiful tree. We bought a star finally :)

I bought Dave an argyle sweater---I finally convinced them they weren't just for old men. And they go very well with his new glasses, don't you think?

 And here are the pajama pants I picked for him---I wasn't sure that he'd like them---but he does! Much better than basketball shorts :)

 And here is a coat I actually picked out myself. I love red coats! 
Thanks Dave :)

And here is a sweater that Dave picked all by himself. Good choice honey!!

Opening another present! By the way, the red pajamas were from Dave too :)

 Dave has been talking a lot about a game called "Dominion" and how much he LOVES it. So I got it for him---now I just need to learn how to play it!

Boots! Love them :)

 This is Dave closing his eyes because he was so scared that I hadn't gotten him StarCraft 2. He's been asking  me for the past month, "Did you get me StarCraft 2? Did you get me StarCraft 2?" So, now he can rest. He'll be taking the Monday after Christmas off, even though I work, so he can hopefully get it out of his system :) Time will tell....

Ah, true love (above!)

 But this is even better true love :)

Dave in his new Santa hat holding "Despicable Me" from his sister Becky. Thanks Becky for everything.

And thank-you to everyone one else too!!

Shooting Guns = A Great Christmas Eve Activity :)

My brother Brian is in town from California so we decided that one of the fun things we could do while he was here was to shoot some guns. So a lot of the brothers and brothers-in-law and just one sister (me) went out by Will's house in Saratoga Springs and did some target practice and skeet shooting. Lots of fun!

Getting ready for Christmas!!!

Dave and I had a lovely Thanksgiving with his Grandmother and Aunt Karen in Reno, NV. We did some Black-Friday shopping too and found our lovely Christmas tree! Aunt Karen gave us a lot of great ornaments for our tree, which we love!! Plus we got most of our Christmas shopping done, which was very nice.

Here are some pictures, right after we put up our new Christmas tree and lights:

NYU & University of Pennsylvania

In the past month Dave has been admitted to New York University and University of Pennsylvania. They are both very good schools---but being admitted was a bit anticlimactic after getting into Harvard we felt. But it's still very excited and we're glad he was admitted!

We're still waiting to hear from a few more schools and to know what financial aid and scholarship options are before we make our decision. So we hope to know by March.

Harvard Law!

So this Monday continued the string of excellent news regarding law school admissions! I was sitting at my desk when I got a call on my cellphone from a (617) area code. I am working a lot with our Boston office on a case, so I immediately recognized it as a Boston number, and I thought I recognized the number as the one that called me from Harvard a week prior, but I didn't dare get my hopes up. When I answered the phone and the caller identified himself as Josh Rubenstein, the assistant dean of admissions at HLS, I knew instantly that it was going to be great news--and it was! He offered me a spot in the class of 2014. To say the least, I was--and am--very excited, as was Liz.

The information package got to us on Saturday,which was a wonderful "welcome home" letter to find after spending a wonderful Thanksgiving with Grandma Geiger and Aunt Karen. Liz and I spent some time looking through it, and needless to say, we are very excited about the prospect of going to Boston for law school! It will be a bit tougher financially, since Harvard does not give merit-based aid and I doubt we qualify for need-based aid, but it would probably be worth it in the long run. That's not to say that we have decided anything, because we haven't, but it is definitely something that we are very interested in!

So what do you all think? UVA, Michigan, or HLS?

University of Virginia

This past Monday, November 15, was another big day for me (seems like Mondays are good for me and law school!). I had a phone interview with Harvard Law around lunch time. I am still not entirely sure how well it went, mostly because it only lasted for seven minutes. He asked me two questions: (1) why am I deciding to go to law school now, after being at CRA for 2.5 years, and (2) why Harvard Law? I think I had good answers to both of them, particularly the second one. HLS has a large number of clinics, and one of them places students with the US Attorney's office in Boston to work on economic crimes, which immediately interested me, so I mentioned that as one of many reasons. He then asked me if I had any questions, and I had three, but I think the first two were not the greatest questions (i.e., I already knew the general answer), so I hope that does not count against me. After looking some more into HLS, it really does look like an amazing school, and I would have a great and enriching time there.

To make my Monday even better, I got an email from the Director of Admissions at UVA a couple hours later asking me to call him about my application. I figured he would ask me some general questions about why UVA, but it was not that at all. When I called, he commented that I had emailed them a few months ago, asking if my previous application/withdrawal three years ago would hurt my chances of getting in. He said he wanted to disabuse me of that idea because, in fact, they were admitting me! I was a little shell-shocked, and so my response may not have been optimal, because it was along the lines of, "oh, wow, that's awesome!" He then went on to say that he had more good news, because in fact they were offering me a scholarship of $75,000 over three years (he in fact said "at least" $75k, which gives me the hope that there may be some wriggle room). So that was awesome news. He told me to keep an eye out in the mail for the official package, and lo and behold, it arrived on Friday afternoon!

First law school acceptance - University of Michigan!

I started the application process back in the beginning of October (I actually had everything ready in September, but I was waiting on a letter of recommendation...), and by the beginning of November I was starting to get impatient about receiving replies back, even though I knew that the typical application process would take two months to finish. So, we really should start hearing back from most of the law schools in December, hopefully. That would make a nice Christmas present. Anyway, I periodically (read: every day) check the "Online status checker" for each of the schools to which I applied. Last Monday (Nov 8) I was very pleasantly surprised to see that Michigan had already made a decision on my application. It had been only about two and a half weeks from when I had sent in my residency application, which does figure somewhat into the application process. I guessed that such a rapid decision could only mean admission, since my numbers are good enough that I don't think they would reject me out of hand, but it would be several days until I got the actual letter in the mail with the decision--or so I thought. To my delight, I came home that night and found a large packet in the mail!!

Well, large packets typically only mean one thing--admission!

So, needless to say, Liz and I are very excited about the opportunity to go to Michigan!
In other news, I have a phone interview with Harvard Law School tomorrow! I had a good chat with a friend at HLS today, and he assured me that the chances of admission are fairly high once you have been given a phone interview. So, here's hoping (and praying!!) that we get offered a spot there! And at Stanford. And maybe Yale.

Michigan Trip!

So my sister Rachel got married two weeks after Liz and I did. It was an eventful trip, beginning with a lightning-delayed plane that forced us to miss the actual sealing ceremony (which was awful!) and ending with a lovely corn maze with Mom, Becky, and Becky's kids. It was a lot of fun.

PLACEHOLDER

Honeymoon in Caribbean!

Dave and I went on a Caribbean Cruise for our Honeymoon. All the cruises we wanted to take left on Sunday, so we had to take a red-eye flight to make it to the cruise on time. It was a long night, but we made it safely to our port in Puerto Rico. The cruise line we picked was Carnival.

The islands we visited were St. Thomas, Dominica, St. Lucia, Barbados, St. Kitts and St. Maarten. We only had one really rainy day. The others weren't too bad---some sprinkling, but nothing terrible. We were able to do a few excursions. We went snorkeling twice and we went kayaking. So all in all, it was a great cruise!

Wedding Reception

The reception was lovely---a lot of friends and family were able to come. The backyard was beautiful, the flowers were lovely, and the cake was beautiful and delicious.

My friend Nichole Hatch arranged my flowers, and my friend Stephanie Hughes made our cake. I am so lucky to have so many talented friends who were willing to help us make it a beautiful day!

Wedding: Salt Lake City Temple

Dave and I were married and sealed for time and all eternity on September 25, 2010, in the Salt Lake City Temple. The best day we've both known so far!! The ceremony was wonderful, and we were surrounded by a lot of family and friends. Perfect day.

The pictures in this slideshow were mostly taken by our photographer, Alice. But some were also taken by my sister Becki.

Bridals at the Capitol & Memory Grove

My sister Becki is an amazing photographer---but she lives so far away, in Alabama. But she flew in the week of my wedding--so the day she arrived I asked if she could do some more Bridal pictures for me. So now you can see for yourself how amazing she is :)

Bridals by the Saltair

Alice, with Indigo Road Photography, took my bridal pictures by the Saltair and the Great Salt Lake. I had seen pictures done there before and I really loved them, so I decided I wanted mine there too. I really like how they turned out too!

Engagement Pictures

We asked our lovely photographer, Alice Nelson, of Indigo Road Photography to take our engagement pictures up Little Cottonwood Canyon. We were so lucky to run into a moose---it wasn't attacking though, don't worry. So we have some moose in the back of a few pictures.

A year of dating!

Dave and I dated for just shy of a year before we were engaged. We met in our singles ward at the University of Utah Institute. We started out as just friends, and then we just started doing more and more things together. Then in August of 2009 we decided to go on a hike to Doughnut Falls, up Big Cottonwood Canyon, and as we went it felt a lot like a date. He bought us doughnuts and drinks and even made me dinner afterwards. The next week I had two dates lined up---on the first I brought my date to play ultimate frisbee, and Dave was there. So Dave gave me a lot of space the whole night. I had driven to frisbee separately from my date because I told him I wanted to play a long time and didn't want him to feel like he had to stay the whole time. So, after frisbee everyone was leaving, then it was just Dave and I. So we started chatting for a really long time and he asked me if I wanted to go to Village Inn. I kinda said no, but then he convinced me. So we went. Then I asked him to go with me to the Bees game that Tuesday---for my work party. After the Bees game, which he had insisted on driving to, we went to my house to grab a movie, then took it all the way to his house (we lived quite a ways apart at this point). Then after the movie he drove me back to my house. We basically ended up talking all night on my porch, and decided we were dating, after we kissed :)  And that's where it all began :)  Um, by the way, there was some remodeling being done at that time in the bathroom, so we were sitting on my porch next to a toilet.... so romantic... :)   Oh, and the date I had lined up for the next day I called to cancel :)  We started dating on August 5, 2009.