This has been a busy week! I've been implementing a new business-processes (payroll, HR, customer service, sales automation, accounting, etc.) software program at work. We somehow made it through our first payroll on the new system without any major mistakes. In fact, the only mistake anyone has noticed was a misspelled last name! Actually, it was the first payroll I've ever run and now you can all consider me an expert. Ha!

Colin has been working hard to get his school work finished. For those of you who have had the pleasure of taking an Economics class, you can appreciate how much energy it takes to focus on reading chapter after chapter of that subject. Econ textbooks can be pretty dry, and Colin's is no exception. He does get a little expressive break once in a while, though, because he's assigned every unit to find a current news article and discuss how it relates to the chapters he just finished reading. We'll have to post one of those entertaining essays sometime Colin!

Tonight we're having dinner with my sweet great-uncle and great-aunt, David and Kathy. They're going on a mission to the Czech Republic in a few days and they're taking the time to spend one of their last free evenings in the States with us. They're learning Czech-it's fun to look at their house now because it has little labels for everything in Czech: Czech for television, Czech for light switch, Czech for oven.

A week from tomorrow is my favorite (and only) brother's NINTH BIRTHDAY!!! YAY! Nephi III is going to be IX. It's pretty hard to believe that he's so old, but he's already an accomplished Cub Scout and soccer player and much more, so he had to find the time to become so talented somewhere! For those of you who haven't seen my family in a while, they're all growing up. Emily will go off to college (we're not sure which yet) this September and Eliza is really getting tall and is already smarter than me. Ruthie is taller, but she's always acted older than everyone else anyway. And Nephi is going to be NINE! Wow.

This last weekend we finally got hooked up to the internet at our house! Now that I think of it, “hooked up” is exactly what we did NOT do. We bought a wireless router for the couple in the apartment upstairs and they broadcast internet to the whole neighborhood for us. So, now we are tuned in to the internet. I think it's really going to help Colin with his homework to have a connection at home.

That's enough almost stream-of-consciousness writing from me, but we've made a few changes to the site in the last couple of days and you should check them out. I especially recommend the “robotfindskitty” picture in our gallery under the “Stuff and Unfiled” album. Also, we've finally developed a bunch of our wedding pictures onto CD, so those should be up soon. Stay tuned

Welcome to our web page! Colin has made this awesome web page so that we can share stuff about ourselves with our friends and family. We've been learning about web developing as we go, so hopefully colinandbethany.com will keep improving and becoming more interesting as we go along. Thanks for letting us host our site on your server Christian (a friend of Colin's from high school)!

We've had some exciting things happen to us in the last couple of weeks. Today my Uncle David and Aunt Kathy gave going-away talks in church because they'll be leaving for an LDS mission to the Czech Republic next month. YAY! We're so proud of you, Dave and Kathy! The Czech people will soon get a chance to love you as much as we do. After church we got to see more Stringhams at their house. There's nothing quite like a houseful of Stringham hugs. :-)

This last Thursday I was in my first car accident! We were rear-ended on our way home from work (Colin was driving at the time) by a nice young lady. We're both doing quite well and, according to our chiropractor, we'll be back to 100% after a couple of visits! I've witnessed first-hand how much safer big cars are than small cars since our Jeep only needs relatively little work compared to the smashed front-end of the Corolla that hit us. I know all about the gas-mileage issue, but I sure like the security of an SUV.

As for a general update, Colin is going to MBA school at Dominican University in California and I'm working for a software company in Orem called Senforce Technologies. Colin is also teaching as a full-time substitute in the Alpine school district and LOVES working with high school students. My work is lots of fun, too, since I'm the Office Manager and I get to be "in charge" a lot (a big perk for an oldest child). At church, Colin serves in the calling of Ward Financial Clerk and I serve as Primary Chorister (teaching the children to sing).

We were just watching a documentary on Ezra Taft Benson (former President of the LDS Church and former US Secretary of Agriculture) and it showed one of his political posters from the Eisenhower era that said "No real American wants to be subsidized." As for politics, we are quite conservative. We like President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dave Ross, Thomas Friedman, and Norm Macdonald (one of Colin's favorite comedians).

While we're at it, we might as well mention more favorites, in no particular order. We love Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I like the TV show "Trading Spaces" and the A&E version of the classic "Pride and Prejudice." Colin really likes "The Simpsons" and anything else colorful. Colin likes to listen to talk radio while we're driving in the car. We both like grocery shopping. We love our families, of course. I like airplanes--especially the sound they make when they take off and land. We love the scriptures. We love music. I'm sure we'll have more issues of this newsletter, so I won't tell you everything right now. We love all of you! Bethany