1 year Anniversary

Our 1 year anniversary was over a month ago but I have to share what we did for it because it was AMAZING! We found this really cool hike and beautiful might I add that when you get to the top their are a ton of hot pots and a gorgeous waterfall. Here are some pictures....

Also what a year it has been for us! We've had so many different things going on, so many adventures, so many experiences and so much more to come!

Utah Arts Festival

We went to the Utah Arts Festival last night! It was fabulous! Both of us had never been before.

We watched Ririe Woodbury Dance perform on one of the outside stages. They were amazing of course! They are one of my favorite! The dancers were fantastic! Then we walked around bought some yummy roasted almonds looked at all of the really neat booths. Ben talked to one of the police officers at a booth and he gave Ben some really good advice. We wanted to stay and see a show and the information booth said that a group called "Cowboy Junkies" were going to perform later so we stuck around for that. On the stage that we thought they were performing on 3 ladies dressed as grandmas walked out and started performing. We thought they may just be an opening act but they kept going. It was pretty hillarious...after a while we realized they were pretty much an anti mormon type thing. Terrible. And then it was over. We took a look at our program for the night and realized we had been at the wrong stage... whoops!

It was a blast! We had such a fun night! We are planning on going every day!

Hello World!

You would think with me being unemployed that I would have blogged more. But I haven't blogged pretty much at all except for posting this AMAZING granola recipe yesterday! Maybe I'm sounding all Molly Mormon or whatever but its amazing so join the club you may think I'm in but not... hahaha.

Anywhoo... so I bet everyone is just dying to know what we have been up to because we have super crazy random dramatic (LOL) lives!

1. As of last week I (Lindsey) am no longer unemployed. We were driving along in the Mazda (prounounced Mahz-duh!) and heard a radio ad that says " do you have call center experience" why yes I do " have you worked in the travel industry" yes " do you know how to use the sabre system" this was the system that jetblue changed over to so...yes." Apply now to be a travel agent for teleperformance! " So just for the fun of it I did! 15 minutes after filling it out they called me and pretty much hired me over the phone but I still had to do the whole interview thing and all that jazz. Bad news I won't be graduating this semester because I had to drop some classes for the hours at the job. Good news... GREAT PAY! Well for me! Its the most I will have ever made. Fabulous! The project is permanent and its for expedia.com except the business travel portion of it. Should be fun! Their biggest thing they talk about is advancement so I'm crossing me fingers and going to work hard to advance quickly! I start next Monday working evenings.

2. My unemployment claim was denied. I appealed it. Denied again. Bunch of B.S. It's so political these days it drives me up a wall. So good thing I found a job cause they are not going to pay me a dime. Thanks people who denied my claim and jetblue.

3. Ben and I are looking into joining the ROTC. At first we were both commited hard core but I'm not so sure if its what I want to commit to for 12 years. Ben for sure wants to do it so we are getting him all ready! You have to pass in 3 areas to be granted a scholarship; leadership, academic, and physical. We took a practice physical a few weeks back and we're not going to talk about that. Lets just say it gaves us some idea of where we were at and what we need to do. What the ROTC would be is the ARMY would pay for our schooling we'd have to do special leadership training at the school as well. The ARMY would give us basically monthy paychecks, housing allowance and we would lose all of this if at anytime we worked a job for more than 20 hours a week. Sound Awesome yet? Then after we graduate with our Bachelors we would also be commisioned an officer in the ARMY! WOW HUH? Starting out at about $50,000 a year. So then all we have to give them in return is 4 years (after we graduate) active duty and then 4 years reserve. Ben and I both want to do the nursing program. We really worry about deployment and being split up though. Really scary. Before we decide to jump full head on to this thing we are going to take the ROTC classes at the U during the fall and then we can start in January 2011. A lot of commitment, a lot of discipline, new lifestyle so we'll see.

4. Our 1 year anniversary is this Sunday the 27th! So AWESOME! What a year right? WOW! It's been amazing though every last second of it! We don't really have time to celebrate though so we are going to major celebrate in September with our cruise to the Bahamas! We were talking in today about maybe buying an anniversary gift. Maybe a special hammock thing (believe me it's way cool) so we can sleep on our porch, or a rifle (LOL) Random I know.

5. We are both enrolled full time at school right now. Ben is kicking butt at 16 credit hours plus a 40 hour job and I am at 12 credit hours with a 40 hour job. We have 1 class together, communications. It is so much fun having a class together and we are so hard core students.

Well I think thats it for now but who knows!

Granola Heck yes!

Found this granola recipe ... LOVE IT! Ya know how granola is like a million bucks at the store well this is super cheap to make and super easy!!! I've made like a gazillion batches so far and it tastes AMAZING too! Much better than the million buck stuff from the store.

Heres the recipe!

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine the oats and brown sugar.

In a separate bowl, combine maple syrup, oil, and salt. Combine both mixtures and pour onto 2 sheet pans. Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes to achieve an even color.

Remove from oven and transfer into a large bowl. Mix lightly for a few minutes.

You can add dried fruit or raisins after you cook it. Or you can add apples, bananas or strawberries and mix with yogurt.

Super yummy! Try it out!

Blackberry Cheesecake Bars

Just know that pretty much each of these recipes are super easy and super yummy!

Saying that these cheesecake bars are amazing! However I thought they were pretty rich but I'm sure for everyone it's different. Something really nice about these bars is that the recipe actually says to use blueberries but I'm pretty sure you can us any kind of berries. For instance, I used blackberries!

Here's the recipe. Enjoy!

what you need!

6 Tbsp. butter, melted

2 cups HONEY MAID Graham Cracker Crumbs

2 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 jar (10 oz.) blueberry jam or preserves

1 cup blueberries

make it!

HEAT oven to 350ºF.

MIX butter and graham crumbs in 13x9-inch pan; press onto bottom of pan. Refrigerate until ready to use.

BEAT cream cheese in large bowl with mixer until creamy. Add sugar, eggs and vanilla; beat until well blended. Stir jam in jar until softened; spread evenly onto crust. Top with berries, then cream cheese mixture.

BAKE 30 min. or until slightly puffed. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Here's what they should like:

However, I was a bit behind and didn't get picture in until they had mostly been eaten... Mine did not turn out as stiff as they look in the picture either they were a bit more gooey. Not sure about that but they were definitely yummy!

AMUCK

If thats even how you spell it... definition: All over the place.

That's what our life is all over the place AND we LOVE it!

Isn't it amazing how things can happen so very quickly and the crazy chain of events that happen in life.

Let me try and break it down for you.

It's definitly going to be long but it's important that I get this information and what happened out in the open.

For quite awhile now Ben and I have been debating about me leaving Discover or not.

We finally decided that we felt we had stability and that I would be able to leave. My last day was Friday. They were offering a ton of overtime at jetBlue that I chose to take advantage of. Around the first part of February jetBlue changed over to a new booking system. It was craziness. We had been trained but no one was prepared for what the new system was going to do to the company. Because we work from home the only way to get to a supervisor or another department you had to go through the phone. After what the company called "cutover" (when we changed to they new system) the hold times for supervisors and the other departments was ridiculous. I'm talking 60-90 minutes that I had to tell the customer they had to wait and then I had to sit in the que during this time. As time passed the hold time went down but it still was pretty ridiculous. We had many customers complain but there wasn't much we could do about it. A lot of times the customers hung up while we were on hold and it was hard to recognize that they were no longer on the phone. Other times I would call the supervisor line conveniently called "Crew Support" without the customer on the phone because I needed further assistance with something or there was no need to keep the customer on the phone.

During this time frame the employees were receiving emails stating "we're all in this together, we're here for you, etc"

I'm on the phone with a customer last night and my specific supervisor comes through and asks why I'm putting the customer on hold. I explain myself and she tells me that she thinks there is no need to call Crew Support. She said she feels like I'm abusing the phone system and they've been seeing this with many crew members. She said that her and her manager needed to meet with me and that they wanted to meet the next day, today, to discuss the situation. She said that it was basically looking like a termination at this point.

****Please keep in mind this is the first contact I have ever had with my supervisor where she has brought these issues up, I've never had a warning, a coaching NOTHING!****

Also I'm in the middle of my shift and my supervisor is telling me I may be fired the next day but oh just keep working sleep well see you in the morning. REALLY???

Then...she calls me again *Still Working mind you*** and gives me the time they want to meet with me and says again that I will most likely be terminated but I have the option to resign.

????Anyone seeing anything crazy with this situation so far????

So I call my mom. She has worked there for 8 years. I tell her whats going on and she says she has no idea what I'm doing different than all the other employees at jetBlue. She calls her supervisor and they say to have me go in and just ask them for examples ask them to help me understand.

I was a mess. I was freaking out. I had just barely barely barely quit my other job so that I could focus on jetBlue. Ben came home and he was extremely positive and supportive about the situation. The biggest thing for me was the confrontation. I hate confrontation. I hate these types of situations HATE HATE HATE it. And don't you just love how they gave me all night to just beat myself up about it and ponder and think of the worst possible situation????

Thanks

I go in today. My supervisor says hello and that maybe she should have told me to bring all of my equipment in to turn in....WOW!

I go into the room with her and her manager. Her manager explains to me that in order to keep integrity and consistency for them that they are unable to let me try to fix the situation. They can't draw the line between who gets let go and who doesn't. They have to be "fair". They tell me theres nothing I can say or do that will keep them from carrying out termination of my employment with the company.

The End

I don't like drama I don't like to dwell on these types of situations. However, I did warn my fellow crewmembers of the situation and many if not all of them said that they don't understand what I was doing different from them and some even said they were called in to meet with their supervisors tomorrow.

It's an awful situation and we are all very dissapointed in the company we thought jetBlue was.

Isn't it randomly crazy how things happen.

When one door closes another one opens.

When life gives you lemons make lemonade.

I applied for unemployment TODAY and was approved TODAY I will begin recieving benefits next week.

Ben and I have also decided that I am going to go to school full time starting on Monday and finish my Associates Degree.

And we'll go from there.

Like I said ... Our life is AMUCK and we absolutely love every second of it!

Job Update

I quit Discover! YAY! So happy! Ben and I both think it was a great decision. I'm just doing jetBlue now and I love it! Working from home is amazing! I really don't mind not having co-workers all around me...it's Fabulous! I'm only scheduled only 24 hours a week but can pick up to around 90 I believe...
Ben is at Convergys and he is also working for the Census. He goes around and asks people the Census questions and turns it in for the people who didn't turn theres in.
Funny thing: Ben and I didn't do our Census form! OOPS!
Anywhoo...schools over for this semester...have some plans...more on that to come later!