AWV Rockets! Back to Back State Qualifiers!

I know this post is a little late, but I've been seeing a lot about the Nebraska High School Boys State Basketball Tournament and it got me thinking about the Iowa Girls State Basketball Tournament, and so I wanted to write a little about it and how proud I am to be a Rocket fan!

On Monday, February 20, the Ar-We-Va Rockets played in the Regional Finals and won their game to qualify for the State tournament for the 2nd year in a row. I am so proud of them for the way they played and despite being down 9 points at the beginning of the 4th quarter, they fought back to win by 5 points. It was so  exciting!! I certainly did a lot of jumping up and down during that game! We were off to The Well again!

Our family!! (minus the husbands)
So proud of our dad/husband, the Coach, and the team!!

The team! ON TO STATE!

Kellsey and I with Danielle

Kellsey and I.
NUMBER 1!!!

A week after winning their Regional Final game, they went on to play at the State Tournament in Des Moines.  It was such a great feeling to be back at Wells Fargo Arena watching them play again. It was so fun to be there for the second year to see the excitement in all the girls' faces and see how happy it made my dad, the other coaches and all of the Rocket fans. The girls played very hard and the game was right within their reach, but the ended up losing in a heartbreaking 1-point game. I think that everyone felt very sad and even shocked about the loss, and I know we all would have liked to make two more trips to Des Moines that week but that doesn't take away one ounce of how proud we are of the whole team. And you can bet that isn't the last they've seen of the Ar-We-Va Rockets at the State Tournament in the coming years! :)

Click here to read about what I wrote after last years State Tournament when the Rockettes took home the 2nd place trophy and to read about how much I love my dad and how proud he makes me. 

(It comes from my old blog)

You can also check out the video I made last year here.

Girls' Weekend 2012

So, this is LONG overdue...

A few weekends ago, we celebrated the 5th Annual Jons Family Girls' Weekend! It is when my mom, two aunts, cousins, and sister all get together and get our nails done, go out to eat, do a little shopping, and stay over night in a hotel and just spend time together. It is always so much fun and something that I look forward to each year.

On Saturday, we all met up at the mall. Some of us got there a little early and had lunch or did a little shopping, but we all met up at 1:00 at the nail salon for manicures and pedicures. To commemorate it being our 5th year of having this get-together, we all got matching shirts.

Pedicures! All in our matching shirts :)
The guy taking the picture cut me out of the
picture, but that's my knee on the right :)

After we were all done, we did a little shopping. I wasn't intending on buying anything, but I saw some really cute stuff and couldn't resist. So I bought a new pair of shoes, a shirt for work, and a new purse [which was much needed!! =)]

Then, we all made our way to the hotel to check in and get settled for the evening. The hotel we were staying at has a manager's reception each evening, so we all gathered together for a few drinks and some snacks before heading to supper. For supper we went to a pizza place that I thought was pretty good. (but I love pretty much all pizza, so I'm probably not one to judge!)

After supper, we went back to the hotel and all took part in a new little thing for this year. Each of us was tasked to bring something that was between 1 and 2 dollars that was something that reminded everyone of you or the weekend or something of the sort. We each took turns putting our things in a bag for all of the others and then when we were all done, we pulled out one item at a time and had to guess who had brought that item. There was some really creative and cute things. My mom brought us all a little turtle from her personal collection at home, which I thought was a great idea and loved very much; Aunt Doreen brought a little angel for us all; Aunt Barb brought a Sudoku book for each of us; Stephanie brought a bunch of little things to remind us of her and her family, including a picture of 9 month old Austin and it was all wrapped in a diaper; and I brought a magnetic picture frame for the fridge and I wrote "Family" on them and embellished some of them. (There were other gifts, but you get the picture)

After that, we all made our way down to the swimming pool for a while. We didn't last very long down there because the pool was swamped with little kids and high school boys who were in town for the state wrestling tournament. Not exactly our kind of crowd :)

Back up in our rooms, we played Catch Phrase for a while and laughed and had a lot of fun before heading to bed. We can all get pretty silly and it's so much fun to be able to just catch up and hang out all together. I love  our girls' weekend.

I had to take of pretty early the next morning to head to my niece's 5th birthday party, but had a lot of fun and can't wait until next year!!

Good News, Bad News

Yesterday started out to be an awesome day with some great news...

I got to work and was working away at my computer when Trent popped up on my Google Chat and said "Want to have some champagne tonight?" and with that I was instantly smiling ear to ear because I knew exactly what that meant. Since late November/early December, there has been a job change in the works for Trent. It is a promotion that will result in his department hiring two new employees who he will supervise. I'm super happy for him. I'm sad to say, though, that we didn't really didn't properly get to enjoy his good news for very long because of my own selfishness and being all wrapped up in my own bad feelings... I didn't realize that I had acted like that until this morning, so that makes me feel even worse about being so selfish...

And the bad news...

Yesterday also happened to be the day that my second CPA test scores were released. I was very nervous to find out what my score was, but I really was deep down kind of confident in what it would be. But when I went to check my score the score I saw was not what it needed to be. Thus, I will be retaking the test.

It really was a big let down and the thought of having to sit through that 4 hour test again just makes me want to cry (okay, so maybe I already did cry). It also is embarrassing to share that news with everyone because this wasn't supposed to happen to me. Although it does make me feel a little better that the overall passing rate for that test in 2011 was less than 45%. But, like I said, I wasn't supposed to be a part of the 55% that didn't pass. Ugh...

So my plans of being done with all this nonsense by May is pretty much shot. I am revamping my schedule to fit in this retake and pray that this is the only one that I have to redo. Instead of taking the test that I had started studying for on April 2, I am going to retake my Audit test then. And then I'll take BEC in May and take my hopefully last test in July because you can't take any of the tests in June. (That makes me so sad to say I won't be done until at least July.)

I have no one to blame buy myself for not passing and I guess I just have to cram that stuff into my head even more and get to know the information even better so I can definitely pass next time. I know I'm not the first one to have not passed one of these tests and will by no means be the last. But that doesn't really make me feel any better! =) Oh well, I guess...

I thought it was appropriate that this quote came up on my Twitter yesterday...

So, with that... Here we go again!

Valentine's Week 2012

Happy Monday from the couch in my living room. Yay for not having to work today!

As I mentioned in my last post, last weekend I took a trip to Kansas City with three of my friends to visit another one of our best friends. It was a great little trip. We helped Kaela move the last of her stuff and unpack in her new apartment, helped her search for her "lost" cat that wasn't really lost, and spent the evening just hanging out together. It was so fun and I can't wait to do it again.

Then, when we got back on Sunday, it was off to look for bridesmaid dresses for my best friend Lauren's wedding. We all met at Cheesecake Factory first (yum!) and then headed to David's Bridal. They were, of course, very busy on a Sunday afternoon, but we picked out some dresses that fit what Lauren was looking for and tried them on. We ended up finding a dress that I thought was beautiful. I really think we all liked it and we were ready to buy it and get out of there. THEN the sales lady went to put it in the computer and came back to tell us that the style was discontinued and they couldn't order it in the sizes and colors that we needed. Talk about a let down! I was a little aggravated with that. I know I've never worked at DB but you would think that the sales lady's would be told that they are supposed to know the dresses that they are selling and could at least know that there was something special going on with that dress and check it out before we all loved it and decided that we were going to get it. But oh well... it happens I guess. So we left there without a dress and will try again another day!!

Then, Monday came, and it was a new work week. I was surprised at work on Monday afternoon with a delivery of flowers from my wonderful husband. I have to admit that I did know flowers were coming because I had already seen the charge from the flower place on our online bank account that morning, but it was a surprise that they arrived on Monday instead of Tuesday, which was Valentine's Day. (and I was surprised that I was getting them at all because Trent doesn't do flowers! Aren't I lucky!?!) They are absolutely beautiful flowers and they are still filling our apartment with a wonderful smell and have been beautiful each day since I got them.

My beautiful flowers from Trent. The left picture is from Tuesday when I
had them at work and the right picture is from Sunday morning at home.
Still beautiful and still gradually opening!

On Valentine's Day I had the pleasure of making supper for Trent. I made Chicken Parmesan for the first time and it turned out alright. I think that the only problem with it was that my chicken was too thick. But it was definitely edible and I would make it again! After supper we spent a little time playing Farkle, a dice game, and listening to the Ar-We-Va girls' basketball game that was being broadcast over the internet.

The AWV Rockets team won their game that night and went on to play in the Regional Semi Finals on Friday night.Trent and I got to go to that game, and I was so happy to be there to see them play so well. They won again and will play in the Regional Finals tonight! I get to go to that game too!! If they win tonight, they will be on to the State Tournament for the second year in a row! I am totally excited for my dad (the coach) and the entire team! They have been playing so well and I know they can win (not to jinx anything though!).

I also had a great weekend this past weekend with the girls in my family on Saturday and celebrating our niece's 5th birthday on Sunday. But this post is already long enough, so I'll have to write about that later. =)

For the rest of my day off, I plan to try to get a lot of studying in... I haven't been doing so well in that department since I took my last test. I'm never going to be ready at the rate I'm going!!

I hope you're all having a great Monday whether you're at work or not!

This weekend is going to be LEGEN... wait for it...

DARY!! Legendary!

Not only did this weekend start off with me getting out of work 2 hours early and me taking a 2 hour nap AND my wonderful husband taking me out to eat at my FAVORITE place, Old Chicago, but I get to spend the rest of the weekend with some of my best friends!

Kaela, Bay, Lauren and I at an MDT get-together.

Tomorrow morning, three of my favorite girls and I are all getting in a car and driving down to Kansas City to spend the evening with our other friend, Kaela. We're just gonna go out to eat and hang out and just have a wonderful time together. There is never a shortage of fun and awesomeness when we all get together. I am very much looking forward to it.

Dance competition in Daytona Beach

And THEN, when we get back to town on Sunday, we are going bridesmaid dress shopping for Lauren's upcoming wedding. I can't wait to have all her wedding plans start coming together. It is going to be a beautiful day and I'm so happy for her! And I'm excited to try on some dresses, too =)

I just had to add this picture cuz it makes me laugh.
Some of my favorite people just doing what we do best!
Good times!

So much fun going on this weekend! I'm sure it will go by very quickly though! 

I hope you all have a great weekend, too!!

CPA Exam #2

This morning, I had the pleasure to take my second CPA Exam test. This test was the Auditing and Attestation one. It was a little bit of a different experience than my first test. I'm not sure if it was just because I had gone through the process before and so I knew a little bit of what to expect or because I felt better about the material I was going to be tested over. 

From when I started studying for this test in December, I immediately found the information for this test easier than the information in the Financial Accounting and Reporting test that I took in November. This was just based on the fact that I was instantly scoring higher on the practice tests right off the bat with the Auditing information than I really ever consistently did with the FAR info...

But as time went on, and I got a few days away from the tests, my confidence was dwindling. I just felt like there was so much information that I hadn't jammed into my permanent memory yet and that could very easily be jumbled up in my mind with one tricky multiple choice question. So in the few days before the test, I tried to jam as much information into my long term memory as I could.

This morning, I got up and went over a few of my notes and then did a few more practice questions before I had to get ready and out the door. I was supposed to be at my test by 7:30, but since I had arrived at my first test at 7:15 and was the first one there, I decided that I liked that, so I wanted to do the same thing this time. But silly me, I turned the "wrong way" out of the parking garage and went the way as if I was going to work out of habit instead of going the way that would have been quicker, in my opinion. So it took me a little longer to get there than I had expected because I had to go through more stop lights and was on a much busier street. I got there at 7:20 or so and was the third person there, so I had to wait for the two people in front of me to check in and get the full 'airport security' procedures done, which only made me even more nervous. 

I finally got in to the testing room and into my seat and I had 4 hours to complete the 90 multiple choice questions and 7 task based simulations (long hand, non-multiple choice questions). Going in, I had set a goal to get the 90 multiple choice questions done in 1 hour and 58 minutes so I would have a full 2 hours do to the last 7 questions. I met that goal and had approximately 2 hours and 11 minutes to do the last 7 simulations. I wasn't feeling so great about the multiple choice questions. There were a few that I knew that I got right but the amount of them that I wasn't so sure about was a little to high for my liking. After going through the simulations, though, I felt a little better just because I had so much time to finish them, I had time to go through the provided accounting literature to read up on the questions and be certain that I was getting the right answers. I even finished with 29 minutes left to spare!

So, all in all, I am feeling just OK about how the test went. It really could go either way, and I don't want to be too confident about passing just for the fear that I would not actually pass and then it would be an even bigger punch in the face. It is totally a real fear inside of me, that I didn't pass. That would be horrible and embarrassing and I wouldn't want anyone to know! (Not that I really could hide it) The scores are released in about 2 weeks, and that will be another nerve-wracking day. I dream of passing this exam so I can say I'm 50% of the way there and there will only be 2 more to go! (BLAH!!)

Only 53 days until test #3!

Here are some fun shirts that I just happened to come across on the internet. Some of them might not be funny if you're not super cool like us accountants though =) I hope you find as much enjoyment in them as I did.

Hopefully someday soon, I can say that!

Can you sense the sarcasm?

I told Trent that I'm going to get him this shirt :)

I am DEFINITELY getting this for our future child!!

Happy February! {Pinterest goodness}

As today is the first day of February... and the month of the L.O.V.E. and Valentine's Day I thought I'd share a few of the good Love and Valentine's Day themed things from my Pinterest boards.

I have never really been a big celebrator of Valentine's Day for some reason. I've always recognized it, but haven't been super into it. I think I might like to be. But I guess I don't know... We'll see what this year brings
=)

This year, I get to spend my first Valentine's Day with my husband! I don't think we'll do much, maybe go out to eat or something like that, but that's great for me!

Here are a few of the Valentine's Day/Love/Mushy Gushy stuff I've pinned in the past few weeks on Pinterest. I could definitely see some of these things: printables, pillows, sayings, etc. show up in my home in the future... Enjoy!

You can find the following pins on either my Holidays! board or my L.O.V.E. board.

Feel free to check them out!



Haha!