September Update

In Arizona, we have something called Monsoon season during which Arizona's typical westerly winds shift to a southeasterly wind, which brings moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and California. What this means is that during blisteringly hot summers, we get rainstorms which cool things down and offer a temporary respite from the heat. Not only that, but the lightning storms are breathtaking and majestic (I usually don't use the word majestic because it's kind of cheesy). The only caveat is that rain can come down extremely fast in a short period of time, so flooding is something to watch out for.

 One stormy evening we were eating BLT's (because BLT's are delicious) when the suddenly all our electronic gadgets lost power! Uh oh! I guess we'll just go outside and watch the lightning storm. We eventually got some candles and played a short game called Hive which is neither a board or a card game. (then what is it?)

We couldn't really see very well even with the candles so we decided to go to bed early cause it was about that time. Our living room is a little cooler than the bedroom so Emily slept on the couch and I slept on the floor. No, don't feel sorry for me, I prefer sleeping on the floor. Shut up, I really do! (who is he arguing with?)

No power equals no air conditioning, and it was about 80 degrees, so I didn't get a whole lot of sleep until the power came on in the middle of the night. That's how people lived before Air Conditioning so I like to think I would get used to it if I had to. I hate to think that I've turned into some modern day wimp who complains to no end when I'm not in some perfectly climate controlled environment (Is he calling me a wimp?).

We had Bishop Causee from the Presiding Bishopric with us for our stake conference.  We had one of the best, most spiritual stake conference sessions that I can remember. Of course it helps that saturday night sessions are void of crying babies and rambunctious children. I hate kids (I can't tell if he's serious)

Bishop Causee was a familiar face to us because while we were in Rexburg he and D. Todd Christopherson came for a visit, and that was a meeting that I still remember very well even though it was a few years ago.

Speaking of churchy things we had a double baptism this month and I was fortunate enough to be involved in the teaching of both people. Yep, I'm still hanging out with the missionaries as much as I can, and I love it. I still feel like I'm getting my fill after being starved for so long from living in Rexburg, Idaho and Utah. (hey, I'm from Utah) It hit me that I really need to start having Emily come along too when....well, when she said that she wants to come too. I've had some incredible experiences with the missionaries.

My team-leader-kind-of-person/software-architecture-consultant guy, whose name happens to be Jose and who has a New Yawk accent, took us to a mediterranean restaurant because we awesomely finished some projects. I've never had that kind of food but it was scrumptious. I love trying new crap. I also got a bonus soooo that will pay for our holiday plane tickets.

Emily quit her job.

In other news...nah just kidding. So here's the deal. First of all when l say "quit her job", she's actually going to finish out the year so she hasn't technically "quit" yet. Technicalities.

Emily has been unhappy with her job for a while and I've been very unhappy with her job for even longer. I've been suggesting that she quit her job for a while but one day I was telling her that I really like my job because I solve brain teasers all day and I DON'T HAVE TO TALK TO ANYONE. She said "that sounds amazing", and thus began the journey of a new education. I pointed her to a lot of (mostly online) resources that I've personally used and I offered to answer questions. She's been on fire! Trust me, once the learning bug gets a hold of you, you're like a heroin addict minus the destroying your life part.

Her first big project was a complete redesign of my blog which was a lot of work. It's ready to go once I've added all the necessary backend programming.

Our buddy we met in our previous ward texted us randomly one friday and asked if he could come play games that evening and we're like duuhhh, of course. So we made oreo milkshakes and got smacked around in one of our favorite games, Dead of Winter. Even though there was no traitor the game beat us pretty bad but it was still lots of fun.

We went to a meet up for board games (Meetup.com baby)  that's brand new. We were the only showed up because again, it's brand new. We got to play some really fun games and we learned that they're really cool people and we had lots of fun with them. Brent is a software engineer and architect and we talked about technology and software and proved that yep, we're still nerdy! They have similar ideas about money and entrepreneurialism. We're going to try and get together for a Halloween Party including a nice game of Arkham Horror.


We got together with some friends and played a game called Imperial Assault which is a game of story-driven missions and tactical combat set in the Star Wars universe!

I played Memoir '44, a simple war game which takes historical World War II battles and provides a simulation where the players take the roles of the opposing sides. In this scenario, we were playing the battle of Sword Beach, which didn't go as smoothly as the Allies were hoping. It was a really fun game and I very much enjoyed the educational flair.

My (Allies aka green guys) attempt to take control of the bridge

September 2015 is gone and we'll never see it again. You were pretty good to us September but now it's time to check out some October. No hard feelings.