It's official

My background check went through with flying colors... so I am now set to start my new job at Wells Fargo on October 19th! Dave and I were also approved for our new apartment! We sign the lease on Saturday and move in October 1st..... So lots of changes in the next few weeks.... Plus, Dave is working on school everyday.... It will be great to finally be in our own place and get settled :) New city, new job, new apartment, new school for Dave, new ward.... new new new! Should be fun to start a new adventure! It will be great to carpool everyday to work together. We were thinking about getting a new car, but for the time being, we don't need a second car (which is great! Less expenses!)

Home Sweet Home!

Well, Dave and I went on an adventure on Saturday to look for apartments. I got a job offer from Wells Fargo working in the collection department, helping people restructure their spending habits and payment plans. So basically, just helping people to be wiser with their money! I am really excited about it. Just waiting for all the paperwork to go through and to receive the final offer..... which I should hear by the end of the week! It's at the same Wells Fargo campus that Dave works at right now, so we decided that it is time to move closer to work and out of my parents (woohoo! Not that we don't love them, but we are just excited to finally get a place of our own)

So I researched some of the towns in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. I wanted to be closer to our work, a Gold's Gym, closer to the temple, and relatively close to a chapel. The city of Little Canada stuck out and I made a few appointments to tour apartment complexes on Saturday. We liked the first one we visited, however it was the second one we were sold on. It's called Cedars Lakeside. We looked at 4 different layouts of apartments and we ended up liking one of their studio apartments. It's around 600 sq feet (PLENTY big for us), has an island in the kitchen, a walk-in closet, it is brand new (they converted a large community room into this apartment) so new appliances, carpet, tile, EVERYTHING!! It has central heat and air, all utilities except for cable and internet are included (BIG plus in our opinion), and we have underground heated parking for our car for those cold Minnesota winters! It has a brand new community room (we might host Thanksgiving there for our family in November), brand new work out room (if we decide we want to stay close and not go to Gold's that day), and an outdoor pool for use in the summer. All in all, it's a great deal, and something we just didn't want to pass up. We sign the lease later this week and move in October 1st!!! Once we get in and get settled I'll take some pictures and show you what it looks like!

Giving the Blog a new look

Just a quick note about the new look. I decided I was tired of the old look and revamped our blog! And even though it is pink.... Dave said he likes it! (I think pink is his secret favorite color... He denies it.... But I know the truth!) Hehehehehe! Anyway, enjoy! Lots of new changes in the works for Dave and I, so I'm sure I'll have lots of fun stuff to post in the next little while!

Family.... Isn't it about... time?

Well lately while Dave has been doing his homework, I have gotten on a kick of doing Family History research and indexing. Every week we've been taking names that I've found to do their work for them. However, it seems now that I find more names than I can take to the temple!! So much work to be done!! I love it though. It's my new (righteous) addiction :) I've found names on my mom's side and also on Dave's mother's side. It's really great that I've finally caught the family history bug :) I've learned a lot about our families histories. There are some great stories on both sides. I even found out that some of my mother's ancestors came from Denmark... I had no idea (and neither did she) that I was a tiny part Danish!

I have also been doing some indexing. The Church has asked us to start digitizing records. They have some pretty lofty goals and I thought I could help out. Our ward alone wants the members to index 50,000 names by the end of the year! My personal goal is 1,000. I'm a 1/4 the way there. Right now I've been indexing the 1920 Wisconsin Census data. I always hope that I might run into my ancestors on there (my Dad's whole side was in Wisconsin at that time) I hope they put out some romanian records someday that I could help digitze. They have lots of other languages (Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, etc.) but I'm not brave enough to do those yet!!

I am just so grateful I found a new hobby and that I won't be a distraction for Dave so he can do his homework :) My testimony of family history work and temple work has been strengthened a great deal in the past few weeks, and being able to go with Dave to the temple every week has really strengthened our relationship. Just great things all around!! If you have some time, I'd encourage you to try it! Let me know if you want any help getting started (I've already taught my mom and my sister!)

Imaginiff Victory for the Pachecos!

So for Family Home Evening this week, we played this new game called Imaginiff. It was really quite fun. It's a game that basically has you imagine that the people you were playing against were certain things, which would they be. Example: "Imaginiff Dave were a color.... What color would he be? 1.Teal 2.Pink 3.Brown 4.Yellow 5.White 6.Burgundy  And the object is to guess the same thing everyone else guesses. Everyone shows their guess and the majority wins. Guess right and you get a point. Well... there is this part where you can challenge someone.... If you challenge them and both of you pick the same answer, you go up two spaces.... If you pick different answers, you go back four. So right as I was about to get to the end, it was Dave's turn and he challenged me!! So the question was suppose to be about me. The question was: Imaginiff Jess was an animal noise.... Which would she be? Lucky for us, the animal noise I ALWAYS make (a meow) was the first choice!! We didn't even have to read the other answers.... two points for the both of us and I reached the finish line! My Dad thought it was rigged....And I thought it was awesome! David got a big kiss after that win :)

Always Better Together

Dave and I have decided to make this OUR blog instead of just my blog, so we can keep family and friends updated about our life here in Minnesota (or wherever else we end up!)

Last weekend we went to the great Minnesota get-together! Unfortunately my camera died at the fair... so I can't post any pictures of us because I could not take any :( Oh well!! The Minnesota state fair is one of the biggest state fairs in the country... and boy was that proven this year. It was a record-breaking year for the fair and over 1.8 million Minnesotans participated in the yearly ritual that is the Minnesota State Fair! We saw lots of animals, including cows, pigs, sheep, horses, and dogs. We had some good food. Dave tried the infamous "Deep Fried Twinkie" (ewww!) but he said it was good! We only we on one ride... it's called the SkyGlider. It's these bucket seats that hover over the entire fairgrounds so you can get an aerial view of everything. Dave loved it, however I am slightly afraid of heights. Dave convinced me to go and I thought I would enjoy it.... no such luck.... dangling my feet into open air 20 to 50 feet off the ground is not exactly my idea of fun. Let's just say I was a little wobbly afterwards!! hehehe