Summer plans

Last week, James was offered and accepted an internship for the summer with the Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Duke. He will be assisting accredited lawyers as they investigate claims of innocence from convicted felons, and pursue the freedom of those they believe were wrongfully convicted. James is very excited about the work he'll be doing!

*I* am also very excited about this internship. I am happy that James is interested in the work he'll be doing. I'm also thrilled that it's local--James has been applying for a number of internships, and not all of them would have been as ideal for our family. For instance, another offer that he received was from a public defender about two and a half hours from Durham. While he would have enjoyed the work, the location would definitely have made things challenging! Plus, the internship at Duke is paid, which is a big plus for a first-summer internship!

James starts work on the 24th of May. That gives us a few weeks after his finals, and we're planning a trip out to Utah. We'll be driving, and we're taking a circuitous route to visit family in Louisiana and Texas, which will be really nice. 

We'll get to Utah the second week of May. James gets to stay for about a week and a half, and then he's going to fly back to NC. But I'm in need of a good long visit, so I'm going to stay in Utah for another couple of weeks with the kids before heading back. James is going to take Shadow with him on the plane. I'm nervous enough about driving by myself from Utah to North Carolina with two small children, let alone a dog!

Then we'll have the rest of the summer to spend with our friends here in Durham. We're also hoping to take a little camping trip to the Smokies, which we passed through on our move out here last summer. The mountain forests were so beautiful, we've been determined to visit ever since. We'll probably just take a little weekend trip sometime in June. 

It promises to be a great summer!

Bring on 2016

We are a little late this year with our traditional New Year's poster. What with our trip to Utah and then getting settled back in afterward, we waited until tonight's FHE to assemble our goals for the year.

Each year, James and I set individual goals, and we set goals for our family. We require our goals to be quantifiable--they have to be things that we can check off. We also try to create a mixture of mental, physical, and spiritual goals.

First, let's review the past year. Unfortunately, I threw out our 2015 poster before remembering to photograph it with the accomplishments checked off. But here's the photo from the beginning of our year:

We were about halfsies on our goals this year. James started law school, earned his 3rd Dan, and read 6 out of his intended 10 new books. As a family, we moved to Durham and went on a family camping trip. James and I went on a date every week, and met our temple attendance goal. As for me, I earned my 4th Dan, read 5 new books (+started a sixth) and learned to make sushi (simple rolls, at least). Plus had a baby!!

This year, I feel like our goals (mine, at least) are a bit more modest, and at the same time, a bit more realistic. I present our 2016 poster:

For James:

• Obtain a 1L job (aka legal internship this summer)
• Obtain a 2L job (for next summer)
• Read 10 new books
• Change oil in car
• Read the Book of Mormon
• Join a legal journal

For Valerie:

• Referee at the NC State Championships
• Read 5 new books
• Create a photography portfolio, utilizing monthly blog posts
• Read the Book of Mormon
• Teach Joel the alphabet
• Win NaNoWriMo (aka write 50,000 words)

For our family:

• Family camping trip
• Washington D.C. trip 
• Donate 4 handmade blankets to a charity
• Take Joel & Xander to the zoo
• Go on a date every week
•  Attend the temple at least thrice

It promises to be an interesting year! Candidly, the main focus of my life right now is my children. Mothering is a full-time job for me, so anything else I get done on the side is a major accomplishment. Still, I look forward to 2016. I can't wait to see what it offers us.

Out with the Old, In with the New!

Another year has come and gone. This weekend, James and I will be celebrating our second anniversary! The time has flown by, it seems. In keeping with our tradition, we mark the New Year with a poster outlining our goals for the coming annum. But first, let us review our accomplishments from 2014:

Apologies for the shadow, this poster lives on the wall next to a bookcase

Our family goals we met 100%. We had a baby--go us! :) We went on a family camping trip (a couple, actually). We started preparations for our Black Belt Testing, which is coming up at the end of January. We took Joel to the zoo. We planted a fruit tree, an apricot which shot up like crazy over the summer. We went on a date every week this year. We visited the temple at least once a month, including a trip up to Brigham City.

Our individual goals were a little more hit-and-miss. James has indeed graduated from BYU (we're still waiting to hear on a few grades, but he's on track for magna cum laude). He has just completed his goal of reading 10 new books this year. Weight loss goals for the both of us didn't quite happen, unfortunately. He didn't learn to do a popup, though it's something he's still working on, and Joel has not yet learned any ASL. However, James met his goal of getting at least a 168 on the LSAT by scoring a 171!

I did referee at Nationals, and earned my B2 referee certification. I have not yet completed The Seventh Guardian (sequel to The Tale of Telsharu and The Scourge of Narak) but it is in progress, at least. Pre-baby weight is close, I'm hoping within the month. I did compete at the Utah Summer Games. I am nowhere close to learning how to do a back walkover, although I did learn how to do a headstand! :)

Which brings us to our goals for 2015:

For James:

• Go to Law School
• Earn 3rd Dan
• Successfully change oil in my car
• Read 10 more new books
• Prepare for and run a Ragnar

For Valerie:

• 4th Degree Black Belt
• Write The Seventh Guardian
• Compete at the State Taekwondo Championships
• Read 10 new books [I liked James's goal, so I copied it for myself]
• Learn to make sushi 

For both of us:

• Move to ___________ [We'll fill in the blank once we know where we're going for law school]
• Go skiing/snowboarding
• Family camping trip
• Teach Shadow to sit
• Go on 1 date per week
• Visit the temple monthly prior to the move, and at least once during the fall semester

We are excited about the coming year. While there promise to be some pretty major alterations to our lives, we look forward to the adventures and challenges ahead. In the meantime, we look forward to enjoying life with our little family!

Future: Pending

James is scheduled to take the LSAT for the second time at the end of this month. He took the test for the first time in June. We had high hopes for his score, and were very surprised at the score he received, which was several points lower that he'd been anticipating. Much to his chagrin, James learned later that he had missed 2 full pages of questions. He thought he had been at the end of the section, and simply didn't turn the page. If he had answered those questions correctly, his score would have been significantly higher.

At that point, James seriously considered just taking the score he got. We had been looking at BYU's law school as our main option, and the score he got on the first LSAT definitely would have sufficed for applying to BYU. Plus, preparing to take an LSAT is a lot of work! But I pressured him to take the test again. If he could get a higher score, I felt that he should do so. It would open a lot more doors, and hopefully increase our chances at scholarship money.

Somewhat reluctantly, James agreed to take the test again, at the end of September. To prepare, he has been taking practice tests twice a week. And he has been scoring well--remarkably well. The scores that he's been getting on the practice tests would basically mean that James could get into any law school in the country. After getting a handful of these high scores (all of them higher than what we'd even hoped he would get the first time around), James started seriously considering the possibility of going to a Top 14 school instead of staying at BYU.

We've spent the summer daydreaming about law school. We spent a family home evening comparing the pros and cons of different schools, to narrow down which ones James will apply to. (We compared everything we could think of: tuition, program ranking, likelihood of scholarships, cost of living, crime rates, distance from a temple, and more...)

It all hinges on this LSAT. At this level, the difference in a single point influences James's likelihood of acceptance and how much scholarship money he can get. And with tuition upward of $50,000 a year at the Top 14 law schools, the amount of scholarship money he gets will make a huge difference for us.

Of course, James will still be applying to BYU. But it's definitely become the 'back up' school, and not the top choice like it once was. My James is ambitious (a trait that I value highly!) and with the possibility before him of attending a top-tier school, attending BYU seems like settling for less than his potential.

The idea of moving across the country is both terrifying and electrifying. On the one hand, it seems like a grand adventure! So many new experiences to have, new people to meet, new things to see and do. But on the other hand, I am heartbroken at the thought of leaving my family, our friends, our beautiful home, and our taekwondo school that is such an intrinsic part of our lives. I am worried about moving somewhere with no built-in support system, like I have here. That part of me wishes that we could stay here! But then I ask, is that in the best interest of my husband and our family? So many questions that have no immediate answer.

So for the next few months, our future is pending. First we have to get James's next LSAT score. Then get through applications, which is an adventure and a half. And then...the wait. That will be the worst part, I think! Waiting for acceptances, and then trying to navigate getting scholarship money--we hope! And then I suspect it will all come down to fervent prayer as we seek the Lord's guidance on where He would have us go. And so, for now, we prepare and we wait.