Life Is Good

We must admit it -- life is pretty good right now. For those of you who don't already know, Ben has decided to forgo the PhD for now (and just finish up the masters), and I have decided to transfer to the Austin office for work. Therefore, we're (suddenly) in the process of closing one chapter in our lives and beginning a new one. Here's a brief summary of what's going on at this very moment...

I have finally finished my thesis and graduated with my Master of Science in Civil Engineering a couple of weekends ago. As you can see from my smile below, I am very happy to be done. No more school/classes/thesis -- EVER!!!
For the past 4 1/2 months, I have been working for Jacobs Engineering in the College Station office. However, because work is pretty slow in College Station and fairly busy in Austin, my last day of work in the College Station office was this past Thursday, and I start in the Austin office on Tuesday. I am pretty excited about working with all of the people that I worked with as a summer intern a few years ago but am really sad that Ben won't be able to join me in Austin until August.

Ben just recently finished up his first official semester of grad school with a 4.0 (wahoo!) and is in the process of preparing for summer school. He will be taking 3 classes this summer -- statistics, accounting, and educational human resource development (whatever that is). He will also be teaching "Materials & Methods I" (a freshman-level construction science class) during the first half of summer, and although he is a little nervous, he is very much looking forward to teaching a class that he once took as an undergrad. Unfortunately, we do not have a good picture of Ben hard at work as a student/lecturer, but we do have a pretty good picture of him hard at play.
He looks pretty cute on that John Deere tractor/tricycle -- don't you think???

As for Annie, she's just as cute as ever. She spends her days watching the birds eat from the bird feeder and sleeping in front of the patio door. She loves greeting us at the door when we get home and spends most of the evening playing ball, sleeping in our bed, and perfecting her tricks -- sit, lay, touch, high-five, and shake.
We hope you enjoyed this small glimpse into our lives. Although change is a very scary thing, we are all very excited about what lies ahead and will keep you posted. Oh, and on a side note, today is my parents' 28th wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary Mommy & Daddy!