The {GRADUATING} Sandbergs.

Would you ever believe that Jaren made it through college?  He graduates this Saturday, May 5 with a Bachelor's degree in Political Science.  He is a smart kid.  He has been accepted to Gonzaga University School of Law and we will be moving to Spokane in August.

I finished my first year of nursing school and will be able to take my LPN test in May.  I will probably be done with school for a while unless I can find a program willing to let me in up in Spokane.  We are both excited to move, but sad to be leaving behind all of our family!!

Other News of Note:
I planned a party! My best friend is getting married in June and I threw her a bridal shower bash!  There were TONS of people that came and we all had a blast. Here is the spread and the guest of honor!

Well, in case you haven't heard....

We're home from Washington DC!

Yeah, I really haven't posted anything substantial since the end of April. I started a few posts... but they went something like this,

Oh sweet summer,

we really thought you would never come,
and that would be a bummer.

But here you are with sun and all,

our pasty winter skin will be burned

as we camp and boat and play softball.

Even though you took a while to join us here this year,

we have already traversed up a treacherous mountain

taking brats, cup of noodles and our gear.

We have discovered the true volleyball master,

made a trip to the on call, after hour opthamologist.....

But then I thought that was not that cool. So I thought I would share a story about when I accidently cleaned my mom's bathroom with Shout Laundry Pre-Soak instead of 409 but got bored typing the story.


So, I think it is about time for an update.

We made it home from Washington DC in 2 days. We took turns driving in 5 hour (ish) shifts. We are both SO glad to be home. We missed all of our friends and family.

Here is a quick list of what we have been up to since we got home. (In no specific order).
1. Work
2. Marin's dance recital
3. Getting snowed out of our Memorial Day camping trip
4. Sand Volleyball
5. Boating
6. Bombing up Green Canyon Mountain
7. Dinners with our family
8. Andrew's baby blessing
9. Painting my moms house
10. My cousin's wedding
11. Softball (work & ward)
12. New Callings!
13. A Sunday Boxing match.
14. Puddle Jumping
15. Jaren turned 24!!!
16. Kaitlyn graduated High school. Congratulations!


Here are some pictures of our summer so far.



Happy Summer Everyone!

Farewell Dear DC

The latest news goes like this: We are coming home EARLY! Jaren's work informed him that he had reached a 120 day limit and couldn't work more without them getting fined for not giving him benefits, so they basically told him that this Friday is his last day. We feel bad to leave the girls and Pam early, but we feel like the sooner we get home, the better (especially better on our wallet!). So we are starting to pack up and will leave early on Saturday morning!

Jaren's best friend Greg Warby came out for a visit last week. We ran all around the city seeing the museums, Arlington, the Capitol, Potbellies, Good Stuff, Oriole's Park at Camden Yards. . .

Greg and I went to museums all day on Thursday while Jaren worked. We started in the Library of Congress which I was very impressed with. It was gorgeous! We walked by the National Archives, but decided we didn't want to wait in the probably 2 hour line in the heat to get in. So, we went and shopped at a souvenir stand instead. We saw the Natural History Museum, Museum of American History, and the Air and Space Museum. I headed home to work and Warby met Jaren at work and they picked up pizza on their way home.


Friday, we all slept in a bit. When we were awake, we got ready and went on a Capitol tour. We stood in with a group in Statutory Hall and heard the cool acoustic affects. It is still fun to see no matter how many times you go in. Jaren got to go on a dome tour where you have to walk up TONS of stairs, but get to go up on top of the dome and walk around very close to the Apotheosis of Washington and go up outside on top of the dome. See the previous post of pictures that Jaren took. I'm jealous he couldn't get me in!!

Friday night, we headed to Baltimore in the rain to see the Orioles play the Yankees. We had just gotten situated in our sweet red ponchos with umbrellas and our first round of ball park food when the announcement came over the loud speaker that the game was postponed due to the rain. We were sorta disappointed that we didn't get to see the game, but at least we got dinner out of the deal... and we get our money back, so it wasn't a complete loss.


Saturday, we saw the White House, ate at Potbellies, and walked around Arlington for a while. It got really warm in the afternoon and I actually got a little sun on my face! We wandered around the National American Indian Museum and did some more souvenir shopping before we headed home. We made our awesome fried shrimp for dinner. That night, Warby treated us to a great round of cosmic bowling. We walked in and got our shoes and while we were putting them on, we noticed something a little off.... the bowling pins were tiny! We thought that was pretty funny, and then we discovered that the bowling balls were also miniature! A lady bowling with her family on the lane next to ours overheard our surprise at the mini bowling alley and explained that it is called Duckpin Bowling and it is huge here on the East Coast. The rules are mostly the same as regular bowling except you get to bowl three times per turn. It was really really fun, but I was awful at it. We bowled until 1 am and then drove Warby to the airport and got home around 3 am. And then we slept in a LONG time the next morning. We had a blast with Warby and were sad that he left so soon!




Now we are just trying to eat all of the food we still have, but probably won't get through some of it! That's ok though, cause we are coming home in 3 days!! We have had a TON of fun out here and have seen lots of awesome things. We're glad that Jaren was able to get an internship so we could come out and have this experience, and we are also glad that it is about over. We'll try to bring some warm weather home with us!

Another week gone

This week has flown by for me. Time seems to be going very quickly, which is great because that means that we will be going home sooner. I think we are down under 60 days until we pack up and head back to Utah and we are both very excited!

The big news this week is that I got into nursing school at Weber starting this fall!! I'm gonna be a nurse in two years! I found out that my sister also got in, so we will be able to study together and ace the whole program! ...Hopefully. Jaren and I have been celebrating all week with pizza the night we found out and ice cream every night after. I think we are about celebrated out. :)

We went to an appointment with the missionaries to visit a sister named Joyce. She is from South Africa and had a beautiful accent. She was VERY familiar with the bible and has just begun to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. I seriously admire investigators because they are so open minded and willing to accept the messages that the missionaries share. I hope I would be the same way. It has been interesting for me to get involved in missionary work; I have never done anything like it before. It is scary, especially when the missionaries put you on the spot in front of the investigator, but its also fun to be able to share what you know and believe.

We made some friends from our ward, Mary and Bryant Angelos. They met at BYU and are out here working and finishing up school. Mary is an engineer for a company here and Bryant is working on a doctorate in math... I think. They are both really fun. They love listening to Jaren tell stories about his work experiences (He has so many fun stories). Mary and I have hung out on Wednesdays for the past couple of weeks while the boys play basketball at the church. It is so nice to get out of the house and talk to another adult.

Bailey and Maya keep me pretty busy when I am working. They are very well behaved most of the time but need to be almost constantly entertained or they become a little crazy. I got them a book of fairy tales from the library and they both love the stories. Rumpelstiltskin is one of the favorites so far. I love when we can sit and read. It is very cozy with a twin on each side. Alot of times we get blankets and are all so warm and comfy! They take piano lessons so I get to help them practice everyday. They do really well when they put their minds to it and actually read the notes. It takes a little convincing and luck to get that to happen most days...

Jay, Jeri Dell and Blake (Jaren's family) are coming to visit us this next week!! They will fly in tomorrow morning and will be staying all week. We have a lot planned and we are SOOO excited to have them come!

A Bit More on our Atlantic Trip

Like I mentioned before, we took a little trip to the Atlantic ocean the weekend before Valentine's Day. We both felt like we needed to get out and go somewhere so we booked a hotel that was a short block away from the beach, which was really cheap because it is winter. I would say it is a little over a two hour drive out there but it was a fun drive. We got to cross the huge bridge that spans the Chesapeake Bay. (I think... I would look it up, but our internet isn't working right now.) It was huge and way cool. We both enjoyed the open-ness once we got out of the city. There were tons of cool houses with interesting architecture and lots of farms and stuff on the way out there. We stayed in Ocean City MD that is right on the border between Delaware and Maryland. The city is basically built on a peninsula and at most times you could see the ocean on one side of you and the bay on the other side. There are TONS and TONS of huge hotels and condominiums lining both the beach front and the bay front. We got in pretty late the first night and just relaxed and watched some TV in the room.

The next morning, I woke up and saw a weird orange light strip on the wall. I jumped out of bed and saw the sun about halfway up over the Atlantic Ocean. I got excited and yelled for Jaren to come see. haha. He thought I was a little mean for waking him up, but as soon as he saw it he was a little happier. :) We snapped a few pictures and then crawled back in bed for a while. After breakfast we drove down a ways to the Ocean City boardwalk. You can tell that in the summer it must be just crawling with people. We got there early enough that none of the little shops were open. It was almost creepy to see everything looking so deserted. There were a bunch of carnival rides that were also closed down for the winter and deserted looking. We walked out onto the beach and touched the water so we could say that we have touched the Atlantic ocean. Then we spent a couple of hours taking tons of pictures of the pier and the beach. It was pretty windy and cold, but not too bad at this point. A little later on, we walked down to the rocky point at the end of the beach and there the wind was howling and bitter cold. Our faces were both numb after a few minutes of picture taking so we started walking back towards the boardwalk and the car.

By this time, some of the shops and restaurants had opened up. We stopped in a few of the shops but didn't see anything we had to have. The smell of french fries in the air won us over though. We stopped into a little burger place. I got some cheese fries and Jaren got some chili cheese fries. They were EXCELLENT. :) By this time, our camera battery was running a little low so we headed back to the hotel to grab the extra battery. Then we headed out in search of a lighthouse. Jaren had seen one online that was supposedly pretty close to our hotel. ....About 30 miles up the road we had come to a State/national park (not sure which) and decided we would check it out. As we were driving through, we saw another huge concrete tower that we had seen all over the place and decided to check this one out cause it was close. Apparently it was a World War II lookout tower that was erected to protect the waterway between Delaware and New Jersey. It had a long spiral staircase inside and you could walk all the way up to the top of the tower and look out over the park, the ocean and the bay. It was gorgeous but SOOO windy and cold. From the top of this tower, you could see that there were two lighthouses a little ways off. So we went to find them.

We drove a little ways further and had to hike over a bit of sand to get closer to the lighthouse we had seen. It was a pretty little red brick one. The wind was so cold and strong at this place that it was blowing sand in our faces and we felt like we were going to get blown over. Jaren gave me his beanie cause my head and ears were cold, but after that I was actually pretty warm. We went looking for crabs but decided that they were all hibernating or something. We did find some HUGE crab shells on the beach here though. I wouldn't want one of those coming after me!

After the lighthouse adventure we headed back towards our hotel. We had someone look up the lighthouse that was supposedly by our hotel and discovered that it was, actually only like 2 blocks away from our hotel. It was just on the opposite side we thought it would be on. It was really random and wasn't even close to the water. We were both glad we had found the other lighthouse further up the road.

That night we spent swimming, going out to eat, and going to a movie. We slept in the next morning and just relaxed until it was time to check out and head home. We had fun talking and taking in the scenery on the way home. It was a fun trip. :)