Christmas 2005 update

Dear Friends and Family, Merry Christmas. This is so exciting...it is our first Christmas as our new family. We were married on May 5, 2005 in the Seattle Temple for the LDS Church. We then celebrated our union with many of Jen's family, friends and Starbucks customers at a beautiful reception at the Olympia Country Club overlooking the Pugent Sound. Everything was so amazing. Then it was off to Puerta Vallerta, Mexico for our Honeymoon. Jen had a timeshare that we stayed in and I had frequent flier miles to fly from Seattle to Puerta Vallerta to Boston first class. I, being the guy, like to brag that we had an incredibly amazing honeymoon for 9 days for less than $500 total. It was awesome. I really like good Mexican food and so I was not really interested in eating in many of the tourist trap restaurants, so we found these amazing hole-in-the-wall family owned restaurants that was so great. We would eat the freshest seafood and Mexican dishes often overlooking the water and be the only customers there. One of the highlights was our deep sea fishing expedition. We chartered a boat from Master Baiters and went out about 18 miles from the bay and had a great time. There was only one other couple on the boat (a southern preacher who kept referring to his congregation as his business???). Jen caught the longest Mahi Mahi Tuna for the day. We did not have a tape measure with us, but suffice it to say .... as they would say in Maine .... "that are a big'on". I caught the heaviest yellow fin tuna at about 25 pounds. The preacher caught a dolphin. It was fine and did not get hurt. Speaking of dolphins...I have seen dolphins swimming in the ocean many times. When I would see them they were usually in small groups. The charter captain would find the tuna by following the dolphin. When I say following the dolphins, we could see them swimming 2-3 miles away. They were swimming in packs of several hundred. It was amazing. It was so much fun. After our honeymoon, we flew directly to Boston and Jen officially made her move to Boston. While we were on our honeymoon, my former roommate, Mike Clark, came out to the wedding and drove Jen's things across country in a Budget Truck. He is an awesome guy and we really appreciate his help. He made the entire move possible. When he got to Boston, he even called the Elders Quorum president in our new LDS Church Ward and got some help unloading the truck so that everything was inside our condo by the time we got home from the honeymoon. He is awesome. Thanks Mike. Since the honeymoon life has pretty much returned to normal for me, but Jen had to make the adjustment of living 3000 miles away from family. Jen did so very well. She is such an amazing woman and I love her so much. She does get homesick from time to time, but for the most part has been focused on finding new things to like about the East Coast. She does believe that the people here are in too big a rush and way too over caffeinated. Can you believe that....a Seattle girl calling us in the East over caffeinated. She does have a point. In Olympia she got to know her customers. They were always friendly and enjoyed the "Starbucks Experience". Here we are used to getting our drinks NOW and we do not care about the experience so much. We have been fine getting drinks from Dunkin Donuts from people who can't speak any English. In fact a talk radio station has an ongoing bit about Dunkin Donuts employees and how you can never understand a word they say to you. It is always funny. As Starbucks expands in the East, people begin to really appreciate the experience and slowly but surely Jen has begun to get to know her customers and her life is getting back to normal. She really is a trooper. Her highlight is opening a store in our town. You can read all about that in her other post. When we first moved here, there were no store manager openings and so she had to take a temporary demotion to assistant manager and commute an average of 45 minutes each way. We were really praying that the Lord would help the people in our area become even more caffeinated and hooked on coffee and that Starbucks would open a store closer to our home for her. About 3 months after starting as an assistant manager, her boss called and told her she was going to open a store in our town. It was such an answer to prayer. I really enjoy pharmaceutical sales. I have a huge territory. I cover all of New England except for Connecticut and most of Vermont. I visit 70 OB-GYNs and 20 Ear Nose Throat / Oral Surgeons every two weeks. I sell the best prenatal vitamin on the market (DUET DHA) and I do not say it because I am biased. When I ask my doctors "If you could create your dream prenatal that you would feel comfortable writing for all your patients, what would it have in it?" Almost all the time they say that tolerability, folic acid, iron and omega 3s and cost. Fortunately, Duet DHA would meet all of these hopes and dreams. They usually are not aware that it does and so my job is to remind them of how great Duet DHA really is. Generally they begin writing it as soon as I stop by, but may forget after awhile and so I have to go by every 2 weeks to remind them. I also have a liquid pain killer that I promote to the ENTs and Oral Surgeons. It is similar to Vicodin, but in a liquid form. This is helpful for patients with post surgical pain. I was just recognized nationally for being one of 6 sales reps out of all our reps nationwide that actually met the goal to visit every single doctor on schedule. This should help me achieve my numbers. In late July, we had an addition to our family. No not a baby....how quick do you think we are. Even though Jen is the most amazing woman ever, she has not found a way to decrease the gestational period from 40 weeks. No, Jen got her pet pug back from her Dad in Seattle. He was kind enough to watch Sophie while Jen and I went on our Honeymoon, but she got really sick and could not fly across country when we got back. She needed to wait to get better. Finally in July, she was able to join us on the East Coast. Thank you Jerry and Frida for caring for Sophie. Thank you for reading all our rambling. Jen and I love being married and we look forward to hearing from all of you. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.