Merry Christmas!

Alright, I know I've been terrible at posting since school is out. I've wanted to post pictures, but the only times I'm on the Internet during break is at work without my laptop. So the Christmas pics will be up soon - if I'm lucky it'll be before school starts again on the 5th. But in the meantime...
I want to wish all our family and friends a most wonderful Christmas season. We just don't have the time or means to send out Christmas cards this year. But we are thinking of our many loved ones and friends. And hopefully we will get out a few wedding thank-you cards over the break (but don't get your hopes up too high....).
We have been so blessed in this holiday season. Our Christmas really started on the 18th when Kayleen and I went to Body Worlds with my sister Rebekah in Salt Lake (the tickets were part of our Christmas present from Mom and Brad - thank you!). Kayleen was so very excited. It was very interesting and we learned a lot. For those who don't know, Body Worlds is basically a museum exhibit of real preserved cadavers and body parts, explaining the amazing miracle of the human body. It was incredible. Thanks Rebekah for taking us and for buying us dinner too! :)
We were able to go to Enterprise last weekend to have an early Christmas with my family. We got to see Heidi's new house and finally use the Bracken's gift card from our wedding. And of course we took a few minutes to play in the snow! It's been years since I've seen that much snow in Enterprise. We had a wonderful time. Thanks Mom and Bradley and Julie for the rides so we didn't have to pay gas! We appreciate that! We had fun opening all our gifts and spending time with family.
We spent our Christmas Eve with one of Kayleen's patients, a dear lady named Louise. She didn't have any family to spend Christmas with, so we headed on over to have dinner and pie and read the Christmas story with her. It was very fun, and especially rewarding to think about others and not only ourselves on Christmas Eve.
Christmas morning Kayleen and I spent in our apartment and open gifts. And then in the afternoon we headed out on our adventure to Salt Lake City to pick up Kayleen's mom from the airport. She is going to be staying with us until New Year's Eve. We're really excited to have her here since we don't get to see Kayleen's family much. It was a BLIZZARD in Salt Lake, but luckily we got a hotel room a couple miles from the airport. That made it nice when we had to drive in the blizzard when Mary got here 3 hours late (they closed the airport and the flight was diverted to Boise before they finally flew into Salt Lake). Now we're back in Provo to enjoy the rest of our break.
We love you all very much and hope you are having a wonderful holiday season with family and friends as we have been.

Christmas, Christmas time is here...

We are finally getting a little bit of Christmas stuff. On Sunday we are going to get a little fake tree from my sister (Yay for free stuff!). We also made this gingerbread house together. We got the kit from Bed Bath and Beyond with some leftover gift card funds from the wedding. :) Hopefully we'll keep collecting Christmas decorations so our house gets more festive! (p.s. please notice that I added pictures to the post about thanksgiving, below this one...)

It's the Holiday season...

Our Thanksgiving break has been quite too short, and we're ready for Christmas break to be here. We had a good Thanksgiving though. We went to bed extra early on Wednesday night and couldn't get ourselves to sleep any longer than 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning! But that's okay, because Kayleen had to work that morning anyway.
We went to West Jordan (Salt Lake valley) to spend Thanksgiving with the Camps (my mom's side of the family). It was good to see all the cousins that we used to see all the time and now only see a couple times a year! Of course, we all just ate and visited and played games. The in-laws probably find it quite boring (sorry Kayleen, Trevor, Julie, and Norine!), but we Camps/Barlows love to just sit around and visit the whole day. Here are some pictures of Thanksgiving Day:

Rebekah and Andrea (sistas)Heidi and Trevor (lil sis and bro-in-law)

Here we are on Thanksgiving, too. Happy and thankful to have each other.

Yesterday we got to see our friends Meg and Jason - they came down to Utah for Thanksgiving break. And of course spent a little time with Brian and Megan and Baby Eliana. I still haven't got any pictures of her, but hopefully soon! I forgot to get pictures of Baby Paisley at Thanksgiving too. Oh well.

Now it's Saturday and we're just doing homework and getting ready for some crazy school days ahead!
We love y'all and hope you have had a most wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

P.S. Norine, I tried to see if something was wrong with the comment settings, but I couldn't find anything. Hopefully everyone is able to comment now! :)

Just waiting

Well, we are just waiting in anticipation for Brian and Megan's babe to be born. And excited that they have joined the blog world. Once the baby is here I'm sure you'll see some new pictures here on the blog. Other than that we haven't taken many pictures lately, and I'm always hesitant to write a boring blog with no pictures. But I wanted to give an update since it's been a while.
In other news....
My mom is moving to Smithfield (near Logan). That was kinda surprising but we are happy for them that they'll have a nice new home.
And that's about all.
But there will be more new adventures soon.
Love y'all!

Halloween fun

Two midterms, group project, and major research milestone group work this week.....All I can say is I'm running on no sleep and my brain has stopped working. So that's all I want to type for now. But here are some pictures from the Halloween party we had at our house last week:
Yeah, those are three-legged pants we are sharing :)

Planning our next major adventure...PhD school

I've finally decided what I want to do with my life after graduate school: stay in school. Forever. I'm planning on getting a PhD and pursuing an academic career in research and teaching Information Systems at the university level.
Now, I still have a year and a half before I graduate with my masters, but I'm planning ahead on the next step. I'm taking a prep research course and getting advice from my professor about how to succeed in PhD school. He is sure that anyone who takes the prep research course can easily be accepted to any top program in our field.
I won't apply for schools until about a year from now, but just taking a preliminary look, I'd really like to go to the University of Minnesota. Not just because Kayleen really wants to go there to be close to her family, but really because they are one of the top 5 Information Systems programs in the nation, they emphasis topics that are especially interesting to me, and I have heard nothing but good from the professors here at BYU that graduated from there. Another top choice would be MIT. Other schools that look interesting to consider (all are ranked in the top ten nationally for ISys programs): Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, U of Pennsylvania, U of Maryland, New York U, U of Texas-Austin.

I've still got a lot of time to decide, but this is an idea of where our lives are headed: after a couple more years at BYU, we'll likely be headed out of Utah to one of these schools for the following 3-4 years, and then Dr. and Mrs. Barlow will finally settle down somewhere, but who knows where?!

P.S. Why do I want to get a PhD?

(1) I like learning new things and would be able to constantly read, research, and discover things that are interesting to me.

(2) I would love to work with students in a university setting.

(3) Flexible as far as hours and vacation - able to spend time with family.

(4) Starting salaries for professors in our field are very high, and in the meantime PhD school is relatively cheap - any of these top-tier programs will waive my tuition and pay me $20000-$30000 /yr to study at their school.

Not much new around here - just a blog tag

Not much exciting to read about with us lately. We've been busy with school and just finding time to spend together. We're enjoying the fall weather and the changing leaves, drives up the canyon, and spending time with friends.

In the meantime, Heidi tagged me so now I have to list my six quirks:
1. I get irked when people don't respond to emails at work. For example, two weeks ago I sent emails to forty people needing feedback about a critical project. 6 responded. GRRR!
2. I don't dislike oatmeal, but even when I really crave it I can never finish a bowl without getting tired of it.
3. I enjoy being in school - that's quirky, right?
4. I wake up at 5:30 or 6 everyday even though I don't have to be to school or work until 8.
5. I check my Yahoo! mail, Facebook, Gmail, and blogs in that order, several times every day (even when it's really quite probable there are no updates nor new messages)
6. I can never think of good ways to finish lists about myself. :)

Have a good day everyone!

Homecoming Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend, enjoying a lot of fun activities. On Friday night we went to an activity sponsored by BYU just for married couples. We had a really nice catered dinner and got to hear Mindy Gledhill sing and saw an act by ComedySportz. It was all so good and so fun. Brian and Megan were there with us to enjoy the evening.

Saturday we got up to go get free pancakes at the Homecoming parade. It was cold, but we had fun just enjoying pancakes and parade together.

We also went to a movie at the International Cinema on Saturday. We highly do NOT recommend the movie "Turtles Can Fly". Saturday night we went out to eat at Brick Oven with our friend Keith and Kayleen's patient Jamie. We all visited and enjoyed yummy pizza.
Sunday is always good. We finished the weekend by spending time together at home and also going to visit Shaun and Lanette at their place.
Thank heavens for the weekends!

A Tribute to Roberto Nuñez

I met Roberto Nuñez, a faithful Latter-Day Saint from East San Salvador, El Salvador, in December of 2004. We were both serving in the Guatemala City North Mission. I had been in Guatemala only 4 months and was in my second area, a small Pokomchi village in the northern mountainous region of the country. Just after Christmas, transfers were announced and I went to Coban to pick up my new senior companion from the bus station. Elder Nuñez had been in Guatemala for about 15 months, and my first impression of him was that of a fun-loving, caring, hard-working, experienced missionary. We served together for 3 months, enjoying the cold weather (no heaters!) of the mountain village and walking many miles together in the rain and in the sun. During the time I got to know Elder Nuñez, we worked hard and faced many trials, but we also had spiritual experiences and saw miracles. I will always remember Elder Nuñez as the companion who kept a good attitude at all times and made me laugh constantly. Elder Nuñez honorably completed his full-time mission in September 2005. He returned home to El Salvador and was soon married and started working as a policeman in San Salvador. I soon stopped keeping in contact with him as we both moved on with our lives, but I've always remembered him as one of my favorite companions.
Last Friday night, my mission president informed me that Roberto Nuñez, this faithful funny friend of mine, was recently killed while on the job. I was obviously shocked to hear this news. My heart goes out to his wife and his family - I wish I had a way to contact them. While his life was taken too soon, he lived his short life to the fullest. It was a reminder of the impact that one person can have, even in only a few short months or years. In the three months I really knew him well, I learned from his example of how to be a good missionary and how to keep a happy attitude. Elder Nuñez, thank you for your life and example, and for the good memories.

General Conference, Mission Reunion, etc etc

It was a good weekend. It started out by going to my mission reunion on Friday night. It was so good to see some old friends and especially my mission president. We had some spiritual messages and I was really touched and missing the mission when we all stood to sing "Called to Serve" in Spanish again. It was probably the most that I've missed the mission since I've been home. I rode up with Andy Smith and we listened to some of the football game on the way, so that was fun, too.
Saturday we had the Wells family over to our home to watch the morning session of General Conference. And then we went to Brian and Megan's to watch the afternoon session. For Priesthood, I went with Ron and Shaun to watch and it was good to catch up with them a little. Kayleen stayed with Megan and Megan and Sarah and the rest of the Wells girls to watch a movie while the guys were out. It was a good day full of fun and food and visiting with friends.
Then Sunday we got to see the whole Barlow family at Brandon and Norine's. And a good time was had by all.

Fun at Y Mountain, Then and Now

The night of September 28, 2007 Kayleen and I went up to Y Mountain just for fun. We took a big cookie and the camera and just had some silly fun. We were just friends then, but getting to be good friends. It wasn't till months later that we actually started dating, but it was one night that we both remember as one of the first times that we really got to know each other and be good friends.
So on Sunday, we celebrated the anniversary of that special "date" (that we didn't consider a date back then) by making another big cookie and taking our camera up to the mountain. A lot has changed in a year! And we couldn't be happier!

Paisley Ginger! (and other adventures this weekend)

We had a very fun weekend, homework-free (I'll probably pay the price for that in the next few days, trying to catch up!) But we had a lot of fun.

On Thursday night we went to Institute, which we are loving! We are taking the second half of Doctrine and Covenants. On Friday we went to our Stake Opening Social / Tailgate party. We enjoyed some good food and fun with our new friends in the ward. We were going to go to an organ recital with my summer roommates Ron and Matt, but it got canceled. So we hung out at the dance at BYU with them and also with Shaun and Lanette. It was a blast! We spent half the time waiting in line for a free snow-cone -- but it was worth it. :)

On Saturday we went up to Layton to see my new niece, Paisley! She is so adorable. We are glad that Brandon and Norine have this new addition to their family. Here is a picture, of course:

It was fun to hang out with Brandon and Norine and Bradley, Julie, and Aliza at the hospital for a few hours on Saturday. Then back home to Provo again to get some errands done and get to bed early, so that Kayleen could give her talk in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday (she did a wonderful job, of course!) We ended the weekend well having dinner with our friends Kerri and Keith.

Another weekend of random adventures gone by too quickly, and now back to work and school for another week!

Why Leeny is the favorite half of JordiLeeny

Here are a few favorite pictures of my hun. She is the most wonderful wife. She makes me so very very happy. Nothing new has happened with us in the last week or so. Just enjoying married life so very much, thanks to Kayleen!

Birthday Barbeque at the Barlows'

So, I've had a hard time keeping up with the blog since we don't have Internet at home. But things have been going well. School is crazy already, but I guess that is expected when you are in graduate school. Kayleen isn't as busy with school, but works a lot more than I do. But we take time to have some fun, too. Last Saturday we invited our friends over for a barbecue at our house to celebrate Brian's birthday. We used our new grill that we got from Andrea and Rebekah, and the hot dogs were pretty tasty, I must say! And of course we had birthday cake, too. We have a big backyard that we used and I think everyone had a good time. We sure did! I didn't take any real formal pictures, just some snapshots. Here's one.

L to R: Brian, Chris, Miriam, Kayleen, Malea, Aleisha, Megan, Ron, Sarah

Thanks for a good time, friends! Other than that, Kayleen and I have just been having more random adventures between just the two of us. We love married life!!!

Back to Life

We are back to normal life here in Provo. We've had a wonderful week and everything turned out perfect. Our wedding was beautiful. We were sealed in the Provo temple by my Grandpa Barlow and enjoyed a small lunch reception at the Skyroom at BYU. Here are some pictures with the Barlow family, the groomsmen, and the girlfriends.
L to R: Brandon, McCoy, Norine, Rebekah, Mom, Brad, Jordan, Kayleen, Andrea, Heidi, Trevor, Julie, Aliza, Bradley

L to R: Brian, Kayleen, Shaun, Jordan, Ron

L to R: Lanette, Kerri, Megan, Kayleen, Sarah, Jordan, Meg, Hilary

We decided not to have a big reception in Utah, so we were done with all the wedding stuff by about 4 in the afternoon. It was really nice to just be able to relax for the rest of the day. We went up to Park City for our honeymoon. We had a lot of fun and were happy to spend time together. We went to the Olympic Park and Museum, the shops on Main Street, and rode the roller coaster at Park City Mountain Resort. We left Park City on Thursday morning so that we could make it to our friend Meg's wedding in Salt Lake.

They had a beautiful wedding and we were honored to be at their sealing. We also went to their luncheon at the Lion House and to their reception that night. We had some fun decorating their car (ironically with the paint leftover from when our friends decorated our car the week before!) Now we have just been getting things ready to go back to school tomorrow - Kayleen has decided to go back to BYU! She is just taking a couple of classes and is working full time now. We are excited to start our life together and things are going well so far!

Quick Update

Well, friends, it's been a fun and crazy week getting everything ready for tomorrow! We've definitely had some big adventures recently. I figured I'd write an update since we'll be heading out of town for a few days. We are so very very excited to have the opportunity to be sealed together in the temple for eternity tomorrow!
It has been so good spending time together and being together, sharing meals, and just having alone time together to talk and enjoy each other. We've done well at fixing up our new apartment (Kayleen did most of the work, while I've been at work). We bought some new bookcases and endtables at Ikea (we love that store!) and we are getting more "hand-me-down" furniture today and tomorrow. Kayleen went through the temple on Tuesday night - thanks to Mom, Rebekah, Bradley, Ron, Brooks, Shaun and Lanette, and Brian and Megan for coming. My mom was really helpful with that and came down twice this week to help Kayleen get ready. She definitely spoils us! Megan Wells was really helpful too and was Kayleen's escort in the temple. We're really glad we have married friends that have been in our shoes and are so good in supporting us. We went out to eat with Brian and Megan Tuesday, and Megan went with us to the temple a second time on Wednesday, and then we all had a little double-date movie night at our place last night. We love our Brian and Megan friends!! We love all our friends!
Kayleen's parents will be in town today and we'll be getting final preparations ready! And tonight will be fun too - I wouldn't call it a bachelor party but my best bud Ron and I are taking advantage of my last night as a single man and he has some stuff planned that should be fun.
And then tomorrow WE ARE GETTING MARRIED!!
Thanks for all your love and support, love y'all....

Moving in!

Last night I was lucky enough to have Brian, Megan, Jason, Meg, Keith, and Cameron help me move all my belongings to the new apartment. They even helped me put some stuff away and clean the bathroom. What awesome friends I have! It only took a small bribe.... Well, I just provided pizza, but wished I could have done more to thank them for all their help.
So we are one step closer! It's exciting to think that I have an apartment for me and Kayleen. It's nice to finally not have to worry about meeting new roommates and wondering how we'll get along. Although I must admit, I've never had a bad college roommate. I especially had tons of fun with roommates this summer and last summer, living with my best buds (Ron this summer, Shaun and Brian last summer). But it's even more exciting that I'll have my amazing Kayleen as a roommate now! We'll have some fun and crazy adventures I'm sure!

Wedding Reception and other adventures in MN

Well folks, it has been quite an eventful weekend! It started on Thursday when I arrived in Minneapolis and Kayleen was there waiting with a nice big sack lunch for me. What a good little wife she will be! :) It was so good to be together again, after being apart the entire month of July. I stayed with her family at their home in Lakeville, which is about half an hour south of the airport in Minneapolis.
That same day (Thursday) we took a stroll through the annual Dakota County Fair! It made Enterprise seem like the big city. It was fun to see the historic buildings, the booths, art displays, animal exhibits, and a play (featuring Kayleen's sister Marissa). Here we are in front of the tractor display.Later that night we went back to the Downing's house for band practice. Kayleen's dad, uncle Dean, brother Jake, and brother-in-law Matthew have a band called "The Righteous Brothers-in-law". (also known affectionately as "Jake and the Fat Men" haha) Dean brought over and set up the keyboard so I could play a few songs in the band for the weekend. It was a blast!

On Friday Kayleen and I went to Northfield (half-hour from Lakeville) with her mom and sister Regina to see Regina and Terence's apartment that they will be moving into. They are moving back from Philadelphia so Terence can work at the college there. So now Kayleen and I will be the only ones living outside Minnesota, but they are working hard on convincing us to move back there when we are done with school. Luckily they've still got a few years before we decide!
Another highlight from Friday was going to play the piano for the folks at the Centennial Care Center, where Kayleen used to work. It was sad to see all the people there who can't care for themselves anymore - it makes me admire Kayleen even more for wanting to work there, for the wonderful job she did, and for how much she loves to take care of people. She loves so unconditionally.
Friday night, my mom and sisters Andrea and Rebekah came down to Lakeville to eat dinner with the Downing fam (they had come to the Twin Cities on Thurs also, but stayed at a hotel right near the airport). It was good for everyone to meet each other and enjoy a delicious meal together. After dinner Kayleen and I separated for a bit - I went to play with my fam for the night while she had a little "bachelorette party" with her sisters and friend Laura.
We had some fun at Underwater Adventures in the Mall of America - it was really cool to walk through the underwater aquarium and see the sharks! Here I am with my sister Rebekah and you can see in the background that Jaws is about to get us! But we narrowly escaped...
Saturday was the big day, and we were ready to party! The morning was spent in last-minute preparations for the program and reception at the Downing Residence. Kayleen's dad and brother Jake did a great job getting the yard looking beautiful (Kayleen helped too!) and her mom did great at getting everything organized and getting all the food planned and set up. We were glad to have some good help from Kayleen's aunts, cousins, siblings, and friends. The weather was perfect (we got nervous when we felt some raindrops on Friday night). When everything was in place and the guests had arrived, we started with the Marriage Blessing. It was a short program with prayers, scripture reading, and song. Regina gave the main message and conducted; the parents of bride and groom offered prayers; my sisters Andrea and Rebekah and Kayleen's maid of honor Laura shared some scriptures; Marissa sang worship songs. It was all very beautiful, and all who were present, irregardless of different religions, were happy to have a time to specifically include our Heavenly Father in the celebrations of the day and ponder on the great love of our Savior Jesus Christ, and His importance in our marriage.

After the Blessing, the tables were set up for some delicious food. Everyone got a chance to meet and greet and socialize with one another. It was so good to meet so many people Kayleen has told me about. There was good music and dancing and the band played too! (yes, I joined in on a few of the songs). Kayleen and her sisters and Laura and Jake's girlfriend Brittney also did a "surprise dance" which has been the tradition of the Downing weddings. They basically made me sit in a chair in front of everyone while they danced around me and tried to embarrass me. It was pretty funny. And yes, it is all on video. Haha. They did a good job with it and it made everyone laugh. From there, people just stayed around to chat and/or dance and/or eat more. It turned perfect.

More pics of our adventures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2202148&l=8f220&id=17829252
More pics of the reception: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2202151&l=1b5e6&id=17829252

Trying out this "Blog" thing...

Welcome to our new blog! After enjoying reading about Shaun and Lanette's adventures on their blog so often, I figured I'd try it out for us, too!
Our first big adventure to be written about will be my trip to Minnesota this weekend for our wedding reception out there! I'm so excited to see Kayleen again after over a month of being apart. I've loved our daily phone calls but it's definitely time to be together in person.
We are so ready and excited to be married! I finally found a cute little apartment for us to live in, on the south end of Provo and hopefully will get it all ready for Kayleen to move in on the 16th! There's lots of other things to be done before the wedding, so we are keeping busy.