Annual UNC-Greensboro Banquet for Accounting Graduates

Last night we went to a nice banquet to honour all the graduates in Accounting from UNCG. I don't graduate till December, but I was still aloud to go. And since they made it free (all I had to do was pass out name tags to people) I couldn't refuse. This has been a tradition for about 5-6 years now. We were lucky enough to have a professor come to UNCG and organize all of this. He decided that he was tired of serving as president of Borders, Books and Music, and went on retired as faculty. He didn't fund it, he just got the Accounting firms to do it. He taught one of my classes back in 2004 and he was great. Unfortunately, 2 days after finals, he passed away at a very young age. But Rick Flanagan set things up so well, that the Accounting Department was able to survive and keep moving forward.

So before I go into how last night went, I will try to re-call last years:

Amanda and I had gotten some friends to babysit. They had a cellphone and gave it to us in case of an emergency. We still do not have cellphones. I won't get a cellphone my superior hands me one. At which point I will turn it off, leave it in my desk drawer and never answer it. Actually, we might get one this summer... maybe. We we were attending since I was graduating with my BS in Accounting.

So we arrived at 6pm for cocktails. Why did we do that? Dinner didn't start till 7. So now we had to endure the awkwardness of talking to strangers. The good news was, these strangers were loaded and had many positions opening in for next winter. So we had going for us, which is nice. So after we got our complimentary drink, we walked around the back of the crowd and ran into an accounting manager from one of the small public firms. I was afraid that the conversation would end in 3-5 minutes with, "Here is my card." This is code for, "Leave me alone, I need to find someone else more interesting to talk to. And that card I just gave you, don't even think about calling me."

So half an hour later we were still talking and I forgot that the doors would soon open and we would all go into the banquet hall to have dinner. My diet Coke was all gone. It was crap. I should have gotten the Shirley temple. But I didn't want to have any fruit in my drink. Because guys shouldn't have fruit or umbrellas in their drinks. Does Bond have fruit in his drink? No, olives are not fruit. I need to come up with a non-alcoholic drink with olives in it.

So as the doors open, we all move into the hall. Jared all of a sudden hands me his card and says, "wait, let me give you this." Ok, so it wasn't that bad. He actually wanted me to have it.

Amanda and I sat with an even smaller firm. The two reps from the firm were the two lead partners and their wives. Dave and his wife kept asking Amanda for advice one how grandparents should go about kidnapping their granddaughter (theoretically) and talking her to Disney World. It was fun, we had a great time. I even forgot that I had to go in and work that night at UPS (Under Paid Supervisors).

The guest speaker was Eddie Sams (president of Dixon Hughes, PLLC). I wasn't listening, but then all of a sudden he mentioned staff exchanges to London and Capetown. I was like, I'll go to England. I later found out that as long as you speak the language, you can go anywhere.

So this year it was very different. I was passing out name tags from 6-6:30. It was fun because I remembered a lot of the people from different functions over the past 12 months. So I didn't have to ask them their names, I just grabbed their tag and gave them their ticket for a free drink. Amanda had the chance to meet up some of the students and faculty form the MS-Accounting program.

It was great, because I didn't care. I mean, I had just interned with one firm, and things are set up for a new internship this summer with Dixon Hughes. My first assignment is in May where I will got a week of training at a golf resort in Pinehurst (this is my chance to learn how to golf). Most big firms send you to a nice place for a week of training.

Arthur Andersen did the same thing a little different way. For two weeks they sent their new hires to an old college near Chicago. The book, Ambition, Greed and the Fall of AA by Barbara Ley Toffler, explains what the place was like. It sounded more like a prison. The book was funny, Tollfer, who wrote it, forgot to write the book in 3rd person. After reading it, I thought, "Well you participated in everything too, so what makes you so high and mighty?" I think the same thing about Sherron Watkins (Enron Whistle-Blower). But hey, if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be in this profession. I should send them flowers.

So back to the banquet. There was no pressure this time. But again, I forgot to get me a Shirley temple. Oh well, I could go next year.

As for the food, the dessert was pretty funny. It was ice cream. Amanda and I looked at each other. Ice Cream? Are you kidding me? Amanda said it best later when she said, "Am I five-years-old?" So that settled it, next stop Cheesecakes By Alex.

This place is great. I had PB cup, Amanda had Turtle. I wanted to order what looked like blueberry, but Amanda informed me that it would impair my driving.

Anyway, we didn't remember to bring the camera. But then again, it would have been too awkward.

Stone Mountain Excursion

Since Taxes are pretty much done and Bevan's internship is also finished (except for one last day on Tuesday), we decided to take advantage of the first Saturday in some time when Bevan didn't have to work and have an adventure. So we headed a little over an hour to the West of us to Stone Mountain State Park. While we were there we saw lots of deer, toured a restored 1850's mountain homestead (loving historic preservation as I do this was by far my favourite part of the day!) and hiked a 3 and half mile trail to see a beautiful waterfall. Along the way Liam had a great time tasting trees (I think he may have watched Willy Wonka one to many times) and splashing a little in all the mountain creeks and streams that came from the waterfall. Asher also had fun looking and pointing in his new surroundings, but ended up sleeping through most of the trip. Having worked up quite an appetite with all the excercise and fresh air we stopped off at Golden Coral for dinner on the way home. It was a great out of the ordinary day.

Stone Mountain

Adam, when you come to visit, bring your gear. We need to go repelling off of this thing.

Easter Update

Asher on arboretum bridge. Liam Displaying his egg cache
Amanda squeezing Asher while he eats a jellybean

We celebrated a low key Easter with just the four of us this past weekend. I had managed to coordinate some springish outfits for us to wear to church on Sunday, but unfortunately for reasons which I will shortly explain...I was to flustered to manage to take some pictures before we came home from church and were all to tired to bother. We had an Easter dinner of ham, hash brown casserole, deviled eggs, steamed asparagus, carrot souffle and a reduced fat strawberry chocolate cheesecake that Bevan made (which turned out rather nicely, he did a good job). Afterwards we had a little egg hunt at the arboretum, which is always so lovely, especially at this time of year.
Anyhow, at church on Sunday I was sustained as the Young Women's president for our ward, so I was very panicked to be at church on time to be sustained. (Hence the lack of picture's, I did actually get some professional ones of the boys taken last month in their spring outfits so I am not too upset about it, I will post those once I have gotten them back from the photographer). I am a little overwhelmed at the prospect, but I have some fantastic counselor's and advisor's so hopefully I will be able to pull it all together.

Hot Cross Buns

An Easter tradition at our home growing up was having Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday. Alot of the bakeries in town made them as well, but my mom's were better. I made these on Friday morning using her recipe. Basicially it is a sweet roll dough with cinnamon and raisins mixed in (some people trying to modernize these treats using dried cranberries instead of raisins, but I am a traditionalist when is comes to such things), then after you form the dough you cut an X in the top. After baking and cooling icing is piped over the X shape. I actually really enjoy making bread, but don't do it very often (mostly because I will eat to much of it!) and I had a good time making these traditional treats.

Sewing Project #2 Completed...finally!

I finally finished the apron project I have been working on with my sewing group at church, it took much longer than I anticipated but it did turn out well. I am proud of the pocket in particular. Our former relief society president who also happens to be a home economics teacher has been leading the class and this past Thursday was our last meeting, which makes me very sad becuase not only did we all have a good time socializing every week but I will be on my own now. YIKES! I am sending the apron along with a cook book, some dish towels and a nice spatula to a friend back in Canada who was married recently. I wanted to take a picture of it before I sent it along. Next up I am already started on making a sailor suit for Asher, we'll see how that goes!