Countdown

I get to see Logan in 19 days! I can't wait!

Pictures

Here are some more pictures of the girls. They look beautiful in their new Christmas dresses!



Look at Grace's LONG hair!

Better late than never.......

Well, family and friends, this is a long overdue post. We have had a lot happen in the last few months. As some of you know, Claire Elizabeth was born on November 1. We actually call her Libby, but we couldn't decide on naming her any of the names that you can derive Libby from. (Elizabeth was one of them, even though it's only her middle name.) She was very healthy and chunky. She was an inch shorter (20 in.) than Grace was (21 in.), but a full pound heavier (8 lb. 7 oz.) She has a very thick head of dark, wavy hair. Well, it's wavy when it's wet but then it kind of calms down when it dries. We'll see how that turns out over time. We are so glad to have her in our family.
Karen, Grace and Libby are still at her mom's house in Wyoming. We are so glad that she was able to be up there with her mom and sisters when she had the baby. It really made me feel a lot better to know that there was so much help since I couldn't be there. I would have obviously preferred to be there when Libby was born, but they just won't let me out of this place. We knew that coming in to it, though. After a year and a half of trying to find a way back to school and living in poverty we just couldn't pass it up when they called-especially since we got offered Tucson. We had to seize the opportunity.
Grace seems to be adjusting well to having a little sister. Karen has to be sure she doesn't point out Libby's facial features too hard. I love this video of Grace and Libby-Grace gets so excited:



For those of you I haven't talked to for a while, I am still here in Artesia, NM at the Border Patrol Academy. It is actually snowing today-go figure. I didn't expect to get 4 inches of snow here. Things are going well. I'm doing well in the academic side of things. As far as the physical conditioning goes I'm just trying to get out of here without my knees dying on me. (When I get out of here I'm going to see how much Uncle Sam will do to get me some new knees so I can keep up my running on my own time. I still haven't lost much wait. In true Beach fashion I've just gained muscle to replace the chubs. My pants are falling off of me, but no weight loss. The PT is pretty tough but not unbearable. It would be a lot easier if I was as studly as I was 10 years and 60 lbs ago.
We qualified on our pistols last week. I did pretty well for not having shot pistols much in the past. I've shot a few times with my pops and my bro-in-law, Scott, but no formal training. I actually scored 343 out of 360 which is actually at the highest scoring bracket-Expert Level. I think I get a cool certificate when I graduate. Next we get to train on the M4 and shotgun.
We've started lectures for our driver training. We actually get out on the course next week. We do courses in high-speed pursuits, 4X4, skid control and some other training on a huge track where we have to go as fast as we can in a Dodge Charger-I'm sure I won't mind that any. It should be fun training in the snow for desert driving ; )
Graduation is on December 20. Conan actually gets to come and pin my badge on me since he's a Border Patrol Agent, too. That should be cool. Then, we're off to Tucson. We still don't have a place to live there, but I'm sure we'll find one. I should be going there next weekend with a classmate, hopefully I can find a place to rent while I'm there.
We are excited to get back to Arizona. Karen is sad to be leaving Wyoming again, but with the money they're going to be paying me we'll definitely be able to afford going back more often. We think about you all and can't wit to see you. I know we'll see a lot of you at the Beach Bash on Dec. 29. Until then.

More pictures...

Here are some more pictures. We have decided that Libby must look more like the Beach side of the family, since she looks NOTHING like the Robertson side....

Her hair is curly when it's wet!

Grace with ponytails.

Wild Hair!

Grace "Spaghetti Head" Beach

Cutie Libby

Pictures

Welcome Libby!!

Claire Elizabeth Beach (a.k.a. Libby) was born on Nov 1st at 1:35 pm weighing in at 8 lbs 7 oz, was 20 inches long and has lots and lots of dark curly hair! We are glad she is here. Grace seems to like Libby pretty well, and laughs and laughs when we let her get close and get a good look at her.

Vroom Vroom

Grace playing cars at Grandma Flash's

No!!!

Grace has learned to say "no" really, really, well. Here she is.

From the airport in Albuquerque......

As I write this post I am sitting in the airport in Albuquerque, NM. I'm on my way to Tucson to start my job with the US Border Patrol. I have two days in Tucson before I go to Artesia, NM for 11 weeks for the Border Patrol Academy. Many of you that are reading this didn't even know that I had your email addresses. Some of them I stole from mass emails and others I have just added to my contacts from an email announcing a mission reunion in Utah that I am going to miss by less than a week. (I'm really sad that I will miss that.) I just wanted to let everyone know what we are up to and how drastically things have changed for us in the last week. Many of you who are even quite close family and friends are learning this news at the same time as people who I have not spoken with for a very long time. For this, I apologize. If you are not bored out of your minds yet and you keep reading you will maybe understand why I did not contact you before I left Utah. Sorry, especially to Jonesy and Lewis--I know we had tentative plans to get together in the next few weeks, but it looks like you'll have to take a rain check until December. Anyways, I'll get to the story telling now.
If you really don't have much to do with your free time you may have already read our all-too-infrequently-updated blog and you already knew that we had been living in Utah since January. While there I had been working a lot of hours at several jobs. We quickly realized that we would not be able to afford going back to school to get my Master's degree on the wages that we were earning in Utah (and the ridiculous cost of health insurance.) So, in February we restarted the application process for the Border Patrol. Many of you know that my brother is an agent in Casa Grande, AZ and had talked me into applying before I graduated back in May 2005. They offered me the job then but we turned it down thinking we had better options. Long story short-it turns out a BA in Political Science doesn't really provide many options. So, poverty and the threat of living in my mother's basement forever persuaded me to apply again. Luckily, I only had to do part of the hiring process again since my file was still current in the system and, since I had originally scored a 98 on the entrance exam, I was at the top of the pile of candidates. A few hiccups along the way made things take a little longer than we had hoped, but finally we were in a waiting phase at the beginning of this month. We were really thinking we would probably get a job offer by the end of the year, but last week is when somebody was really looking out for us. Allow me to bore you with the details.
Two weeks ago I received more paperwork back from the Dept. of Homeland Security that needed to be filled out and signed again. I figured this would hold things up for another month or two. However, because I am a bit impatient and I don't like waiting-especially for the inevitable-on Wednesday of last week I started calling all of the phone numbers that I had in my phone for contacts at Homeland Security. I got really lucky and actually got someone to answer the phone-usually you have to leave a message. I asked the first lady about the paperwork that I had resubmitted to make sure that they had received it. She was the wrong person, but she transferred me to another office. The second lady was also the wrong person, or so she thought. She asked me for my Social Security number so that she could see which office did have my file. To her surprise and mine, her office had just received my file that morning. I asked her what that meant. She said that I should be getting a call by the end of that week with a job offer. Great!, I thought. Things were going faster than we had hoped. I decided to pick the woman's brain and ask what the likelihood would be of getting to have a say in the city we got stationed in. She told me that they really can't accommodate requests, but, since she had a little extra time, she would put a note in my file of where I would like to be stationed if the person who called me had that option available to them. I thanked her excessively and hung up feeling pretty good about life.
To my surprise, the same woman called me back about two hours later. She remembered our conversation from earlier and said that since we had spoken somebody had canceled and there was a job available in Tucson starting this week. She said that normally they would just go back to the top of the stack and start calling people. Usually they don't have much success doing this so she thought she would give me a try. I was ecstatic. The only catch was that she needed me to report in a week. I told her that I had to talk to my wife first, but that I would probably be taking it. And we did. And here I am in Albuquerque.
Now, remember Karen is due to have our second girl at the end of October. We were prepared for this possibility, though. It is going to be hard to not be there when the baby is born-very hard-but she is going back up to Wyoming next week to stay with her mom and be by all of her family that can help with Grace and help her after the baby is born.
We are so excited to get stationed in Tucson, though. It's considerably close to family in Phoenix, my brother Conan is actually in Tucson, and I can finally go back to school. Oh, and the money will be 2 times what we were making in Utah. I'll be done with the academy on Dec. 20 and back in Utah then to pick up our things from my mom's basement. before we actually all move to Tucson. I hope to see some of you in Utah then.
Well, I have managed to waste a significant amount of your time. I just wanted to let you all know what was going on with our little family. We hope to hear from you all soon.

PS: I've included some pictures of our cute little girl, Grace.

Long time no post....

Ok, so we are horrible bloggers. I didn't help that both Logan and I forgot how to sign in. Anyway, we are still in Utah, but have hopes of moving to Arizona maybe by the end of the year. We are looking into the Border Patrol again, we will let you know how that pans out. Logan is working for a geotechnical consulting firm in SLC. His worksite is right by Temple Square. He thinks it is cool to be able to lookup during work and see the Angel Moroni and all the spires on the SLC Temple. He is working like crazy. More than 70 hours this week. Can you say - "hooray for overtime!"?

We are expecting our second kid at the end of October. It is going to be another girl, and we are excited. I try to tell Grace (who is currently 14 months old) that there is a baby in Mom's tummy, but she just pokes my belly and laughs. Maybe she understands more than I think she does. She is growing up so fast lately. She can say some words, but refuses to say them on request. I guess she doesn't want to be treated like a circus monkey and perform on demand. She does however, understand a LOT of what we say. I never thought I would have to start spelling out words so early... Like W-A-L-K. If she hears that she is headed for the door and is mad if we are not fast enough getting things together.

Here are some pictures of her. I sure think she is CUTE!!



Grace with Grandma Flash!!












Reading a book













Grace with her cousin Maren.













Just about to get a ride on the
"wagon- express"!

I never thought I would live in Utah!

Well, we now live in Centerville, UT. I know, you're probably thinking: "What is wrong with these people?" Not only did we move again, but we moved to Utah of all places. It sure is different here! Well, here's my brief explanation:
The job at the Wyoming Trout Ranch was fun and it seemed like a really good opportunity for us. However, it turned out that we were lied to quite a bit. I was hired on as the manager of the place with the promise of a pay raise, a great house to live in when the place sold and some other benefits. In actuality, I was just a manual laborer; we were going to be stuck in a tiny house smaller than the apt. we lived in when I was still in school; and the pay was not enough to take care of our bills. On top of it all we were poorly treated and it wasn't very hard to decide what we should do. The owner of the ranch was not happy at all that I quit and he tried really hard to cause trouble for us before we left. (He actually tried to back-charge me my salary pay because he hadn't given me enough work for me to "earn" the salary that he had paid me.) That was just one of the crazy things about the guy. There were many other little things that just added up to a bad deal for us.
So, we are here in Utah living in my mom's basement. I'm trying to get two jobs so we can whittle down a bunch of debt and go back to get my Master's in August. If all goes as planned we will be in a program that's in Washington D.C.
We are doing well. Grace is doing really well--even though we keep moving. I'm sure she's not near as sick of it as I am (what a drag.) It was really nice getting to know Karen's family a lot better while we were up there. They sure are fun!
We'd love to hear from all of you. Feel free to make comments to our blog--just remember, everyone can read what you say--so be nice.
Our new address here in Utah is:

938 N. 500 W.
Centerville, UT 84014

Our new numbers are:
Logan: 307-250-4226
Karen: 307-250-4228

First Post!

Hello Everyone!! Here is the start of our blog. Hopefully we can keep everyone updated with our activities and post pictures of our family. Here are the latest happenings for the L&K Fam. Logan traveled to AZ to pick up all of our belongings that were in storage. Karen is glad to have her kitchen with her, and Logan is glad to have all of his books. Now he just has to find the time to read them.

A big thanks to all the family that helped us with this latest trip. You all helped, and we are so grateful for your help!

Ross, it was great to see you, it had been too long. Logan really enjoyed all the time he spent with you. Thanks for all the Christmas gifts everyone. They are great and truly appreciated! I have posted a few pictures of Grace in some of the outfits. Speaking of the little devil. She has learned to crawl and to whine. Karen in learning to deal with both. She is getting big (20 lbs) and has a super fun personality (aside from the whining).

Logan loves the Red Neck articles received for X-mas. Ironically they are coming in quite handy in this rural and cold environment. Logan also loves the gift Karen got from Chrissy. A monkey bread pan! Karen had a good time staying with Laurie and John just before the New Year. Thanks a bunch for your hospitality, you are sweethearts.