Where Dreams Come True...

At the end of February, my mom came to visit Robert and I here in St. Petersburg for the first time.

To celebrate her arrival, we took her to Bern's Steakhouse for dessert.

It was delicious!

After dessert, we took a tour of the restaurant and their wine cellar. Bern's has the largest wine list of any restaurant in the world. Good thing I don't drink because I would never have been able to choose. It was neat to visit the cellar and see all the unique wines. Some wines were very expensive and locked behind caged doors.

After going to the beach and doing a little early birthday shopping for me, we headed over to Orlando where we met up with my brother and his family for some Disney fun and adventure.

The female version of the three caballeros (as):

The weather was perfect.

Two great things about Disney: Mickey Bars and being able to act like a princess without getting strange looks.

Introducing Princess JoAnna and Princess Kayla.

I think the crown fits just nicely, no?

The young ones couldn't survive the parks for the entire day, but this group here (with addition to Robert) stayed at the park from open to close both nights. Party animals or crazies!

We went to Epcot the first day, then capped off the trip with Magic Kingdom.

The highlights:

It was perfect timing to have my mom down here at this time of year, so we could go to Disney with Jason and his family. We had so much fun hanging with them at the parks and spending time resting at their condo. Thanks for letting us crash!

The place where dreams really do come true.

After coming down from our Disney high, we headed back to St. Petersburg where we tried to recover from all the walking. Mom and I hit up the hot tub for some needed soaking. We ate out some more and went to church. On her last day, before she headed back to Utah, we took a tour of Stetson's campus and Fort De Soto.

Welcome to the gun show (at Fort De Soto).

Thanks for coming mom, we had a blast!

Sales Conference 2012

Another year for the Simplifile Annual Sales Conference, which I have a role in helping plan the event logistics and activities. It's our big annual company event where we get together as a company and spend lots of time in meetings learning about the industry and how we can improve as a company.

It's not all meetings though...

there are some fun and games like our annual company bowling outing. It's a hit every year! I pretty much plan and run the whole event, which is fun when you get to hand out all the prizes.

It's a long week, so you need lots of sugar and treats to keep you going. There are always yummy snacks and food to eat during the conference, you never go hungry.

Each year, we take just the sales team out for an activity. This year, I selected to go on a carriage ride around downtown Salt Lake City and end at Squatters Pub for dinner. Everyone loved it and had a great time, even if it was a bit chilly as it was mid-February.

One of the highlights for me was winning the coveted team t-shirt during the bowling activities. Although, I was booed when I received my t-shirt for apparently stacking the teams. What me?!? ;) I guess it's one of the perks for being in charge (haha). This was the first year I introduced team t-shirts for the highest scoring team and everyone wanted one, so I better make sure to have them again next year.

Overall, it was another successful event!

Job Update

Beginning in January, Robert started working as an "official full-time employee" of Minor League Baseball. You can check out his bio on the MiLB website here or go to http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/info/bios.jsp?mc=_rfountain

He is loving his job so far and works about 2-4 days a week in between classes and his internship.

In early February he went on his first official travel for the company, where he visited Virginia State University to help with MiLB Diversity Initiative Program in helping VA State to implement a internship opportunity with MiLB.

He felt like a big shot because they had a chauffeur take him around from place to place.

While visiting Virginia State's campus located in Petersburg, VA he tried a new food "delicacy," or something to that affect - pigs feet. I don't think he is quite a fan yet...(that's it in the bowl next to his lemonade). Yummy.

As for my work, I am staying extremely busy. I just finished helping to plan and execute our company's annual Sales Conference, which is a big project and ended up being a success! More pictures to come on this later. I have been traveling more frequently and projects have become harder and more significant, which has allowed me to learn and grow a lot. I continue to take on new adventures and obstacles, which is constantly keeping me on my toes. I still enjoy working from the comfort of home, nothing beats rolling out of bed still in your pjs and going to work. :)

We both love our jobs and feel very fortunate to have been blessed with both of these great opportunities.

2012 Has Been Busy!

Like I said, it's been a crazy month and a half since 2012 officially kicked off. I can't seem to get my bearings yet and it's almost March!

Not all of it's work either, we take time to frequently host the missionaries and friends over for dinner and family home evening.

We love being in a branch with two sets of missionary companionships. It gives us a chance to interact and meet new people and make new friends.

Um...I don't think that is appropriate Elder!

Fun times at the Fountains.

Around the middle of January, I traveled to Utah for a week to visit the corporate office for another round of work meetings.

And naturally, I found some fun things to do in the meantime as well:

like attend a Jazz game with co-workers,

and go shopping with my Grandma Tolsma and mom.

In all the store, my Grandma managed to find the two most misfit toys there were. Luckily, she gave them a good home. We had a hoot that night shopping together. She kept laughing at the funny quote signs on display and the fact that she couldn't part with a horse that was missing a wheel and a Santa who had a a chipped knee.

Robert continues to stay busy with school and intramurals at Stetson. His class load has been lighter this semester because he is doing an internship in Tampa at the U.S. Attorney's Office.

In January, I was surprised with a brand new bike! I have been wanting a bike for sometime now, and I love it! It's perfect. Robert ended up buying a bike for himself, along with a new set of golf clubs.

I managed to skin my knees last month and I am still trying to recover (hah). No, it's not from riding my new bike. Humiliating enough, I tripped while playing tennis with my boss when I was in Utah. This was after I cleaned them all up.

Ouch!

We finally found some time to go out with our friends for a night of iceskating and dessert.

Another month has almost come and gone, and I am still hoping for time to slow down a bit because I sure need it!

Gator Bowl

To cap off our holiday break, we drove back up to Jacksonville to attend the Gator Bowl (Florida vs. Ohio State) with Robert's brother Austin and his girlfriend Mel. Not only was it my first bowl game, but our tickets were free! We had such a great time and the seats were amazing.

To start off the drive into downtown, we followed the team in. Following the buses really helps you get pepped up for game day.

Outside the stadium ready to go in. Mel is a big Ohio State fan, so she proudly wore her colors amongst all the local Gator fans. This was Austin's first college football game!

Before the game started we enjoyed all the pre-game festivities at the tailgate party. We listened to Florida's band and cheerleaders, played skill challenge games like: how fast can you throw a football (Austin won this with 50 mph - one off from the top record that day), how high you can jump (Austin again won this challenge), throw the football through hole and obstacle while moving, etc. We were workin' up quite the sweat before we decided to head in for the game.

We enjoyed being a part of the college atmosphere again. It was entertaining to watch each school and witness the team spirit and passion each fan has for their schools.

My favorite and vote went to Ohio State with their marching band. This baton twirler stole the halftime show. He was quite the entertainer and it really sparked the atmosphere, even if they lost.

More fun from our pre-game tailgate. We received one free photo. This is a classic shot.

Game highlights for those that are interested:

FL Gators 24 - Ohio State 17

1:00 PM ET, January 2, 2012

Everbank Field, JACKSONVILLE, FL

For the second consecutive year, Florida used superior special teams and opportunistic play to beat a Big Ten opponent in a bowl. Two of the Gators' three touchdowns came in the kicking game, as Andre Debose had a 99-yard kickoff return and Graham Stewart scored following Chris Rainey's blocked punt. Neither offense was overly impressive, but the Gators limited Ohio State's rushing attack and forced a pair of turnovers, including a DeVier Posey fumble in Florida territory. The Gators responded to every Buckeyes surge and nearly kept Ohio State off of the scoreboard in the second half.

Needless to say, we had a fun time.

New Year's Eve

We decided since we didn't have any big plans arranged for New Year's Eve we would take the opportunity to go out and celebrate Robert's new job by eating at a highly recommended restaurant in Tampa called Bern's Steakhouse.

First, when going out on New Year's Eve and to a nice restaurant you have to dress up a little.

Here are the outfits:

A touch of sparkle is needed to ring in the New Year.

Robert looked dashing in his new dress jacket and shirt, but we didn't realize his shirt was a cuff link only shirt. We had to do some last minute "repair."

Yes, that is a safety pin. No worries though, we still had a great night and no one noticed.

Welcome to Bern's Steakhouse.

This is the actual tint of the entrance to the restaurant. It felt like we had entered a haunted mansion. We loved it! It was unlike any restaurant I have ever been too.

Dinner is served.

Dig in!

We ate dinner until it was officially 2012. Our dinner reservation was for 10, so that's about a 2 hour dinner, and we were not finished yet!

We headed up the stairs to the dessert parlor separate from the main dining area.

This was probably my favorite part of the whole experience.

Decisions, decisions...

Since I was freezing, I settled on some hot chocolate. Robert and I split a most pleasant banana cream pie. Best I have ever had!

I loved the dessert floor because each table was enclosed, so you had a private dining experience where you could control what music you listened to. They had a live pianist playing and you could call into his line to request songs.

Two hours later, so full...but so good.

And that's how we spent our New Year's Evening, eating for four hours! We finally left the restaurant at 2:00 am.