Summer 2012 Otherwise known as Provo is kinda fun?

I posted this on our MBASA (MBA Spouse Association's) blog, but I thought I'd post it here as well since it gives a pretty good synopsis of what's been going on with the Malones this summer.

 I made the decision early on that no matter where my husband, David, ended up getting an internship, I would stay in Provo for the summer, mostly on account of the fact that I work at BYU and couldn't take 10 weeks off of work for his internship. David was in the military before coming to BYU for his MBA so we are well-accustomed to both moving (A LOT) and being separated (A LOT).

But as winter semester came to an end, David was still without an internship.  He had done everything he was told to do--information sessions, conferences, networking, etc.--but came up empty each time. I knew something would work out in the end, but David, as you can imagine, was more than a little stressed by the situation. In the middle of finals week he had an interview with one company; the next week he had landed an interview with another company and suddenly and inexplicably in the matter of one week, he went from having no leads to have two very promising possibilities. A week after finals, David received an offer from Utah Retirement Systems and one week after that, he started his internship. Just like that. It really is amazing how these things work out sometimes. And even better, I got to keep my husband around for the summer. David certainly had not been planning on doing a local internship, but in retrospect, it was the absolute best outcome.

Utah Retirement Systems (URS) is Utah's public pension fund providing benefits to teachers, firefighters, policemen, etc. David was hired as a finance intern with URS's real estate team who manage a diverse portfolio of both domestic and international properties. David's main project was to analyze and assess the risk in the portfolio using various techniques including Monte Carlo simulation (don't ask me what that means) on many of their holdings and potential future investments. The team includes just 4 people (5 with David) so he got a lot of personal mentoring, and was instrumental in helping them close several important deals. In fact, they liked him so much that they've asked him to continue working for them (part-time) for the rest of the school year.

The whole family, meanwhile, had a great summer. Surprisingly, Provo is actually a really fun place to be in the summer. There's tons of fun, family-friendly and nearly free activities going on all the time. Here's how we passed our summer:

We hung a swing from a tree in our front yard and our daughter, Zara, had a blast swinging. In fact, "swing" is one of the few words she can say clearly and definitively.

We went to Provo's Pioneer Day Extravaganza. I'm pretty sure Zara wants a pony now.

We hiked Stewart Falls up Provo Canyon.

It's a pretty easy hike (our daughter was able to do a lot of it herself) and the falls are absolutely breathtaking.

We planted a garden in our backyard.

And things actually grew! (We have NOT been successful in this arena in the past.)  

 

In fact, we may have been TOO successful. I'm going to have way too much butternut squash on my hands in a few weeks.They are HUGE.

We visited David's work and since he worked only a few blocks from Temple Square, we took in the sights.

We spent the week in San Diego with my family and had a blast playing in the sand and water.

(And by we, I really just mean Zara. And yes, that bear goes with her everywhere.)

But best of all, we just got to spend lots of time together as a family. It's the first time in four years of marriage that David has not been going to school full-time (on top of working full-time) so we just got to spend lots of great quality time together.