News Flash: July and August 2007

The Erb Report [[text of our mass email]]

We apologize for not keeping in touch better with our friends and family. Some of you have had the great privilege of talking to us on the phone, and others have emailed us (at our growing number of email addresses!) to find out what was going on.

[[If you have received this email and feel that you are neither friend nor family--and would like to not be included in future emails--please click this link to unsubscribe . Actually, the link doesn't work. I don't know if we'll ever send out a mass email like this again, so the odds are that you won't get another one, anyway.]]

This email chronicles the events of our lives during the past 2 months. We have not intended to be all-inclusive nor continuous in our chronology, but instead have chosen to highlight events from our life that we think some of you may actually be interested in. (If you don't care to read, scroll through the email and look for the links--these will take you to different picture albums for you to look at.)

Although some of our friends are very good about sending out a weekly email, including things like "Bests" and "Worsts," we have yet to remain constant in our Erb-ly updates. So, after this grand synopis of our lives, please add the following blog pages to your favorites and check them often:
The Erb Report, http://erbreport.blogspot.com
The Jill Erb Report, http://jillerbreport.blogspot.com, aka Jill's version of our lives.
(If you're feeling really blog-savvy, we have our RSS feed turned on, so you can add this to your reader.)

July 2007

The first part of this month lacked anything of much note; Jill worked and Jeremy was finishing up Summer semester at BYU-Idaho.

Jeremy graduated on July 18th. It was quite a day. After a yummy lunch with Jill, Jeremy's family (Ruthie and Lauren), and Jill's family (Dave, Claudia, and Misty), Jeremy donned his graduation regalia and went to rehearse with the choir. Then, he walked around in the summer heat and slowly started to melt along with the rest of the graduating class. Thankfully, they moved us all inside the Spori to wait for the long march into the Hart buidling. After the graduation program, the process was reversed and everyone was back outside again. Then, Jeremy and Jill met up with everyone (mostly just immediate family) and headed over to the newly expanded Snow building. There, Jeremy and everyone else sat around and waited for Convocation to begin. During the program, poetry was read, a musical number was performed, some thoughts were shared, diplomas (well, just the covers) were handed out, and Jeremy spoke. For those of you who care to read what was said, the speech is attached to this email.

After Convocation, many, many pictures were taken. Eventually, the adoring crowd found its way over to the Walker home in Rexburg, Idaho for more mingling and lots of yummy food. Lots of people stopped by (the smart ones skipped the graduation and convocation ceremonies and came over dressed casually for the food) and everyone had a good time.

The next week saw much packing, garage-selling, and heavy lifting (Jeremy even helped a little bit) as Jeremy and Jill prepared for the cross country move. [[For those who actually notice the sentence structure, I'm going to shift away from third person because it's starting to get annoying.]]

We managed to sell everything, including the Suburban, our bed, two couches, and various and sundry other items from our home. We took a small load of stuff to D.I. and gave some things away. The only thing we regret giving away was all of our cool (and expensive) spices that we collected over the last year (and when I saw "we," I really mean Jeremy; and when I say "expensive spices," I really mean the johnny's seasoning salt, cajun seasoning, ginger, and toasted sesame seeds that I wanted to use the other day while making dinner).

On the 23rd, we loaded everything into our car. All of our clothes (except some winter stuff we put in a box to ship and a small bag we packed to have a change of clothes for the trip) got stuffed into garbage sacks, then in a car-top carrier, and strapped to the roof. Three utility straps kept the carrier safely secured to the roof for the duration of our drive. Everything else we owned (minus the "small" pile of nonessentials stored in the Walker basement) was expertly packed into our 1995 Audi A6 Quattro. Pots and pans, pictures, games, kitchen utensils, computer, printer, small appliances, knick-knacks, and a case of XS energy drink (along with other assorted things that I won't take the time to mention) were arranged with tetris master-like skills into the trunk and onto the back seat. [[Jill says that we have sufficiently established that the car was loaded to the hilt and that we should move on to the drive. ok.]]

We left Rexburg (twice, since we forgot to leave the keys to the house) and headed off on our great adventure. We drove through rainstorms the length of Wyoming and cornfields the rest of the way (seriously; I stopped counting after 600 consecutive miles of corn for as far as the eye could see). The first night we made camp in Grand Islands, Nebraska after driving around 900 miles. "Camp" was at the Holiday Inn. Thankfully, we found a place to stay. Although we were just past the middle of nowhere, for some reason every hotel (and we stopped by at least 6) was full. I think there was some antique roadshow or something coming through. Anyway, we got the last room at the Express, a king-sized suite. The lady felt bad when Jill went in at 1am (it was her turn to ask the night clerk if there was room) and gave us a great deal. We had a great night sleep.

The next day we drove over 600 miles to Chicago and stayed with Aunt Linda and Uncle John (Jeremy's family). We enjoyed a wonderful home-cooked which John had prepared: smoked chicken with grilled asparagus, rice, and the house salad with a balsamic vinagrette. As always, Uncle John's cooking was excellent. We shared dinner with Linda's co-worker and husband and enjoyed talking politics, religion, things to do in Boston, adjusting to the Northeast, and our "scenic" drive. Also, we were able to visit--for a few hours--with Jeff (Jeremy's cousin), who was home from school. It was great to see him and catch up in the little time we had.

After a wonderful evening at the Havard home, we got up and headed out of Chicago--taking a brief, although unintended detour, through the financial district on the way out of town--and found the road to New York. We drove another 600+ miles and ended up in a little place called Palmyra, New York. There, we stayed in the inn (thankfully there was room) and drove to a nearby town to get some food since the restaurants (all 3, it seemed like) were closed by 10pm, even though it was a Friday night. We found a Super Wal-Mart and bought some food that we could cook in the microwave in our hotel room. We also broke down and bought the new Harry Potter book.

The next day we slept in and then spent some time walking around the Sacred Grove and the Smith Family farm, followed by a stop at the Hill Cumorah visitors' center and the Hill Cumorah monument. We took some great shots and enjoyed spending time in these special places, reciting scriptures from Church History and imagining what life was like on the farm. I never realized how far away the Hill Cumorah was from the Smith Farm--it took us several minutes by car--and how large the hill actually was. We had a great experience at these sites. [[ N.B. We found out later that our mission president has been asked to serve as the Director of the visitors' center there at the Hill Cumorah, covering the Hill, as well as the Grove, the Joseph Smith home and Smith family farm, the Grandin Press, and the Peter Whitmer home. We'll have to try to make it out there again after the first of the year.]]

By mid-afternoon we started to make the last leg of the journey and drove the 375 miles to Boston. We arrived in the evening and drove around a little bit. Eventually, we found our way to the apartment of some friends in the nearby town of Marlborough. They were gracious enough to allow us to stay for a few days with them while we sought a place to live. We ate their food, stole their baby's room, and hogged bandwidth on their wireless network--all while trying to find a place to live. We went to Church on Sunday at the ward we were hoping to move into (Weston 2nd) and met a few people.

Monday we looked at apartments. (We also looked at some on Saturday evening). We eventually found a place in Watertown, applied, and were able to move in on the first.

August 2007

When I say move in, I meant that we could start taking stuff out of our car and put it on the floor of our apartment. We still stayed at our friends' place in Marlborough for a few nights. I started work on Tuesday (the 31st) and helped Jill unload and organize things in the evening. She did a lot of stuff while I was at work (shopping, spending money, finding all the things that we needed that we forgot or sold before we left, spending more money, etc.) and has really helped make our place our new home.

We live on the first floor of a two-family home; the owners live upstairs. It's on a quiet street, close to a bus stop, and we have quiet neighbors. About half of the block (and it's not too long) has been there for a while (our landlords have lived in the house since the 1950s) and others are young couples. We've included some pictures of the place. Over time, we collected things for our house. The first big purchase (investment, really) was a new bed--we had been sleeping on floors and air mattreses for nearly a week--and it felt like sleeping on a cloud the first night. We love our new bed. Then, we got an office chair, a little cupboard for our games, and some shelves to put up around the house.

One Saturday (before I started my second job/internship; Aug 18), we were walking to the bus stop to time our commute and came across a yardsale. We got a sweet bookcase (had to leave all of ours in Rexburg), a kitchen table and chairs (finally), and a "buffet" (whatever that is; it doesn't even come with food. It looks good in our living room, though, and we can hide stuff in it). The heavens had smiled upon us--we got a great deal on all that stuff. But...we still had to get it home (all 1/4 mile we had walked). We took a few things home in the Audi and were thinking about what to do with the rest, when someone came walking out of our backyard. Turns out, he was our landlords' son in for a visit. He mentioned that he was in town from New Hampshire. Then I thought--there was a pickup truck with New Hampshire tags that I hadn't seen on the street before, parked two houses down--and I asked him, "You don't happen to drive that pickup truck, do you?" And, he did.

Jim helped us go get the rest of the furniture. It was a blessing; he's a great guy.

After unloading our yardsale finds we finally ended up downtown. See our pictures to find out more.

Then, on Saturday the 25th we rented a U-Haul truck and picked up a couch, a love seat, an oversized chair, a way cool desk, and ended up with a free air conditioner along the way (it was a little dirty, but we cleaned and it is amazing. It was mid-90s that day and horribly humid. Our bedroom felt like heaven (the A/C was in there); the rest of the house felt like... Our house is really starting to come together. We had to buy some "specialized" equipment to hang our shelves and pictures--all the walls here are plaster and don't take too kindly to pounding nails. We have to plan out our decorating and make strategic holes in the wall with an electric drill (thank you Gift-and-Incentive album), gently tapping those plastic wall anchor things in, and then putting a screw in. The shelves gave us quite the headache.

So, overall, things are coming together nicely. We've gotten lots done and visited some neat places around the city. Besides our trips in to Boston, we've gone up to the beautiful Boston temple (we only had our camera at night, hence the dark pictures). Jill loved the flowers that were all over the grounds.

Jill got a job doing human resource coordinating at a company called American Student Assistance (it's like UHEAA). She starts on the 27th. We took a picture of her in front of her building (100 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA).

After spending 3 full weeks at a company called Innosight (www.innosight.com), I now split my time between **censored** and Innosight. I really like what I do at both places. At Innosight, I helped coordinate a US sales trip for a venture Innosight is involved in. I've also done research on software trends and wrote a case study about a company called EMC Corporation, highlighting their software acquisitions and their transition over time to a "complete solutions" information storage provider. One interesting note: While doing the case study, EMC held an IPO for a company they acquired back in 2004 called VMware; it turned out to be the biggest tech IPO since Google.

I work in the Finance Department of ** censored ** in Donor Programs (I'll try to explain).

** censored **

We're really excited to be out here in Boston and have loved our experiences thus far. Our good friends, the Clark and Christine Gilbert family, had us in their home before we left and gave us a list of "must-do's" in Boston and shared their expertise (having spent the last 10 years in Boston before moving to Rexburg). We look forward to exploring historic New England and enjoying the many amazing things around us.

We wish you all well and will do our best to keep in touch.

Until next time,

Jeremy and Jill Erb
14 Dwight Street
Watertown, MA 02472

PICTURES BELOW (sorry, they're in separate albums so each has its own link):

Jeremy's Graduation
http://picasaweb.google.com/jeremyandjill/JeremySGraduation?authkey=2q7xHIr_r0E

The Road Trip
http://picasaweb.google.com/jeremyandjill/TheRoadTrip?authkey=mm2SdqXM-x8

Our First Venture to Boston
http://picasaweb.google.com/jeremyandjill/OurFirstVentureToBoston?authkey=T9N95RfvwyM

The Boston Temple
http://picasaweb.google.com/jeremyandjill/BostonTemple?authkey=9pic-joEaRw

Taking the MBTA to Boston
http://picasaweb.google.com/jeremyandjill/TakingTheMBTAToBoston?authkey=X82upm0VqZk

Our House
http://picasaweb.google.com/jeremyandjill/OurNewHouseCheckForUpdates?authkey=cGvXf9dNCTs

Jill's Visit to the Museum of Science
http://picasaweb.google.com/jeremyandjill/TheMuseumOfScience?authkey=v5ZWp2VkKSQ

More to come! Check our blogs and emails for future photo albums. =)

KEY INFORMATION

Address:
14 Dwight Street
Watertown, MA 02472

Phone Numbers:Home: (617) 209-8129
Jeremy Cell: (559) 300-7145
Jill Cell: (208) 757-8096

Email Addresses:
jeremyandjill@gmail.com
jill.e.erb@gmail.com

Blog Pages
http://erbreport.blogspot.com/
http://jillerbreport.blogspot.com/