Upcoming events

I have 2 kids that are going to have birthdays soon and it starts to make you realize that you are getting older. Not that they are having the birthdays, but it sparks that little bit of memory where you look at them and remember when they were little and wonder where the time has gone.

Couple that with natural milestones in their lives and it makes you start to realize that time marches on whether you like it or not. Last Sunday, Aurora received her certificate of graduation from Primary and now will go into Young Women's.

So, for those of you that wanted to know and feel just a bit older, there ya go. Have a nice day.

5 for $5.95, Yummy

Ok, I'm a fan of Arby's and I went and took advantage of the 5 for 5.95 today. It was great. 2 regular roast beef sandwhiches, curly fries, mozerella sticks, and a medium Mr. Pibb. It was a great meal. It got rid of that craving I've been having. I know that my wife likes Arby's but I'm being a thoughtful husband and not eating it in front of her.

My wife rocks! She is kicking some major butt on the weight loss issue, she can fill you in more if she wants, but she is way kicking butt. I think that she looks hot in very baggy clothes. They are almost too baggy, but we'll buy her some more clothes soon.

So I did the classic blunder of wanting to blog something, but didn't do it at the time that I thought of it and totally forgot what I was going to blog about. Goes to show that blogging topics aren't always important.

Something cool, my uncle is a photographer for BYU and he took this picture of the TCU game last Saturday showing the guy fumbled before crossing the line, or did he? I have a great family, extended family on both sides, for the most part anyway.

Road Trip!

Whadda BlogWell we are down to the last week. I am going home friday no matter what! We have been gone for 85 days. We have spend 70 + hours in our vehicles. We have driven to or at least through Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, All over Missouri and back through to Wyoming and Friday we head back to UTAH. I am so excited! Jade (Rick's cousin) and I are so excited to go home we are ready to explode. Its been hard being away from what most call normalcy. The boys go to work at 9 in the evening and get home anywhere between 5 to 9 in the morning. Then they come home hang out and go to bed around noon. Makes for a long day/night for me.
My kids have handled it well for the most part. The first part of the trip I argued with Jazmine about how we were going to stay up at night and sleep during the day. She was determined that we only sleep at night. Now she waits till around 4 or 5 in the morning to go to bed.
All of the kids have grown so much. Jaxon went from and infant to well a big infant. He sits up, eats babyfood, and is starting to eat finger foods. He has a little temper when he doesn't get what he wants which is his mom most of the time. He hasn't gotten sick since South Dakota so that is way nice. I don't want to spend all the money we make on Dr. Bills.
Kyli is a sweet little mean thing. She punches like a boy and head butts everything. She headbutted me right in the kidney today...not a good feeling. She has grown so much it kills me. She talks so much sometimes you want to just tell her to sshhhhhhhhh!
Jazmine is too smart for her own good. She unfortunately addicted to television. Its even starting to rub off on Kyli. Last night Kyli woke up in the middle of the night wanting to hold me then she wanted to watch a movie. The guys were off work so we all went to bed early. It was so nice.
I think I have slept more on the couch then I have on my bed so it was nice to actually lay down with my hubby and sleep for 8 hours.
Rick and I have had our ups and downs. Life hits you pretty hard when everything changes. We have made up and now we are happy. -Till the next fight. :)
We have big plans when we get home. Like sale or house and our condo and down size a little since we will be traveling most of next year.
I am way excited to see my family. My mom and dad are planning to come visit the day I get home and that makes me so happy. Its been the longest since I have seen them. I am excited for so much. I hope getting home will be fun. Looking forward to seeing everyone.
See you on Friday!! If you come visit me cuz I ain't goin no where!

Car Accident

I heard a pretty funny thing today and thought I would share. The following link is to a radio station and a person is leaving a message when there is an accident that happens right in front of him involving a guy and 4 old ladies.

He is pretty descriptive and you have to listen very carefully to certain parts because he is laughing so hard that it is difficult to make out certain parts. You will love it. Here is the link:Click Here

Work, Work, Work....

It's Friday to a very blurry week. I was sick most of the week. I caught something late Sunday and was in bed most of Monday. I got up and went to work on Tuesday except I called in to Albertson's and didn't work there. Wednesday was pretty good but Thursday, I woke up just miserable. I came to work but just couldn't keep my head up. I left around 9 and went home to sleep. I did work at Albertson's last night and I'm doing pretty good today.

Anyway, other than being sick, it sure feels like all I do is work. I'm hoping to do some family stuff on Monday night for FHE. We are getting the Living Scriptures. We signed up for them while they were at the fair and they gave us the first one while we were there. So, we will get one once a month and will spend the month doing FHE and Sunday activities from the video and accompanying book. I think it'll be a lot of fun if we can keep up on it.

So, that's it for now. Boring life, but I kind of like it that way.

No Complaints, O.K. Maybe One or Two

So as they say, a win is a win. I totally agree. Last night the wife and two of the three kids and I went to the U of U vs. Air Force football game. It was a pretty good game and the Utes won, so alls well. Ok, maybe not, I think the Utes got lucky. I'm a big Ute fan, but to be up bye 17 and then only winning by 3, there is something wrong. The forth quarter sucked. At around 5 minutes left the stadium was starting to really empty out. I was thinking that the game wasn't over, but I was hoping for some more good play by the Utes, maybe a touchdown, but what I got was an ulcer. it came down to bad play calling. Brian Johnson threw on average of 14.5 yards and there was only one receiver that was under 10 yards per catch, the next person was 12 yards per catch. So here's my big question...Why would you run on 3rd and 12? I guess Kyle Whittingham likes the close games. It's football if the other team can't stop you, run up the score. That's my opinion. I'm happy about the win and it was a fun game to go to.

As I said earlier, we took the two oldest kids. Jarik must have been really bored or really ramped up on the sugar we were feeding him because he was so wired that he wouldn't stop moving. It was fun, but I felt like I had wrestled him for about the whole game. It wasn't fun in that I didn't get to watch the game too closely. It was fun, Tiaree had a good time. She hung out with Neal and Heather and had a great time. She came down and talked to me for a minute and I asked if she was having fun sitting with Uncle Neal and she said, "Yep", and headed back to sit with them again. It was cool.

I'm going to get to work now. Laters.

Good Break, I'll do Better

To all my loyal readers, I want to apologize for the lame excuse of a blogger I have been. So my life has been in a quick firestorm lately, everything seemed to be go-go-go, but things are settling down a little. We had some network issues at work here and that killed any connection to the outside world. They are all fixed now and so here I write. Here's a list of the cool things that have happened recently; I saw my first pro NFL game on the 11th, then I spent a few days in San Francisco and that was cool. I got my wife a pearl necklace, I got to choose the oyster and everything. My kids are growing up, not that I want them to go to fast, but they are growing up. Bree is a funny little girl, Tiaree is too smart, and Jarik has a very mean side, but he also has a very sensitive side as well. Kids rock!! My wife is the best wife in the world. She puts up with me. Those are some of the coolest things in my life right now. I have a killer job, a PSP that I didn't pay for (no, I didn't steal it either), and a house that needs me to finish all my little jobs, but it's awesome. It's pretty cool. So that's what's up in a nutshell. May seem pretty lame, but my family, my house, and my job are pretty much what I do. Well that's it for now. I'll try and think of something more profound later.

"Our State Fair is a Great State Fair...."

For those of you that don't know the reference, that is one of the songs from Roger's and Hammerstein's State Fair.

We went to the Utah State Fair on Friday and it was quite a lot of fun. I took the entire day off from work and, after we saw the kids off to school, Alythea and I, with the remaining 2 kids went to the state fair. It was a lot of fun to see some of the things that they had there. We saw cows and chickens and goats and sheep and rabbits. There were horses and pigs too. It was nice with only the two youngest who, for the most part, stayed in the stroller that we had.

After lunch, we went home to pick up the other two kids that were now out of school. When we got back to the fair, it was nothing but fighting and whining and running off.

We did do a couple of fun things. They had the pig races. They had "free betting" in which you received one ticket of the color of your choice that would correspond to a pig. If your pig won the race, you would receive a blue ribbon. If they called your number, you got a t-shirt. Nicole won a t-shirt for the first race.

We got to see the bird show which was pretty fun mostly because I like birds. The lady that does it is REALLY goofy but it was fun. We saw the worlds largest bull and the worlds smallest horse. It was a lot of fun, but expensive.

About dinner time, we were trying to decide what to have for dinner. When we all started commenting on what we wanted, I realized that it was going to be about 10 bucks each so we decided to leave and go to Golden Corral. It would be about $40 but we would get more for our money and Jayna would eat free PLUS we would get desert.

So, it was a lot of fun. I would suggest, for those of you with kids, doing a split day like we did. It was good to go and see what we wanted to see and then we wouldn't have to drag the kids to do the "boring" stuff. BTW, stay away from the rides. The tickets are $1 each and some rides are 2-4 tickets. You can get an all day pass for $16 per person if you are interested but that still gets expensive.

Almost Home

We are almost home. I am getting so ansy. We have been on the road since July 5th. We have driven well over 50 hours in our cars. Our kids have grown and we miss our family. We are sick of living with a whole bunch of other people. We are excited to get home. We have lots of plans when we get home. Hope it all goes well. I will keep you posted.

Back and Ready to Work

Ok, well last week was a great week. I went to San Francisco and had a great time. San Francisco is a great place. The conference I went to was good. I got to watch the 49ers win over the Rams live. It was awesome...here's a picture...


It was a great trip. Anyway, time to get to work. Laters!

Animal Farm - Finale

Despite the need for sleep, I stayed up and finished Animal Farm. It was a really good book and an eye opener. I find a few things amazing and they DO apply to us as well.


(1) Life is going to be difficult.
(2) When one tyrant is removed, another one will take his place.
(3) Most people would rather be led around by the nose than think for themselves.
(4) Politicians are pigs.
(5) We are quick to forget our past troubles.
(6) Change isn't always good.
(7) Most would not question the leader that was their friend at one time.
(8) There will always be someone that will be ready to take advantage of you.
(9) The old addage of a frog in water holds true*.
(10) Once you have your freedom, know what it entails and do NOT let someone dictate to you what your freedoms really are.

There are a lot more lessons and I'm sure that there are a lot of things that could be added to this list. Even being a "fairy tale" as was Orson Wells' subtitle, it really isn't a nice story because it hits too close to home. Those that seem benevolent in the beginning could be there to take advantage as much as they can. Those that are benevolent will usually be run out by those that want to take advantage and then lied about. As we review all those "criminals" that started out doing good, how much do we know that they actually did? Just because the "authorities" say they are now criminals, is it really the case?

Anyway, up above I put a * on number 9. I did this to indicate that I would talk about this. For those of you that don't know the addage of the frog, here you go.

If you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump out because it is too hot. If you put a frog in normal water, and heat it slowly, the frog will eventually boil to death. The reason is, that the water is fine in the beginning. As heat is applied, the water temperature rises slowly and if the water was ok a second ago, it still is ok. That continues until the water is eventually boiling.

It works the same with everything. As little changes are made, changes that really seem insignificant, they may be small pieces in a puzzle. What was ok yesterday should still be ok today. If we add one little, small change, what does it matter? We find out after its too late to see that all the changes have brought us to a point where we are again ready for a revolution. Then, the cycle starts all over again.

Animal Farm

I went to the library last week and got Animal Farm and started reading it. I got the movie from the library yesterday and we sat and watched it with the kids. The kids thought it was ok until the horse, Boxer, dies. Nicole was soooooo upset. It took me a while after the movie to get her calmed down. She was just so sad that the horse had died. Even Mason was crying during the movie when it happened.

Anyway, the book and movie are pretty good. It is an interesting concept but seems to be a cynical but somewhat accurate protrayal of things that happen with government, revolutions, etc. For those of you that have read the book, you know what I mean. For those of you that haven't, well, if you ever felt bad about eating bacon, after this you won't.

My Book

Figured I'd post my book. I actually got it from the library and am trying to read it. With all the free time I have, I should finish it in about a year.

You're Animal Farm!

by George Orwell

You are living proof that power corrupts and whoever leads you will become just as bad as the past leaders. You're quite conflicted about this emotionally and waver from hopelessly idealistic to tragically jaded. Ultimately, you know you can't trust pigs. Your best moments are when you're down on all fours.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Dog gone....

I know I'm posting this late, but with my schedule, it is difficult to know when I'm going to have time to blog.

Anyway, as you read previously, Tracy and his family went up to Casper, Wyoming to meet up with Nicole and Ricky. Since they were headed that way, they took Keisha and Zoey, Nicole's mutts, up with them. So, we are now down to 2 dogs. Its a lot quieter around and this weekend went pretty peaceably.

Don't get me wrong, I like the fact that I was able to help out my sister and know she will return the favor if I'm ever in a jam. I think that is what is great about family. You know you can count on them. I try to be as reliable as possible to my family and I know they also try to be reliable and accomodating. I know I can count on them in a fix and I hope they know they can count on me.

Anyway, enough of the boring stuff. Since I'm not very good at things that aren't boring, I'll end here.

Good Weekend

So our trip to Casper, WY went over without a hitch. Ok, well there were a few things but it worked out in the end and we had a great time. My wife wasn't ready to come home, something about staying in a hotel does that to her. I think it's the swimming pool and the beds being made. Nic and Rick got there a little later than expected, and I learned why have a cell phone is good, but sucks when you are somewhere that the service isn't available. They got there safe and we all had a good time. Got home last night just before 10 and got the car unpacked and the kids in bed. Then I fell into bed myself and was out. When Chels came into bed she said she gave me a kiss on the cheek and I didn't even stir or anything. I must have been tired. Anyway, the trip was fun and now it's time to start getting ready for San Francisco. I'm pretty excited for that trip. I'll follow up with both the trips with pictures later.

Pictures

These are some pictures that I took over the last little while. I think that they are pretty cool and I wanted to see how easy it was to get pictures into the blog now.



Provo River Falls




Squash vines growing in my Grandma's backyard

Go Utes!!

Good news for Ute fans! I just wanted to blog and fill you in on the latest and greatest, or whatever is going on. So our Capser trip is currently on, but as of now, we are minute to minute. We are trying to make sure we meet up with the right people. I want to go to Casper and have a good time, but we'll see what happens.

As for the training I was in all week, it was ok, not too boring like some other training I've been too.

The Utes opening game is tonight against Arizona. It will be good to see how they overcome the loss of last years graduating class and Alex Smith, who by the way threw his first touchdown pass in the NFL last night.

Well you all have a good Labor day weekend doing anything but laboring, haha.

Quick Blog

So I'm in training this week for doing portals. It's not too bad of training and I'm practicing some of my Java skills. Life is good there. We might have to cancel the greatly anticipated trip to Casper, WY. Some outside issues and gas are causing me to rethink the whole long road trip thing. My dear wife wants to go spend a few days in Logan, which would be a lot of fun. I think the idea was to get out of dodge for the weekend, it is needed. If we don't go anywhere, I can hopefully get some more done on the fence in the back. If I can get that done, then my trip to San Fran will be a little less worrisome about the family here at home. We'll see what happens. Anyway, I'm patiently waiting for my ride to come and then I'm off. laters

Another fun quiz to try

K I found this from Hobbes' blog. I like that I'm The Hobbit. I was hoping for something childlike!!

You're The Hobbit!

by J.R.R. Tolkien

All you wanted was a nice cup of tea when some haggard crazy old man
came into your life and told you it was time to do something with yourself. Now you're
all conflicted about whether to stick with your stay-at-home lifestyle or follow this
crazy person into the wild. While you're very short and a little furry, you seem to be
surrounded by an even greater quantity of short folks lately. Try not to lose your ring,
but keep its value in perspective!


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

New Trained Cashier ... sort of.

I have officially finished 12 hours of training and will probably be on my own for the most part on Saturday. I've done fairly well, or so I've been told. There are a few issues though.

On Wednesday, I trained with Chris who trained a certain way and on Thursday with Brett who was different in a lot of respects. Both were / are front end managers or supervisors so they should know what they are doing. BUT, there are little things that are different that have thrown off my timing on certain things.

Not to mention, the closing manager the last 2 nights keeps coming over and offering "other" advice or getting mad at my trainers for not "properly" training me.

For example, there is a way to move the groceries called the pass method (which I do and am comfortable with) where you pick up the item with your right, sweep it across the scanner to your left which then sends it to the bagger. It is called the pass because the item passes from the right hand to the left hand.

The way the front-end manager decided I needed to do it (last night at 9:45 when I leave at 10:00) is called the swim method. That is where you grab one item with the left, sweep it across the scanner into the bag while you grab an item with your right hand. Then you sweep the item in your right hand across the scanner into the bag while you grab another item with your left hand. (I tried this and I drowned.)

So, she comes over, tells me she's going to check and for me to watch her. Brett, who had listened to her, disagreed with her on the method. So, with both of us watching, the Front-End manager had someone with several of the yogurt cups come through. She did a combination swim and pass method alternating methods between cups.

When she was done, both Bret and I commented on her pass method by which her reply was that she did not use the pass method but used the swim method.

Needless to say, this is getting more confusing. Hopefully, now that I am trained (for the most part) they will back off and let me do the job. I'm not interested in getting the best stats, the best times, the best methods, etc. I'm interested in doing a good job in which they pay me to do. We will see what happens over the next few weeks.