Quarterly Update!

Its time once again for my every other month post due to my slackeritis disease. I contracted it sometime between the fifth and sixth grade and have been unable to find a cure yet.

Luckily not much has happened over the last few months so this will be brief. I started school again and am 3 weeks away from officially being a bachelor in some line of expertise. That is correct, I will be considered an expert of sorts in the field of business management. If you have a business you need managed I will know how to do it in 3 weeks, give me a call to reserve your spot.

We got a new pet. I begged my wife and she finally caved and now she loves the little dog like one of her own. I kind of like him too. He is a miniature Yorkie and is pretty darn cute for a punter dog. For those of you who don't understand, that is a dog you can punt across the room when they yap. Its an actual law on the books I think.

I finally entered the world of Face book. That's right, all three of you can now be my friend on the wonderful world of Face book. I can see why it is so addicting, I have to fight my wife to get on the computer once in awhile just to look at it. She lets me for a few seconds before grabbing it back and hunkering over in the corner again, yep she has a problem also. Yes that's her at the gas station.

It's All Cory's Fault

I'm going to die this Saturday. At sometime around 8:00 a.m. I will more than likely leave you all behind and go somewhere better than where I will be at that time. And it is all Cory's fault and I ask that you go after him to the full extent of whatever law you can.

Let me explain to you why I am blaming him in advance for something that I know is going to happen in the future. I'm sure you will come to see the logic in what I have to say. I read the blog of someone who I will only call Cory at this time, you can find out more about him by checking out the blogs I read. In this particular blog he ranted and raved about this amazing trail race coming up that you just had to try, remember it is AMAZING! I haven't really run much since the marathon last year because I ran that without training and hurt my foot. After months of doctors and rehab it feels pretty good and after reading his description I decided to sign up. My wife cautioned me that I may want to go run it before hand.....just in case. No, I thought, it's only 4 miles, I can handle that, plus I didn't recall Cory mentioning it being particularly difficult.

It sucks! I ran it today, and let me just say I think I might not make it back from this. It has what seems like a 500 foot drop off in the beginning. I'm not exaggerating this at all either, it is literally a drop off, sure it is a gravel road, but I'm fairly sure it is meant for mountain goats, not vehicles or people, especially people racing down it. Plus it hurts like crap, I think it might hurt less if I just tuck into a ball and roll down it.

Once I got to the bottom I couldn't figure out where it went from there. Sure there were some trails but every one I followed led me to nowhere, they just stopped. Now I have never been accused of being smart but seriously, they just stopped. After getting attacked by a massive, again not exaggerating at all, cloud of biting horse flies, I decided to head back because I had no clue where to go. Then I had to crawl, almost not kidding, back up the 1000 foot drop off I had just rolled down.

Fortunately for me that only describes the first part of the race, I still have to run another 3.5 miles. Besides that, no problem. I just hope the course is really marked well so they can find me later, or that they have anyone above 90 sign up so I have someone to follow that I can keep up with.

Worth the Effort

Over the weekend we took the kids and went up to Zions to do a little relaxing during the free national park weekend we had. Our plan was to go up do a little hiking and then get an ice cream cone and relax for a bit.

We decided to do the Emerald Pools hike and intended to get up to the upper pools. In order to get there you have to first hike up and through the other two pools which we did pretty easy. The final bit up to the upper pond was a little more strenuous than I remember it being years ago, that or I am incredibly older than I used to be. Either way, there were plenty of times that I wanted to quit and head back down for that ice cream cone waiting at the bottom.

The next morning as I was doing a little scripture study in the morning it got me thinking about that hike again. Here I was on this beautiful hike and when it got rough, I didn't want to continue with it. I had been satisfied (I thought I was anyway) with how far we had hiked and the sights we had seen up to that point, how much was I really missing anyway? When we got to the second pool a lady came by and told us not to waste our time going any farther, because it looked the same as the middle one . It did not in fact look anything like the middle one, and we would have missed this fact had we trusted her interpretation of the hike.

At the start of the hike up from the second to the upper pond, the path became quite steep, rugged, and tiring and I remember asking on a couple of occasions whether everyone wanted to turn back and go home.

Luckily on this hike, much like in life I had surrounded myself with people who would not be satisfied settling for less than the best. No one wanted to stop but me and that pushed me on through the rough spots to the end result which I was able to share with my whole family.

While on this hike we had so many little inconveniences and annoyances, from rocks and dirt to these little bugs flying around our heads, to people telling us it wouldn't be worth the effort, yet every time I felt like quiting, those around me wouldn't let me until we finished the hike.

How thankful I am for a family that hasn't let me quit any of the hikes I have been on in my life. I'm a much better person because of them.

Happy Birthday Lou!

Today is our baby girls sixth birthday. Every time I look at her I can't believe she has grown this big. She is such an amazing child with just the right mix of red headed fury and sweet sincere compassion. There are times where we wonder what we've gotten ourselves into but at the end of the day, she absolutely melts my heart and is the shining definition of a daddy's girl. She is the second best, or first best (if you ask her) hugger in the world and I count myself so lucky that she still loves to give them. She can be the shiest girl in the world or the biggest ham when the camera comes out. She has such a big heart and cares about everyone she sees. I love her with all my heart and can't wait to get home today so we can party! I love you Lou!

A Little Catching Up To Do

As I was browsing some blogs today I noticed a couple things that cause me some distress. The first was that I had not posted in two months and the second was that my sister who is a slacker about posting had not posted in two months, effectively making me a slacker by association.

So here is a little catching up post just so I am not in that category any longer. The past two months have been pretty eventful for our family. We had become foster parents and received our first foster child. He was with us as a shelter child and stayed with us for about a month until he was able to be reunified with his mother. We had a lot of mixed feelings about him going. He was not a very easy infant to have because he came in with some illnesses that caused him a lot of discomfort and so it was tough, but we really grew to love him and were pretty sad when he had to go back. I hope he is happy and safe.

The second thing that happened was I decided to try this HCG diet thing after seeing a neighbor try it and lose a lot of weight. Now I have always struggled with weight issues and really wanted to find some way to help kick start a new me. I did the diet for one month and lost 30 lbs. It was a really crappy month for someone who cooks food for a living. I could only eat 500 calories a day. I was constantly running to the garbage can at work spitting out what I had just put in my mouth. Any good cook has to taste the food they cook, everyone knows this, but I couldn't and kept forgetting this fact until it was in my mouth. But I stuck with it which is more than I can say for any diet I have ever tried much to my wifes surprise, and was pretty successful with it. I feel a lot better now and thats the main point. Things are good for us right now, thats what life is all about right?

Dirtiest Place On Earth

On our trip to the happiest place on earth we had to first make a pit stop here at an undisclosed gas station now know as the dirtiest place we've been. After coming out of this bathroom I felt less clean than when I went in. I almost washed my hand again in a puddle out front just to make sure they were clean.

I Won!

We are staying at my sisters house in Springville for a baby blessing tomorrow. We are in a house with 11 kids running around. Luckily we have a Wal-Mart that stocks the wonder sleep aid known as melatonin. One of my nephews thought he could fight the effects of this and stay awake all night. We made a bet, turns out I won in under an hour!

Westate Border Wars

Continuing in the awesome parent theme we have going we decided to take the kids to the movies today. Being the awesome and also cheap parents we are we made a pit stop to buy treats at a much cheaper rate than was being offered at the local theater. Yes, we understand this will offend some out there but really, who is more at fault, us or those that charge 3 bucks for a dollar candy....makes ya think doesn't it?
After watching a show called Border Wars we had the perfect way to sneak our product across the border and into the movie. Strapping it on the back of our youngest child seemed like a fairly decent option so why not try it? After getting out of the car and watching her struggle to not fall over backwards we decided that making a five year old carry snacks for twelve people might be mistaken for cruel punishment. We quickly split it between 3 purses and headed into the theater.

For the most part things went smoothly, only my sister Mary Jo seems to struggle. She looked nervous and jumpy every time she saw an employee. What a Rookie!!

Babysitting!

My sister and her husband had to go to Las Vegas this weekend and we are watching two of their kids for them. We are hoping this will be a good experience for our kids because we are trying to get into the Foster program and they need some time with other children.

So far I get the feeling our daughter may have a bit of a hard time with someone else in the house. Last night my sisters daughter was having a hard time falling asleep and our daughter came down and proclaimed to us that Ava was going to go sleep in the hallway because she couldn't sleep. After explaining that our guests were in fact NOT going to be made to sleep in the hallway, we put them in separate rooms and within minutes both were sound asleep.

Today we had a little bathroom incident that our daughter decided she needed to be in charge of. Ava was in the bathroom and being the great parents and babysitters that we are we didn't have any toilet paper in that bathroom. My wife decided to send Kendal up with the toilet paper and thats where things went wrong. Ava informed Kendal she didn't need it any longer and because she wouldn't tell Kendal what she had used instead, Kendal decided that she needed to pull her hair because as anyone knows, thats is the most acceptable way of solving that type of problem.

They seem to have made up though and are now playing happily together. They just came down, grabbed some scissors, and headed back upstairs. Don't worry though, being the good parent that I am I forbade them from cutting anyones hair. I guess I should go check on them before my wife gets home just in case....

Meat Loaf Muffins

I got a little bored tonight while my wife slaved away teaching piano lessons so I decided to make dinner.

Since I like to not follow recipes, this is what I came up with. Meat loaf in muffin tins, cauliflower mashed potatoes and I'm thinking homemade coconut macaroons for dessert.

I feel bad she's sitting in there working while I get to relax and do something I love.

I told the kids we were having muffins for dinner. They cheered and asked what kind. When I told them "Meat!" they were less than thrilled.

My daughters still hiding under the table in fear.