Life in a "Dead" End Job

Wow it has been a long time - Not going to try and catch up here are some pictures I have taken with my phone over that last few months

2012-02-12T19:06:00.009-07:00

Not a lot of snow this year, but one day it snowed enough to get the sleds out for a few hours - you can see the snow melted to the grass pretty quick.
This is shopping with Nicole's broken ankle

Here are some funny pictures of the kids falling asleep in different places - they can sleep almost anywhere

Our casket supplier sent me back to their plant in
Indiana - Dinner one night was at a steak house - This was my 22 ounce Kansas cut steak topped with melted blue cheese - very yummy that is a full size plate
Took the kids out duck hunting one afternoon - lots of walking no ducks you can see Landon was the happiest to have walked that far they still had a good time
This was an airboat ride at the Delta Waterfowl Association youth duck hunting fair that we try and go to every year. the kids always have fun.
The only animal that fell to the mighty barrel of my weapons this year. One lone duck - he is still in our freezer.
Me and Booga in the truck - she likes going with daddy in the truck
Afton dropped out of pre-school to go to beauty school - doesn't look like its going to work out for her.
This was at Cracker Barrel in honor of dad - Don't know if anyone else went when they were doing this, it was the hold hands across America to support the troops - you took your picture - uploaded it to their website and then you could see your picture holding hands with everyone else that had done it. sort of fun
We hit the drive-in movie a few times this summer - the kids loved it but would not sit still long enough to watch the movie and then would fall asleep before the second movie even started. Good times plan on doing again this summer
Me and Booga goofing off

So this is Carter at the Hill Air Force Base Museum - Fun day trip
This is Landon's Jr. Jazz you can see him in the middle of the court in the black undershirt and blue jersey - he keeps getting better each week.
Me and Houston goofing around one night when he should be in bed.
Afton is sleeping cuddled up to my old teddy bear that mom made for me a long time ago, the fur is all matted down and rubbed off in some places, she found it and took a liking to it for a while
The family walking home from church one day - I love Afton holding Landon's hand.

Well I am going to try and do better and the blog, especially since this is going to print now.

Ice Fishing Trip

2011-01-30T19:25:00.003-07:00

So I was talking to a guy from work and we have been talking about going ice fishing for a couple of years, and the stars aligned Saturday and we went up to Strawberry for an afternoon of ice fishing. It was a perfect day and that was a good thing as Landon went thigh high into a hole after we had been there for only 1 minute or 2. After taking him back to the truck and getting him situated we were back on the ice. Fishing was slow and we only caught 1 fish that was in between the throw back size, so back into the hole it went. Outside of getting away from everything and hanging out with the boys and John, it was a good waste of time.

Houston is doing good. He wakes up about every 3 hours to eat and then back to sleep. The other kids like to help with him and we have to be careful as they have all been fighting coughs and colds. Nicole has been getting better day by day.

Anyone up for a trip?

2010-12-24T12:28:00.003-07:00

SO just thought I would throw it out there - I think we will try and do a trip to Yellowstone trip sometime this summer (2011) . I am thinking maybe a long weekend with a night or two at Colter Bay Cabins. Let me know if it is something that you think you would want to do this as a group. Not a big deal if no one wants to do it. I am thinking maybe in August, but nothing set in stone

Another Hunting Entry - ELK HUNT

2010-10-10T19:41:00.003-06:00

Well not much to report - just went on an elk hunt this weekend and got back this afternoon. Had a good time, went with my buddy from work and his 2 kids, another buddy of his and his father-in-law. We went to an area east of Strawberry Res. about 2 hours from SLC. We were an dirt roads for about 45 minutes. We had to drive through 2 ponds that had water about 2-3 feet of water and slid around in the mud, but made it there safely. Woke up early and rode 4 wheelers to the area were were going to hunt and then walked down and up the valley where we were going to hunt. It was a though hike. The weather was cold, but nice. The three pictures are what I looked at for a day and a half looking for elk to shoot. This was a spike hunt which means you can only shoot bull elk that there antlers have not forked yet. I only saw one that I could have shot, but he was moving really fast, and by the time and put a scope on him he was in the trees. I did see a few cow elks and a big bull elk, but couldn't shoot them. All in all it was a cold fun weekend - can't wait to do it again. Anyways with that much spare time I did some carving. I know it's not nice and destructive, but I've always wanted to do that in an aspen tree.

Just an update of Landon, last weekend he had an urinary tract infection, which is not supposed to really happen with boys - a few years ago he had issues with this and they ran some test, x-rays, ultrasounds, etc. Anyways he has an apt, with a urologist on Tues. to make sure everything is OK, but the antibiotics kicked in and his pee-tail is doing better. He told Nicole this morning that "it doesn't feel like there is a needle in my pee-pee when I go to the bathroom anymore"

DUCK!!!!

2010-10-03T20:34:00.003-06:00

Well the duck season is here in Utah. Saturday was the opener and me and a guy from work went out with 400-500 hundred other nutheads for the opener. It was a good time. There was a lot of ducks flying and they started a half hour early this year, so we had a lot of chances to shoot ducks. We probably shot 10-12 ducks and went through 2 boxes of shells. There was some guys shooting close to us and they winged a couple that we finished off. After we searched for a while in the 10 ft. weeds, we ended up finding 4 of the ducks. It was a fun few hours. Hopefully I will be able to get out a few times in the morning before work and get some more. We will see how that goes. this weekend I am going on an elk hunt with a buddy, so we will see how that goes.

We had a good conference weekend and watched most of conference. We had yummy stuffed french toast instead of postum cake.

Things seem to be going good with our baby. Nicole has an apt. on Weds. to see how things are going, but so far, things are good. We are still working on names - any suggestions?

The boys are doing really good in school and love to come home and ride their bikes around the neighborhood. Afton misses the boys when they are not home, but seems to find trouble to get in most days.

G and an O, O and a D, T and an I with a M and an E"

2010-09-19T20:45:00.005-06:00

So Landon had his first pinewood derby on Saturday. Other than the guy that they brought in to run it was a grandson of Adolf Hitler, we had a good time - I guess the guy that ran it has reasons, he was a little strict. there was about 12-14 cars, Landon ran pretty good and ended up in the finals and overall ended up in 5th place. We had a fun time cheering him on. Carter was a little green with envy and can't wait till he is old enough. Landon woke up Saturday morning at 6:30 as I was getting ready for work and the first thing he said was "Dad what time is the race today?"

Fall is in the air in Utah and the trees in the Mtns are starting to turn all kinds of pretty colors - for those stuck in an area where they don't have 4 seasons (Texas) you are welcome to see a pretty fall any time in the next few weeks. If you live somewhere where there are 4 seasons (Minnesota) come see where they are prettier in the mountains.

That's about the only news from around here. Baby seems to be getting bigger and healthier, Afton seems to keep finding trouble to get into with the boys at school, and the boys are doing great in school. Hunting season is around the corner and am getting excited about that, hopefully it will be productive.

Been a while

2010-09-12T16:21:00.004-06:00

This is Dad answering the question "Are we doing this again next year?"

Well its been a while since I put anything up - mostly because Nicole does a better job of telling whats going on with our family. We got our family reunion pictures and had a blast looking at those and reliving those days. It seems like every week there is a point where one of the boys will start talking about one of the things that we did.
So this weekend was the scrapbook convention and so I got to hang out with the kids. On Saturday morning there was a youth water fowl hunting expo at Farmington Bay put on by the Delta Waterfowl Association. It was all morning and when you got there you registered for a drawing at the end of the event and they gave every kid a duck call, and then there were classes on how to use the duck call, air boat rides, booths on retriever dogs, etc. At one point I noticed that the reed in Afton's duck call was taped down, so I took it to the main table and told them. They told me to take it to the guy that was teaching the duck calling class, and he took it apart and said Oh this is a special one and took the tape off that had a slip of paper and said you just one a duck call that's worth about $100.00. This call is one that is used by callers in competitions. Anyways the kids had a good time and they got a couple of decoys and a call out of the gig. I took the kids to entertain them, but I also went as a rookie to the sport trying to learn some things myself.

It was fun to go to the Dr.s and see that we are having another boy. I am excited about that and so now it's waiting until January until he gets here. Any suggestions on names?

That's about the only thing I have to share right now, maybe in a few weeks I'll have some more news depending on how the hunts go, but for now, that's about it.

Howdy

2010-07-01T21:39:00.002-06:00

I am getting excited about getting together with everyone in a few weeks. Things have been going pretty good for us. We have been busy with all kinds of odds and ends and trying to stay cool as we are starting to get into summer in the desert. The other night I took the canoe out by myself and went to a little reservoir about 1 1/2 hours away. I did some fishing it was really relaxing and just what I needed after doing a few projects around the house last weekend. I have been building the kids a fort in the backyard - nothing like Michael has made or like what we had in our yard, but it has been a project. Anyways the other night after working pretty hard Carter came up and said "Dad when I get to be as big as you I hope my kids never ask me to build a fort because it is hard work and I don't want to do it." Anyways it was sort of funny. I will try and get a picture of it in a little bit. I don't know if it has been in the news or if you will see it in the church news but FYI Arnold Friberg died. I was talking to one of the guys at work today and i said - just imagine - he is up there saying "Wow Nephi - I was way off you are a scrawny little guy - and Moroni - you don't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger on steroids" Or maybe just the opposite Anyways I thought it was sort of funny.

Blasst from the past

2010-05-23T20:51:00.002-06:00

So today we pulled up to church (we have been going to a new building for a few weeks with a new sister ward) and there was a brother teaching his primary class outside on some steps. I told Nicole that looked like Jeremy Barton. I got out of the car and he looked at me and said "Brandon?" - sure enough it was Jeremy Barton. He lives 5 or 6 streets away from me and so we are going to try and get together. As if that wasn't enough - he said "Oh you won't believe this, but Robbie Franklin just moved into our ward and I just saw him today. Sure enough taking Afton to change her diaper during sacrament meeting I run into Robbie in the hall and they just moved into a house right by Carter's school. Sort of crazy.

I was talking to mom tonight and you know I am still amazed at knowing Jeremy's history and past that he is now active in the church and doing good. I know that over the years several of our family members have been involved in the Barton family - from taking Jeremy's brothers to scouts and other church activities, and and having Jeremy at scout camp, etc or dating his cousin. Anyways just amazing that he is now totally active in the church and all of the time that was spent with their family paid off. Sort of neat.

Anyways we are getting excited with the talk about the family reunion and it is going to be good to be together.

Sin City

2010-04-28T20:24:00.002-06:00

About 2 or 3 months ago I started talking with my buddy from work about taking our wives to Vegas to see Phantom of the Opera. We planned it and the time finally came to go. We went down and hung out for a day or so and had a really good time. Nicole's parents came down and watched the kids. We walked around on the strip and saw lots of interesting things. I had on an A&M shirt and it took a while to get used to, because in Salt Lake nobody cares, but in Vegas, there were several people who know what A&M is all about - not that I do, but people were shouting across the room at me "Gig em Ags" and "Gig Em" all the time. It took me a while to get used to, but was sort of fun. Anyways here are some pics from that. Buy the way - not a single penny was put into a slot machine.

Guam will capsize!!!

2010-04-07T11:44:00.004-06:00

I don't know if anyone else has heard or seen this, but I thought it was so crazy and funny. To think that this guy helps run our country and gets paid $175,000 a year to do so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMy-g-dlkZI

I love watching the Officer as he keeps his cool, I would be on the ground laughing.

This video is like a podcast, so you have to watch past the commentary and then you can see the video of the congressman

So my wife came up to me and said, “Take off my shirt.”

2010-03-18T22:11:00.000-06:00

So I took off her shirt.

Then she said, “Take off my skirt.” I took off her skirt.

“Take off my shoes.” I took off her shoes.

“Now my hose, bra, and panties.” I took them off.

Then she looked at me and said, “I don’t want to catch you wearing my things ever again.”

Bathroom pics and Afton crashing

2010-03-14T19:58:00.002-06:00

So Afton plays hard and crashes harder - here are a few pics of her crashing as well as some pics of the bathroom

It is finished and who does this look like

2010-03-10T16:54:00.002-07:00

I will put pictures up when I get home, but we finally finished our bathroom. It looks OK for a first time remodel - I'm just glad we are not sharing a toilet with two boys under ten who are still learning that it's OK to pee in the water not on the seat and floor - I know that me and my younger brothers never had problems like that.

SO I don't know if it made the news anywhere else that Marie Osmonds son commited suicide last week, but they were showing footage of the funeral (Larkin's didn't do the service) and they interviewed her brother Jimmy Osmond. Does anyone think this looks like someone in our family? I thought it looks like he could be someone in our family's brother - this is all a good thing and I'm wondering how they are related - Tell me if you agree or disagree with who this looks like in our family (I'm not mentioning any names, because I want to see of anyone else sees it)

Hello Everyone

2010-02-14T19:56:00.003-07:00

Well I have not put anything on here in a while. I'll see if I can put some pictures together as well.
Not much has changed here and things are going along just fine with not much new. We started to tear out the bathroom in our bedroom to replace it. As of right now everything is pulled out and we are going to put in a new shower hopefully tomorrow and then get ready to tile. everything came out pretty easy, and it's always harder to put back, so we will see how it goes. I hope to have it done by the end of the week, we will see.

Landon is doing pretty good. He loves school and his teacher has gotten him interested in following the Jazz. He knows what nights they play what teams and if they are home or away and who is starting or not, who is injured, etc. When he wakes up he wants to know if the Jazz won last night. It is pretty fun to see him follow something like that. He has been going to Scouts and likes to go to scouts every week.

Carter is doing great as well. He really likes school and has taken to reading. He does really well. I'm sure part of it is due to the fact that he has a late birthday and is a little older than some of the other kids in his class. He likes to spend his spare time in front of the TV, but hopefully as spring starts to roll in he will start to spend some more time outside.

Afton is still too big for her britches. She wants to be in the middle of everything and usually crashes hard at the end of the day. Her vocabulary is increasing every day. I hate to admit, but I am wrapped around her little finger.

Work is work, some busy days, some slow. I put in for dear tags for this fall - we will see what happens as it is done in a lottery type drawing. You get points every year you put in that you don't draw out and it is supposed to help your chances of of drawing every year you don't draw a tag. This is my first year, so I doubt I will draw out this year. We'll see.

Happy New Year

2010-01-03T20:55:00.003-07:00

I hope everyone has had a happy holiday. We have done a few fun things - see Nicole's blog about the Jazz game - we had a really fun time with the boys. Work has been sort of interesting. This last week I ran into Bob and Claudia Fisher at a funeral. It was for Bob's Aunt and I had met with the family to make arrangements. The other sort of interesting thing was we had a funeral for a guy that always wore bow ties. His family showed up for the services with a handful of bow ties that they wanted to wear, but no one knew how to time them. It has been at least 10 years since I had tied one of Grandpa Glade's bow ties, but I gave it a go and it only took a couple of tries, but I was able to remember how to tie them. It was neat to remember that and sort of recall Grandpa wearing them.

Afton stayed the entire time in nursery today. We changed times from 9:00 to 11:30 and we were worried as that is right in the middle of Afton's nap. She fell asleep at 10:30 and woke up right before we left. It is fun to see her getting so big, but it is sad at the same time. She likes to be in the middle of everything and is always getting in anything and everything that she can. We have had lots of fun.

Christmas lights at Temple Square

2009-12-20T19:58:00.003-07:00

Last night we took a trip down to Temple Square to see the lights. We usually go earlier, but found time to go this year. I thought it would not be too busy as everyone has had a chance to go, but it was really crowded - almost as crowded as the night they turn them on or when they have the First Presidency Devotional. As always they were very pretty and between the lights and the cold puts even a grinch like me in the Christmas mood.

I have been fighting flu like symptoms the last couple of days and it has not been very fun. I hope I am on the tale end of it, but now I have a cough that has caused my ribs to ache from coughing so much.

Our family is getting ready for the big day to come. They are talking about what they want and Santa coming, hopefully they won't be disappointed.

Mom mentioned that she had talked about everyone going up to their new place for our family reunion this year, and I got really excited. Mom had mentioned the June for kids out of school and such , but I think that will need to change with the post on Matthew and Diana's blog. That is a great reason to have to change time windows. Just thinking out loud, but anyone coming from our direction, I was looking at either stopping on the way to or back at Mt. Rushmore. It is about 10 hours west of Farmington, MN and 8 hours from SLC, so almost in the middle of our trip up there. Anyways, hope we can all put our heads together and work out our schedules so that we can spend some time together again.

Well hope everyone has a great Chirstmas, we sent our presents out last Monday, so hopefully Mom and Dad, Michael and Heather and Matthew and Diana should be getting some boxes of have received them.

Duck! for a new found enjoyment

2009-10-04T18:52:00.002-06:00

Last spring I did my hunter's education through a guy at work and so I always see him. A week or so ago he asked if I wanted to go out for the opening day of Duck hunting season. I decided that should be fun, so I took yesterday off of work and woke up real early to head out to Farmington Bay just west of our house. We got there at about 6:10 and joined 300-400 other hunters that were out for a good time. We walked a till we found what looked like the perfect spot in the pitch dark, to slay some ducks. The season didn't open till 8:00, so after waiting in the marsh for an hour the season opened and it sounded like the start of the civil war. Despite the number of people there was plenty of room for that many people, and there seemed to be enough ducks to shoot at. The first two I shot ended up in the frag weed that is really tall and dense and so they were lost, but I dropped two right in front of us and went out and got them. After about 1/2 hour of endless blasting the ducks decided to hide for a while and the shooting tapered off, so at about 9:30 we packed up and left, with the promise to return and have some more fun! I am addicted. I brought them home and fried them and Carter really liked them, but they mostly tasted like some creature that eats crap off the bottom of lakes. I will look for a few other recipes to cook them up. If you have any send them my way. Nicole can't wait till I get my first duck call and go around the house learning that fine art.

Maiden voyage in Utah

2009-07-20T21:17:00.003-06:00

Well after a few hundred miles and a few days we got the canoe wet in some Utah water. She still floats great. we ran down to Cabela's and got some life jackets and then came back and took her to a local pond to take her for a trip around the pond. Afton was really tired and she hated the life jacket, so she was sort of grumpy. We went around once with her and then Nicole got out with her and I took the kids out around one time. Anyways, it was a good time and it brought back a ton of memories for me.

NEW PHONE NUMBER

2009-07-06T17:36:00.002-06:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that my cell phone number has changed it is now (801)913-3400. It is a cell number for Rocky Mountain Cremation Service, so if I answer that chance are it is me. (There is a chance on long weekends or vacation that someone else will have it, so if someone else answers, I am off and try Nicole's cell phone. If you call my old number you will get a grouchy old guy that I work with, so BE CAREFUL. Just kidding, you will get someone else, he's older and can be grouchy

Fun Day

2009-05-19T20:00:00.004-06:00

me in one of Mustangs that you can use if you wanted to go to driving school

Saturday Nicole and I went out to Tooele County to the Larry H. Miller raceway. It is a road coarse where they race motorcycles and road courses for grand am cars. They were having a 30 year anniversary party for Larry H. Miller's company. We had a special passes and were able to go to that and they fed us lunch and then we got to watch some races. It was really neat. I guess you could say that grand am is sort of NASCAR for more sophisticated rednecks. It was the first time I have ever been to a motor sport race. It was neat to be able to go see all the team trucks and see the mechanics fine tuning the cars for the race. Some of the crews would set some of their used tires out so you could see them and touch the tires and be part of the event. I have watched NASCAR races and have them talk about how the tire rubber gets so hot that it melts and will roll off the tires. It was neat to be able to see some of that on the tires and you could see how the rubber had melted and then pushed to the edge of the tire. It was really fun to be with Nicole and we had a great time. The sad thing was that the entire time we kept saying how much fun the boys would have had. It was sort of like being in the middle of the show CARS. Here are some of the pics from th9at and a video of the cars shooting by during one of the practice sessions. If you ever get the chance to go to a race like that I would go for it!

This is the team trucks (Ferrari of Houston)

I'll Still Around (and still round)

2009-05-07T13:24:00.003-06:00

WOW it's been a while since I put anything on here. Things are going good for us. Nicole does a way better job of updating everyone on how are family is doing. I check everyone's blog's regularly, but have not put anything new in a long time.

So Landon is going to be baptized on June 6th. Everyone is welcome to come. He turns 8 on Saturday and Afton turns 1 on Tuesday.

We have been trying to get our yard in shape. The front yard is in OK condition, but our backyard needs some attention. Last night we got one of the side yards cleaned up and looking better, so we will keep plugging away at that.

Well I wish I could write more, but I can't think of much. See Nicole's blog for more intersesting stuff about our family

Larry H. Miller Funeral

2009-03-01T14:45:00.002-07:00

So most of you probably don't care, but here is the article and some pictures from Miller's funeral. They had the casket custom painted by one of his body shops. It was pretty cool. If you look at the pictures there is one with the cobra's driving in the cemetery. If they had zoomed out 2 more feet you would have seen me standing by the blue car. Anyways, it was pretty big, President Hinckley was bigger, but other than that, the biggest funeral we have done.

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=5720629

Tell me what you think

2009-02-22T22:16:00.003-07:00

So this might be a little bit long - not quite as long as Bug's, but crazy thing, and want to get some opinions about what happened. First let me start out by saying that in my profession, I haven't had any crazy, spooky, or neat things happen at work, even when we lived at the mortuary, until now.

When I was in high school I went with dad and grandma to help dress grandpa after he had passed away. I remember it like it was yesterday. The room we were in had a curtain, and as I walked into the room, it felt like I walked through a wall or maybe a veil. It is something I cannot describe, but very peaceful. I have always remembered it, and that room is still hallowed to me and it still feels special to me, as I go in their on a regular basis.

Friday night I was on call and spent the night at the mortuary (which I have done many many times - nothing new) I went to bed about 11:00 after helping take care of Larry Miller, and fell asleep. Normally I sleep downstairs in one of our the arrangement rooms, but I didn't have my truck that has my pillow and blanket, so I slept upstairs in the "on-call" bedroom. It's been a while since I slept in that room. About 2 or 3 in the morning I heard someone walking on the carpet on the room, and could see the outline of someone. I thought it was maybe that was just coming to the mortuary to crash for the night and sleep in the room (unlikely, but very possible), and I didn't want them to think they were disturbing me, so I just laid there. The person talked about the need to spruce up the room and put new carpet and paint and make it look better. Again, I didn't think much about it and decided to fall back asleep. As I started to go back to sleep it felt like this person put a blanket over me and I felt much warmer as a drifted off to sleep and thought that was nice of whoever was sleeping in the bedroom to put a blanket on me. After I woke up Saturday morning I was puzzled and perplexed by the events that happened. The more I think about it, the more I think I was a spirit, but I'm still trying to figure it all out. Some of the old timers say that Alma Larkin is still around haunting the building, or his son, Jay (Max's brother). There was no point during this whole event that I was scared, or felt cold, or felt bad. Anyways - post your comments on what your thoughts are.

On another note - I finally did my Hunter Safety course, and so now I can put in for draws and by tags to hunt a big Elk or Mule deer, or whatever else I decide to pursue. I don't have any plans, but I would like to get out and do some hunting in the near future.

2009-02-20T22:13:00.003-07:00

So Larry H. Miller died today. For those that don't know - he owns the Jazz and is quite the businessman here in Utah. Anyways - guess who was on call? He has been sick for a while with type II diabetes. Just an FYI for those Utah transplants that don't hear all the local news.

I spent yesterday out in the west desert. A guy I work with took us out and we spent the day driving and seeing all kinds of neat stuff out west of SLC. We drove 380 miles, and we were gone from 7 am to 9 pm. We stopped and shot lots of ammo, we saw a few antelope, and had a good time. If you want to go, we can plan a day and go out. Here are a couple of pictures from that.

Been a while

2009-02-11T15:32:00.002-07:00

I saw this and thought it was way too funny to pass up - maybe because as soon as I put batteries in mine, I stuck it to my chest and said "Yep it works" I don't think there is a man alive who hasn't done that.

So it's been a while since I put anything on my blog. I think Nicole has kept everyone informed about the doings of our family. I have a couple of pictures I want to post of when I took Carter ice fishing last month, but I haven't pulled them off of the memory card. As with any fishing trip with children, it more about time spent with them then it is about fishing. It was nice to get away for the day with Carter.

Well I can't think of much to add - Nicole covers the basics in our family and not much to add. She does a great job!

Santa doesn't forget childhood dreams

2009-01-04T19:19:00.002-07:00

Santa brought me a cotton candy maker that you can make cotton candy AT HOME. It can be done! Santa found it at the DI, and knew I always wanted to make cotton candy at home.

We had a good Christmas. Thank you to all, hopefully thank you cards will be in mail shortly.

We are still working on getting settled in to our new house. It is sort of crazy trying to find a place for everything.

WHAT a game the Utes played. So much for the great BCS.

We went up to IF for New Years, we stopped by and saw Grandma and Grandpa, they looked really good. I took the boys sledding, and was sore for a day after doing that.

All Hands on Deck

2008-12-13T12:40:00.002-07:00

We are planning on moving on Tuesday. Any and all help would be appreciated. I think we are going to try and start loading a truck in the morning and then as soon as we get the keys start moving stuff in. I am most concerned about getting large items up stairs in the new house.

Notice anything different about Afton?

2008-12-12T23:23:00.003-07:00

I wanted to be the one to take Afton to have her ears pierced and make it sort of a Daddy Daughter thing. She did really good and looks really cute in my opinion.

Let it Snow

2008-12-11T10:47:00.002-07:00

WOW it looks like The Texas Glades have more snow than the Utah Glades. We had a snow storm a few weeks ago, but it melted and has been really warm since. We finally got another storm on Monday that dumped about 4-5 inches at our house, and that seems to be sticking, but it has also been really warm the last couple of days again. They are saying that we are supposed to have a huge storm this weekend, so we will see if it hits and how much snow we get. I had to take the trampoline down yesterday so they snow wouldn't ruin it and also because we are moving. We will probably have to come back in the spring and clean up all of the "yard" toys as they are now covered with snow. I hope the lakes are getting iced over as this is my favorite time of the year when I get to go ice fishing. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks it will be safe enough to go out on and I can be there soon.

Well maybe the next time I write a blog we will be in our new house and trying to get settled n there. We are really excited to have our own house.

It was fun to have Matthew and Diana up for the weekend, and hang out with Brent and Sarah. The boys had a good time with Spencer and Parker, hopefully they didn't boss him around too much.

Well - from the responses on the family vacation it sounds like everyone might have a good time with the Lake Powell idea. I will start looking into what we could do, and see what would be do-able as far as expenses go - if it is possible to rent a houseboat as far as expenses go, or if would be better to get hotel rooms and theyn just rent a couple of boats for a few days. I'm guessing that summer would be better to do that rather than winter. Anyways, unless anyone has any objections, lets try and plan on Lake Powell in the Summer of 2010 for a family vacation. This could easily change to somehting else, it just sounded like everyone would enjoy that.

Holding Our Breaths

2008-12-02T12:30:00.003-07:00

Well, good news bad news. Monday night Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin passed away, and guess who was on call. Another neat experience. One of his daughters and her husband are in our stake and he is in the stake presidency. He is the nephew of Bruce R. McKonkie. Sort of funny, anyways. That was neat.

The good news we also received last night was that we put an offer in on a house and they accepted it the same night. We are excited, but are proceeding with caution and not getting too excited until we have the keys to the door. Hopefully we could be in by Christmas. We will see. Here is a link to see the listing of the house.

http://utahrealestate.com/847251

You can click on property tour to see some photos. I also think the address is sort of cool 1 East 1470 South (just the 1 East is cool)

Family Vacation/Reunion in 2010

2008-12-01T10:05:00.002-07:00

So not a whole lot of news to tell about our family (we are sort of boring - ask Sarah), but I wanted to throw the idea of having a family vacation sometime in 2010 that everyone could come to. I talked to Dad one time about it, and just wanted to get the idea out there, especially since Michael mentioned something about going to Cali that year. A couple of ideas that come to mind would be going to Cali to DisneyLand (assuming Matthew and Diana are still there that would give us a place to stay), cabins at Colter Bay, or going to Nauvoo. I guess it would be good if we could try and find a place that was sort of "in the middle" for everyone, but I don't know what that would be. I guess we could meet in Ship Rock and spend a week there. Anyways just wanted to get some feelers out and see what people thought. The other thing would be how long we wanted to gather and what time of the year. Another idea that could be a little expensive, but maybe lots of fun - house boat at Lake Powell, or renting a boat and staying down there and playing on the lake. Let's try and make something happen and keep this in mind when planning your family - no babies in 2010 (kidding)

Back in the market

2008-11-11T12:53:00.004-07:00

Well we are back in the market for a house. We had our house inspected and there was quite a few things that were in need of repair. After talking to as many people as we could about the situation we decided to cancel our offer. Our Real estate agent said he thought that was was a pretty good idea after we told him, so hopefully it was the right one. It feels right to us so far. So now we begin the process of looking for another house again. Hopefully we can find something soon and keep moving forward with moving!!

Sometimes they do listen

2008-11-01T10:22:00.002-06:00

So one of the boys favorite bed time stories is when we lost the fisher price guys and prayed and found them - along with any other story that has to do with the farm. This morning I was leaving to go to work and Landon and Carter were playing with there little star wars guys and couldn't find general grevous. I was kissing them goodbye as they were looking for him outside when I heard Cater tell Landon "Maybe we should say a prayer to help us find him." Last I checked they still hadn't found him, but sort of chokes me up to hear them talk like that. They do listen!!!!

Another note about listening - we took Landon to the ear Dr. and he wasn't concerned at all. He said that he was so close to normal he wasn't concerned too much. He said when people actually have hearing damage the results Landon had are considered great. He put him on an anti-inflammatory nasal spray to see if there is any swelling that could be reduced and make the hist test normal. He said worst case scenario is that they would put tubes in his ears, to help him equalize the pressure, but he was not concerned at all with where he was.

2008-10-28T21:51:00.002-06:00

Well we have some good news... Our offer on our house was accepted tonight, so if everything goes right the next couple of weeks we should be in a house by thanksgiving. It is the house that we have been looking at for the last several months, and we finally got everything to line up and make it work. I guess that means we will be living the American Dream owning a house and in debt up to our ears - that is the American dream isn't it. We are really excited as we are now on top of each other in our little place. I think we migh try and have Thanksgiving there, so anyone who can make it is welcome.

With Halloween this week and us cleaning up our house I came across a bag that had the costumes made for us growing up. There is a clown, tigger, dalmation, indian, and maybe a couple more. I don't know what sizes they are, but if anyone has an interest in them let me know and we will get them to you. We don't plan on throwing them away, or getting rid of them, but if anyone else wanted to have them for their kids, I can send them.

What did you say? More health issues with Landon

2008-10-25T16:45:00.002-06:00

So we discovered another possible side affect from Landon's prematurity. There is a possibility that the inside of his ears did not develop correctly. They did hearing test at school a couple of weeks ago and Landon failed his test. They sent us to the district hearing test office, and they ran some different test and found out that he has had some damage to his hearing. From what they told Nicole and Nicole told me (so I could be telling this all wrong), Landon can't pop his ears the way most people do to equalize the pressure on his eardrum, so there is a build up of negative pressure on his ears. We have an appointment with and ear, nose and throught doctor on Weds. (the same one that took his tonsels out) to see if he can see if it is just from a cold, or if it is something that can be solved by putting tubes in, and or how permanent/bad the damage is to his hearing. We will keep you updated. I'm guessing that Nicole will probably post a blog that has the truth about all this, but I think that I got the jest of it right.

Daddy's Day Off

2008-10-23T11:05:00.004-06:00

So I talked Nicole into going out shooting on my day off. I got a new .22 rifle and so I had something that doesn't hurt to shoot. It doesn't hurt physically or it doesn't hurt $ either. I can get about 1,000 rounds for the cost of 50 rounds of my .45. We had a good time. Carter also loved shhoting the .22. There was a story in the news up here about a Grandpa that took his 4 and 6 year old grandsons out shooting, and he was helping the 6 year old when the 4 year old picked up a differnet gun and shot the 6 year old in the back. I told Nicole that story and was scared she wouldn't let me take the boys and Afton our shooting (someday), but I was taken back when her reply was not "They shouldn't have been doing that" , but "Why was there a loaded gun that the 4 year old could get?" I think she is starting to understand that when properly trained and used it is a lot fun and relaxing. Landon was in school, and missed out on the day, but someday in the future he will get to come with us. Carter started goofing around while we were out and found a piece of wood that he wanted to "surf" on down a hill, so he spent an hour trying to surf on a little piece of wood (That explains one of the pictures). The reason I wanted to go shoot is beause I want to take a hunter education class so I can maybe do some hunting next year. Part of the class is shooting at targets and you have to shoot 50% of your 30 shots in the kill zone of a squirrel target and a rabbit target from the prone, kneeling, and standing postion. The last thing I want is to get schooled by some 12 year old, and not be able to hit any of the targets. Without any sort of a scope I was able to get at least a passing score, so we will see what happens, if I do get to do the class.

The Kids are getting big

2008-10-04T09:06:00.006-06:00

I thought I would put some pictures of the boys up also, because I still like them and they deserve some credit also. Landon has lost 3 teeth now. This is after he lost his last one. He is glad to be back in school, but has been having a hard time. He loves his new cowboy boots and wears them every day he can. Landon loves working hard and working with his dad. The other day we went and helped move lots of dirt at Derek and Candie's house and Carter liked playing with his cousins, but Landon was right there with his own shovel and a pair of gloves helping move the dirt. A time or two he would get in the way, but for the most part he lifted lots of dirt and was a big helper.

Carter is in pre-school and is loving it. He has lots of friends and this last week had two playdates with his friends from school. He has become quite the social butterfly and is already working his magic with the girls. We had two families tell us that all they heard about all summer long was Carter and how they couldn't wait to get back to pre-school with Carter. He is learning his letters and is going a really good job of figuring out what letter different words start out with.

OK I had to put another picture of Afton in too. This one is becoming a favorite of mine. I love her smile!

Wrapped around my finger

2008-10-04T00:09:00.002-06:00

So last Sunday I painted Afton's fingernails after church. You can't see them very well, but she was really cute. It was funny to watch her after because she would sit and stair at her fingers and try and figure out what was different and how it ogt there. Didn't last long - they way she has been sucking on her hands lately - it was off in a couple of days. I don't like her at all ;o )

GO!!!

2008-09-16T19:30:00.002-06:00

Afton has sarted rolling over. It took her a while to figure out how to get over her arm, but now she can get over really easy. She can't roll back onto her back yet!

Ready - Set -

2008-09-16T19:22:00.001-06:00

Strangest suicide in history

2008-09-15T17:24:00.002-06:00

This is complicated….
OK…. a man jumps off a ten story building intending to commit suicide. On his way past a ninth story window he is killed by a shotgun blast fired from inside by a man threatening to kill his wife again with an unloaded gun that was unknowingly loaded by the man’s son who hated is mother. The man wanting to fall to his death is unknowingly headed into a safety net put in place by some window washers for their protection.
Oh, and the son is dead. Suicide? murder? accident? I told you it was complicated.

Read about it at http://www.strangedangers.com/content/item/140504.html.

I got this from the website bitsandpieces.us. It is a blog this guy put together that has a lot of good stuff . There is some crude stuff everyy once and a while, but pretty good.

Blast from the past

2008-09-07T20:00:00.003-06:00

We went to Cindy Wheeler's wedding reception Saturday night. Her whole family was there and it was good to see them. Janelle Hardy and Michelle Newbold were both there and Waymon and Jeanne and the Price's. It was good to see everyone. Not much else this week. Landon is back in the swing of school and Carter is getting ready to start pre-school on Wednesday. Afton is getting over double ear infections and a sinus infection, other than that normal week.

I was released from the Elder's Quorum Presidency today sort of by suprise, we found out about 5 minutes before church started. I have been in for about 5 years. This is the first ward that I have wanted to go to Elder's and be involved in it, so it was sort of emotional, but I'm sort of glad to be released. We will see what they have in store for me next. Next week is regional conference, and I have to work anyways, so it might be a week or two before I get another call.

E-mail address

2008-09-01T21:06:00.002-06:00

can someone shoot me an email that has Bug's and Sarah's email, so I can invite them to this blog.

ALSO -

2008-08-27T16:07:00.003-06:00

If you have a private, invite only blog, please email me an inivation at undertakerglade@gmail.com. I can only get/see Michael & Heather's, Diana's and Nicole's blogs.

Here I Am

2008-08-27T15:49:00.000-06:00

So I think I am the last one in the family to get this puppy up and running. Nicole helped (did) my page after I got it started, but she said I had to write the blogs - not fair. Anyways I hope I will be able to put up some good stuff and some interesting stories.

Not much is new here. Landon started school and is happy to be back (as is Nicole). He said there are none of the same kids from last year in his class, so he is making some new friends.

Carter can't wait to get back to pre-school. He has several girls that he wants to check on that he hasn't seen all summer.

Afton is growing like a weed. She has had a cold the last couple of days, and so she hasn't been feeing well, but is on the rebound from that.