May 23rd through May 30th, 2011 - 164 to 171 Days

What a great week this has been.  I wasn't able to write because we took a trip up to Portland to see my sister's daughter, Crystal, married.  Logan, Hunter, Nicole, and myself got in the car Wednesday night, and we traveled up to Nicole's parents house in Lehi.  We spent the night there, and then awoke early and headed to Portland.  Nicole had prepared a "Happy Box" to entertain us.  Every 100 to 150 miles, we opened up an envelope that had us play a game.  The games were simple, like trying to find 20 license plates from different states; or trying to find the numbers 1-20 consecutively on street signs.  Once we accomplished the game, we got to open the happy box.  The box was stuffed with Oreos, swedish fish, Milk Duds (which were melted), and various other goodies.  It helped the 13 hours on Thursday pass by.   When we were in Idaho, we saw a man walking down the freeway in a suit, and a mini van parked on the side of the road, about 1/4 mile back.  We stopped and gave him a ride into his town, and then we stopped at the store, and there was a homeless man.  We rolled our windown down and asked him if he was hungry (he was holding a sign that said, "Will work for food").  He said, "Yeah, I guess."  So, we gave him a $5 Subway card.  It felt good to help, but I was a little confused why he wasn't sure if he was hungry, when he was holding a sign asking to work for food! 

We arrived in Portland on Thursday night and went to dinner with the family at Chevy's Mexican resturant.  Then, we went up to our room and hung out with my brother, Keith and his family for a while and then went hot tubbing.  It was really enjoyable to hang with the family.  On Friday we went to the Portland Temple to see my niece, Crystal, get sealed to Brandt Gibbons.  There was a sweet spirit there, and it took me back to the time I was sealed to Nicole in the Jordan River temple.   After the sealing, we took pictures in the rain, then we drove 3 1/2 hours to Keith's house where we stayed the night.  On the way, we stopped at a waterfall in Portland and took pictures.  I've included a picture of the family.  It was raining the entire time, but wow was it beautiful!  Saturday we helped my sister Kory with the wedding reception, and then Saturday night we went to the reception.  It was beautifully decorated and quite nice. 

On Sunday we woke up and went to my Keith's ward.  He's the bishop, so it was fun to see him conducting.  Then, we got in the car and drove 11 more hours to Nicole's parents house.   Monday morning we woke up and visited Nicole's brother's grave.  We then traveled for another 4 hours back home where the Weaver's had invited us to swim and have dinner and ice cream.  All-in-all, it was a long 5 days, but it was worth it.    Family is important, and I really felt that it was important to support my sister.

So, that was my week, lot's a driving.  The boys didn't fight at all, and so it was actually a very pleasant trip.

Multinomah Falls in Oregon

May 10th through May 22nd, 2011 - 151-163 days

OK, so it's been two weeks since I've written, and yes, I had another day where I got upset at someone.  Who was it this time?  Yes, it was another customer service rep.  I'm not sure how the customer service reps get under my skin so easily, but here's what happened. I just got my really cool Android phone, and Alltel switched over to AT & T on May 12th.  So, I start downloading some cool apps and there's this one that says, "Download 6 Ringtones Now"  I click on it, thinking if they're charging for the ringtones, I'll be warned first--like EVERY other app in the world!  Well, I click on it, and it says, "Thank you for purchasing your 6 ringtones for $9.99!  The phone has 486,000 free ringtones, so I assure you, I didn't want to purchase 6 of them for $9.99.  I immediately cancelled, and it said I had to call a 1-800 number, which I did.  The lady said, "We're sorry sir, we can't cancel the ringtone now, we'll have to just send you a refund check.  I said, "No, you signed me up under false pretenses, just cancel my ringtones, I don't want the refund."  "We can't do that sir".  Anyway, this went on for about 10 minutes at which time I was so frustrated that I thought my head was going to literally blow off my head, so I just got off the phone.  I sware, sometimes I think Satan himself runs some of the customer service call centers, just to try and get my temperature to rise.

On a happier note, Mitch and Amber are now in Kansas, and they love being married.  Mitch is not selling as much as he'd like, but we're praying for them, and I'm sure they'll do fine.  He's quite the worker, and I actually have no worries about him providing for that little family.  Amber is surrounded by pregnant women, however, and so I don't how long they'll hold out until they have a little bambino.  Mitch already wants kids bad, and Amber is not far off.  Oh well, if I have to be a grandpa, I'm ready!  But, that being said, I do hope they at least wait a little while for their sakes.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks.  The weather has been all over the place, and yesterday was the day set aside by one of the ministers as the "End of the World".   It was supposed to happen at 4PM our time.  Well, I'm writing this on Sunday, and no, I'm not writing from heaven.  So, as you can guess, the end of the world never came.  Kaylee tried to convince me on Friday that I should pull all of the money out of KSS and distribute it amongst the employees, since the end of the world was coming the next day.  Luckily, I didn't fall for that Jedi mind trick.

Corey took 3rd in state in the 2 mile with a time of 9.31.  We were pretty excited.  He graduates on Wed, and we leave to go up to Crystal's wedding.  We are actually renting a car and driving up to Portland, Oregon, because it's cheaper than driving the mini-van, which only gets about 22 miles to the gallon.

Well, life is good, and we're all glad the rapture didn't happen quite yet.  I still have a lot to do!

May 5th through May 9th, 2011 - 146th through 150th Days

Cinco de Mayo!  On Thursday the family traveled to Laredo, Texas because we had an open house in Austin, Texas on Saturday for Amber and Mitch.  Now, you may ask, why would you travel to Laredo, which is 350 miles away from Austin?  The reason, money!  I saved $750 flying into Laredo and driving to Austin!  Hey, if it's only $100 savings, that's one thing, but $750!   We traveled to San Antonio on Thursday night and got there about 11:00 at night.  The person at the front desk was very nice, and I was nice to her (I wasn't sure if it was a her or a him, but she had earrings and Nicole assured me it was a she).    We woke up early Friday and went to the River Walk.  The River Walk is way cool!  There are shops, resturants, and beautiful plants all next to the river and the walkway is right next to the river and snakes through the town.    Then we went to a shop and took an old fashioned western picture.  I was dressed as a gentleman gunslinger and the boys were outlaws.  The two ladies (Nicole and Kaylee) were southern belles.  We then goofed off around the city and then went to the Alamo and got our history leason for the day.  Then we went shopping and went to the movie "Thor".  It was awesome!  After that we ate more (I think we did more eating then anything else on this trip), and then went back to the hotel and crashed for the night.  The day felt like it went on for about 48 hours.

On Saturday we woke up early and drove 2 1/2 hours to Austin, Texas.  We hung out at the Huntsmans and helped them prepare for the reception/open house and we also went shopping for the mom's for Mother's day.   I think the people in Austin are quite possible some of the nicest people in the world.  Usually, it's not fun to stand at a reception where you don't know a soul, but we had fun because everyone was so happy to see us (or at least they acted happy to see us).   I even had fun playing practical jokes on some of them.  One of the ladies came through and said, "My name is Susan, and my husband is Scott, our married daughter, Ashley and her husband Jason are back in the line a ways."  She then pointed them out.  When Ashley and Jason got to us about 15 minutes later I shook Ashley's hand and said, enthusiastically, "You must be Ashley, and this must be your husband Jason!"  Her jaw literally dropped open and she said, "Yes, yes, you're right, that's me.  How did you...?"  I then gave it all away when I laughed and said that I had already met her mom.  She said, "I was impressed, I just thought you had memorized the entire Huntsman family tree" (she was from the Huntsman line).    After the beautiful reception we went home and watched Amber and Mitch open presents, then we went to bed late and got up early for church on Sunday.  Sunday was Mother's Day so it was nice.  After church we got in the car and drove for 4 1/2 hours to Laredo, where we got on a plane for another 2 1/2 hour plane ride to Las Vegas.  We arrived in Las Vegas at 10:00 and had to travel home to St. George.  Talk about a long day.  This day even felt like it was 48 hours.

On Monday I woke up to rain, but it was a great day.  We took dinner to a good friend of ours who had just had surgery, and then we had Family Home Evening and went to bed.  It was a great week!

April 29th through May 4th, 2011 - 140th through 145th Days

I haven't written here for a week because nothing exciting has happened!  Friday night was a soccer game and it was so cold we had to bring our heater, and the day before it was 80 degrees and I was working in the yard at 9:00!  Go figure that.  Saturday we got up and all the youth in the ward cleaned the church.   It was amazing to see how much you could get done with 40 kids.  I think that every month we should have all the youth in the ward go to one of the homes in the ward and do a "super clean".   Imagine how clean you could get your house in one hour.  I know of some ladies that would love that --huh Nicole?  

Sunday and Monday were nice, but uneventful.  We did go to the movie, "I am Number Four" on Monday for FHE with Kerry's family.   I was plesantly surprised.  You know when you have no expectations whatsoever for a movie, and it ends up being enjoyable and you're not sure if it's because it's a good movie, or if it's just that your expectations were low.  Either way, I really enjoyed it. 

On Tuesday we went to the soccer game and, surprise, we lost!  Yes, we are now 4-11, and it gets more painful every time to watch.  I wasn't as nice to the ref as I should have been.  He made some horrendous calls and our boys were getting knocked to the ground and I said, "Come on ref, that's a foul and you know it.   Start calling those!"  Then,  he looked up in the stands, pointed at me and gave me the shush sign!  I actually got the shush sign from a ref!  Oh well, I was better behaved after that.  I still think that I should be given a little leeway in the niceness department when it comes to anyone in yellow and black!   Hunter's team won, however.  Sometimes I think they should just let the JV play on the Varsity and we'd probably win more. 

Wednesday was a good day.  I came home, cooked some nice tomato basil soup and sandwiches for my family, replaced the sprinkler in the yard, trimmed and yard, and went over with my son to mow and trim the Thomas's yard.   It was a great day.  Tomorrow we travel to Texas for Amber and Mitch's reception.  Should be fun!