Change

I watched Captain Phillips last night. I remember really being into that story back in 2009. Mark my business partner was always commenting how much I loved the pirate story because I talked about it so much back then. I went to the movie by myself and had no idea before hand what it was about. It touched my soul a little bit. I was more grateful when I left the theater. I am grateful for the USA, and saddened by the poor and destitute of this world. I wish the whole world was filled with the love of Christ. I felt for that captain. What a tramatizing couple days.

I just watched this video link of this couple. Stories like this blow my brains and touch my heart. Wow. It reassures me that there is still goodness in this world, and the love of god is still pursued. Such love...she is a saint, an angel. She is an example of the love of god.

Ian and Larissa's story remind me of how very blessed I am to be married to Megan. She is such a wonderful wife--she is loving, beautiful, and kind. She is a blessing in my life.

Life is changing for us. The only constant in this world is change so they say. Mark and I sold our shipping business, and Mark bought me out of the Soda business. So I am a "free Agent". It will be exciting to see what the next year brings. Megan is also pregnant with our 3rd kid. I am looking forward to the future and enjoying the present.

Most important in our live right now is the hope in Christ that we have. I am trying to love like he loves. The only way to become like him it to imitate him. He had such compassion and always lifted the burdens of those in need. His life was spent helping the less fortunate, tending to the sick and lame, always caring and helping those with burdens. I love him and wish this whole world could love as he did.

Most days I am in awe at the beauty of this world. Maybe its the sunrise on my way into work. Sometimes its looking up at the stars and the moon. The mountains, fields and lakes. Everyday I am moved by some sort of beauty that I see.

Life is good. There is still a lot of good in this world and I hope we all can be apart of that goodness.

Summer 2013

HI! Its me again for my quarterly post. Just thought I would journal about the summertime so my posterity can know what I did with my early 30's! Its raining today...one of those days you just want to curl up in a blanket with some hot chocolate and watch batman! Anyways... Lets work backwards.

Joyce(Megans mom) and I competed in a cooking contest together a few weeks back. Its called the Iron Pig. Here is a link if your interested in reading about it. We had a great time.

BYU just lost to Utah for the 4th straight year. Pete took me to the game with him. We had a great time hanging out and it was a beautiful night, just a bummer BYU seems to shrink at the big games.

We went to California this summer. Megan went with the girls for 10 days and I just came for a long weekend. While she was gone I painted our backslash and changed out the lights as a surprise for her. It turned out really good.

After...

We did Clark family pictures while we were there in an orange grove and they turned out really good.

Sav loves her CA cousins... Sav and Dani on the Farris Wheel @ Irvin spectrum

Megan doing what she does best in CA ;)relaxing!!!

My highlight was Golfing with JD an Brent! It was a fun trip.

Our girls are growing up fast! They are as cute as ever! Sav is a great big sister.

Luckily Charlotte is cute because she currently is a little tornado.

Sav turned 5 this year and we had an ice cream party for her. We invited all her friends and they had cones, made cards and played pin the cherry on the ice cream cone.

I turned 30 this year! Yep the cats out of the bag. It was a great night. I invited my best friends who live in Utah and their wives to dinner and had them all share their favorite memory of me and I shared my favorite memory of them. It was a nice night. The guys went bowling afterward.

Last but not least. I had this kid named Daniel come and work on my yard with me this summer. He has lived in Utah all his life. He was 16 years old and never been to cafe rio. I couldn't believe it. So I treated him to lunch there. I had to post that because it blew my mind.

Its been a Great summer. We love our new house, and things are well. Couldn't be more blessed. Praise be to god!

Charlotte May is 2!!

This is my 1st post ever on this blog about Charlotte! Sad!

I wanted to document her 2nd bday and little about her at this stage.

Her bday was pretty laid back but so fun. It started off with Donuts and chocolate milk, then we went swimming with cousins, she took a nap and then we had a little family party with Joshs family. I bought one of those cool layered rainbow cakes. It was a perfect day for a 2 year old! She got a couple of cute/useful gifts. We got her a bike trailer because she cries when her dad and sister go on bike rides and she cant go. Up until this week, when you asked her how old she was, she would say "por." Which is 4 because that is what she hears her sister say to everyone. Now she'll say 2 (or sometimes 3 or 4 still!!)

A few things about Charlotte that I want to remember...

*She hums while she eats. She's been doing this since I can remember!
*Loves her binki. She only gets it at nap/bedtime but tries to sneak it in between.
*She's a yeller. She yells at the top of her lungs for me when she wakes up. She yells at her "sissy" to do things for her.
*She LOVES her sister. She's learned that her sister will pretty much do anything for her and takes advantage of it. I LOVE watching them together. She wants to do everything Savannah does which is pretty disappointing when Sav has playdates all day long.
*Charlotte talks about her Grandma, Dawson and Alec all the time.
*She watches YouTube many times a day. I search "Animal Songs" and she knows how to pick what one she wants and change it if she wants a new one. She knows my phone better than I do. Lately instead of games she'll just go through the photos and show us the ones she likes.
*She gets into everything! Squeezes toothpaste, squirts out soap, dumps out food storage, pulls all of her clothes out of her dresser, pulls out the entire thing of floss, etc, etc, ETC!! I have to follow her around all day long!

From Josh:

Charlotte loves her big sister Savannah and always wants to do everything she does. She has a cute little voice and talks in one word sentences. She loves duck, duck, goose and any game where you have to chase her. She is a little tease. She loves to play with balls. Every night when I get home from work she wants me to toss the ball with her. She love what she calls "hulk" I will act like "the Hulk" and chase them and lift them up on my legs and she loves that. So when I get home she say's "Ball" or "Hulk". She loves to sneak into the pantry and open the dry food storage and make a mess when the dried blue berries. She is a little cutie and a very happy girl. We love her.

Winter

I stumbled across our blog today and thought, "this blog needs an update!" So here I am with a winter review. Its been a great winter. I am always grateful for life and all it has to offer. We are very blessed and happy and have really enjoyed the winter months.

In November we bought a business with Mark and Racquel. Its called Custom Soda Labels. Its been really fun and we have made lots of changes.

We do private label for restaurants & stores wholesale or custom labels for parties, events, or holidays. We carry 10 different soda flavors a water. Its been a work in progress but coming along. Here is a Father day label we are doing for Deseret Book.


All of Megan's family came to the cabin for a winter trip.


We skied a few days and I finally got Megan out to go skiing.

There were some beautiful days on the mountain.


Savannah did a lot of sledding with Grandpa Clark and her cousins.


We even went to Soldier Hollow finally and we all had a great time. Savannah went 2 hours straight in the cold and didn't want to come home.


I made a root beer for Deans birthday which was over the holidays with this label. It was fun.


Charlotte wanted to say hi!


I went on a daddy daughter date with Savannah for valentines

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Raelene turned 30...we had a surprise party for her. Megan and Raelene...


I grew a beard for 6 weeks!


Packed car...we took this picture so we can look back years from now laughing at how we made soda delivers. Marks Car broke on this trip!


We moved into a new house in March. It was bitter sweet! We loved our old house and the street we lived on. It was so nice to live on a green space where the kids could just run out the front door and play. But we LOVE our new house as well and its just down the street. We are in a new ward, and its been fun designing a new house.

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A week later we went to CA for Easter and our nephew Evans baby blessing. It was a great trip. I went to the desert with my brother in law Aaron and his 2 boys and some friends of theirs. It was a blast though. He has some awesome toys.


Aaron tipped the razor over in the 4x4 park.


We stayed a night with JD and Adrienne which was so great to see them and their family.

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We also went to the San Juan Capistrano catholic Mission. It was pretty cool. The gardens and trees were amazing. It was quite interesting as well.
Sav and Charlotte. Charlotte was too short to put her head in the open hole so we just moved it and took a picture of her on the stool to avoid a tantrum!



We are lucky to have such great friends and family and love them all very much. See you next post!

Fall Time

Here is the update from the fall! Its been beautiful this year.

I was just telling my parents I don't think I will ever hike as much in the mountains as I did this year. Between all my races, trail training and various day hikes, I have spent my fare share of time in the mountains this year.

Tyrone and I just hiked Mt. Olympus a week or so ago. It was on his bucket list to hike a mountain and we have been talking about doing it for years now. Finally we did it and had a great time. It was a beautiful day for a hike. I love being around Ty, he always inspires and pushes me to be greater. I have experienced some of my most spiritual experiences with Tyrone. He is a great friend, and I love his family. Here we are on top of the world.

This gives you an idea how pretty it was...almost to the top.

We went to St. George for a little get away over conference weekend. Adrianne was running in the marathon and others we knew so we wanted to go see them and the race. We got there right before the first place people were coming in. It was awesome being there so early. I got emotional a few times seeing some of the people coming in because I knew how hard they must have trained and for some reason I just got chocked up. Seeing the first place girl come in was inspiring...it was a cool moment. It was also fun to see some of the really good runners come hobbling in barely making the finish line. It was great to spend time with JD and Adrianne and Shawn and Laura. Its too bad we all didn't live closer to each other. Here is the girl clan.

We stayed at our friends Megan and Sammy Fans family condo while we were there. Charlotte sure strutted that place in style.

We did a lot of canning this fall. Somehow Megan and I caught the canning bug! We loved the farmers markets and ended up canning applesauce, salsa, tomatoes, raspberries, and elderberry syrup. He is a picture of a small sampling.

Halloween was in full throttle this year. Megan and I dressed up twice. We had a fun Halloween season. We went to a few different parties and get togethers.

Megan was the Holy Ghost

I was the Devil.

We were Adam and Eve and rocked the karaoke. (no that isn't a squirrel that ran up Megans crotch...its a leaf)

We made a bloodie brain cake...not bad for the first try.!

The fall weather was great this year. Life if rolling right a long. We are very blessed!

Mud Run

Over Labor Day weekend Megan and I did a mud run with a few friends in our neighborhood. We all had a great time and it was fun hanging out together for the day. It was the man vs mud 5K run near Logan Ut. We decided as a group to be named the "daybreak Mudbloods" and did a hairy potter theme.

We rented a 15 passenger van and partied hard the whole drive up together. It was a beautiful day. Lots of fun and lots of mud. We stopped in Roy at some burger joint Thad couldn't have given a higher recommendation for and I think it delivered.

It was a cool event though and lots of people. We hope to do it next year!

Big #4!!

Well, I thought I would give Josh a break and take a turn on the blog. I want to give a shout out to Savannah who is now 4! Why is it that kids count the days till they get older and parents wish for them to stay young? She is already wanting to be 5 :( We had her party on July 7th (more on that later) and then were in Wyoming on her actual birthday. She loved being the birthday girl and we had fun spoiling her.

Here are some of Savannahs favorites...

1. What is your favorite color? purple & pink
2. What is your favorite toy? coins
3. What is your favorite fruit? bananas
4. What is your favorite tv show? Curious George
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Mac n Cheese
6. What is your favorite outfit? dresses
7. What is your favorite game? dance party
8. What is your favorite snack? cookies
9. What is your favorite animal? horse
10. What is your favorite song? princess songs
11. What is your favorite book? Curious George books
12. Who is your best friend? Caden, Emma, Bella and all the kids outside
13. What is your favorite cereal? ballie ballies (Trix)
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play with all my friends
15. What is your favorite drink? root beer and sprite
16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? my brown blankie
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? yogurt
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? hot dogs
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? She didn't understand the question. I told her I was a mommy and she said she wanted to be a mommy too.


4 things about Sav at age 4: (by Megan)

1. She just started getting into money and asks how she can earn money daily. We went and got her a piggy bank to start saving!

2. She says "I'm hungry" about 20 times a day! I can't stand it! She usually says it out of boredom or if she has a specific treat in mind that she wants. It is especially annoying when she says it at every single persons house we walk into! This girl loves her food.

3. Savannah is the best big sister ever. It is so fun to see the love between her and Charlotte. Savannah carries her around 50% of the day. She entertains her in her bed when she wakes up, feeds her, plays with her, takes baths with her and shares everything with her. They are becoming best buds.

4. She continues to be a social butterfly. Every day she talks about who she wants to play with and what they are going to do. On the days we are home, 10 am hits and Sav is outside knocking on everyones doors. My favorite is when we have had a jam packed fun day and we'll be eating dinner and Sav will ask, "so what are we going to do today?"

Things from dad...When I think of little miss Savannah Kate.

1. She loves making breakfast with me. Most nights before bed she asks me if tomorrow is church day or if I don't have work tomorrow so we can make pancakes. She loves pancakes.

2. She is a little athlete. I think she is big and strong for her age, but she has good running form and loves to have races. She is a fast little runner. She also came to me asking for me to take her training wheels off when she turned 4. A neighbor boy had just taken his off and she was hell bent about having her's off as well. I said "if I take them off, I am not putting them back on" she was ok with that of coarse. She could do it on her first try and has never looked back. I told her she needs to practice each day starting off on her own, because that was a little tricky but she pretty much has mastered it now.

3. She is moody. What's new, she's a girl! I have been dealing with moody girls my whole life. She is either a happy girl or quite grumpy.

4. She loves walking home from church. Each Sunday if we don't have anything we need to get to really quick sav and I walk home from church.

Lifes Little Secrets

I have a little secret for you....wait come close "realize what you love, and spend your life doing it"

I have been writing a little bit lately. 2 years ago or so I wrote a small autobiography about my life up to that point. It turned out to be about 100 pages. It was a way to tell my story for journal purposes and to give some advice to anyone who ended up reading it similar to what I am writing below. A few weeks ago I wrote this and thought I would post it.

I think one of the many secrets of life’s happiness is to align your time spent in life with the talents, passions and desires of who you are. I always love to see when someone’s in a career which they have spent their life enjoying those activities. As in a girl who grew up dancing, danced through high school and maybe college and now owns a dance studio or teaches dance. Someone who loves the outdoors and now works for a touring company or outdoor sporting company. Maybe someone is very social and is good at talking with people and now is in business or sales promoting products.

My high school choir teacher is a great example of this. He is a guy that followed what he was passionate about. He had natural skills for the arts and made it who he is. Everywhere I seem to look when it comes to the fine arts in Utah he is involved in it. It could be some choir, a hale theater play, the Mormon Tabernacle choir, a high school choir that is preforming at my church and he is the conductor. He got his master’s degree in music at the university of Utah. He’s found a way to make his life’s living in what he loves to do.

I love to see where people are spending their time doing what they love and have found a way to make a living doing it. Spending their time being who they are at the core, and finding a way to utilize their natural talents that they don’t have to work too hard to naturally have. I know it’s not easy, and many of us are not in a career which they would associate as that. But hopefully aspects of our career(I say career, because you spend a majority of your life’s time in your career) have you doing things you naturally enjoy and are good at. If not you should find a career that does.

I watched a clip that one of my friends from my mission put together. It was about complacency. He and a group of guys went around and interview hundreds of people around the country and most felt they put there life’s ladder up against the wrong building. It didn’t seem like the amount of money they had, had any effect on whether they felt this way.

Its obviously easier to be satisfied in your complacency of life if you have money, but money can also dull you into complacency. If your economically well off or poor and you’re not involved in pursuing or doing your natural talents, desires or passions the same frustration and feeling of life dissatisfaction seems to occur.

I think its something you need to strive for. Find a way to utilize the abilities that just come easy to you. You’re god given “gifts”. Do the things you naturally love to do and get rid of the things you don’t really like to do if possible. The happiest people seem to have 5 or 6 things of who they are and they master them. They don’t waste their time on fringe things that don’t align really with who they are. Life and days are too short to waste it on things that are sort of drudgery for you.

The best quarterbacks in the NFL are those that do one thing really well…throw the ball. Tom Brady, Payton & Eli Manning, Drew Brees. They have 3 options…throw to a receiver, hand it off, or throw the ball away. Because they only have 3 options when they snap the ball the decision process is much easier and they avoid mistakes. Maybe that is why Mr. Tebow isn’t an elite NFL quarterback. He has to many options at his disposal when he snaps the ball he makes more mistakes.

We as people typically think the more activities we are involved in the better, we spread ourselves so thin. I beg to think master a few things and spend your time focused on less. Have a few really meaningful relationships rather than have 100 friends that you have shallow friendships with. It seems to me those that know who they are, and do those few things, have a better chance of really enjoying their life. Those who don’t really know who they are, and are all over the place don’t seem to be as grounded and happy.

I think its import to find out who you are and the person you want to be. And then accept that, and excel at it. It brings happiness and joy. We all have god given talents that come really easy to us and others have to work really hard to have the same ability. We are all drawn to certain things. Align your life with those things and you will find satisfaction and maximize the happiness of your life.

Wyoming

My Grandparents have a cabin in Alpine Wyoming that I grew up going to ever year. My family had a family vacation there this past weekend. Its a beautiful place. I always love going there.

The only bummer is it's 5 hours away. We stopped at this park on the way to break it up a bit.

We got there a day before the rest of my family. Megan and I decided to run the snake river together with a tour guide. It was awesome. We both love whitewater rafting.

There was lots of 4 wheeler riding.

Sav had here bday while we were there. She had a party earlier, but we had to have her blow out some candles on her day. We only had some cookies so that had to do. We love that girl!

My dad put together this couples obstacle competition which Megan and I won of coarse. Jenny trying to hit the target, she had a hard time.

We spent a lot of time at the lake that the cabin backs up against. Here is the crew on shore.

We had a little raft and all wished we had a ski boat.

My Mom, Mark and Kedric did a lot of fishing. Both on the river and the lake. They caught a few.

Our family stayed at a hotel for 2 of the nights. The hotel had this huge slide outside of it. Savannah loved it! Its awesome.

The men all golfed on Saturday morning in Star Valley. It's beautiful there. We had a great trip. It was a nice break.   Thanks to my parents for providing a great time and keeping us well feed and entertained!