I am who I say I am...

It has been an interesting time for us this summer, busy with trying to sell the home and continue on the path toward our dreams and goals. It seems that buying a home is much easier than selling. Of course we could low ball ourselves and not accomplish what we want to out of this or we could just not sell but neihter of those are really options for us in the plan of things. Not because we can't but because they don't fit in with what we want to accomplish in life.

In life we often make rash decisions that tend to lead to more rash decisions and each time we make these decisions we are making them with emotional forces, thsu the rational side of things or our rational reasoning is then pushed asside for what we ant emotionally. Most of the people in the world work of off two emotions FEAR and GREED. FEAR is what keeps us from accomplishing great things in our lives, the fear of change, the fear of having to learn new things, the fear of the unknown. Then GREED takes over when we actually get a little freedom or a little money and instead of evaluating what is worth doing we let GREED take over and do what we have always done and thus the cycle continues. It has been a very interesting thought process in changing these own emotions in my life and the life of our family.

I see our kid today, and not just my own but all those around us in the neighborhood and a thte school, wherever I look and kids allowed to be lazyand content with where they are in life, that to just accept what life is giving them and yet told to do the best they can. How can a child do the best they can when after we tell the to do their best we then turn around and hold them back or allow them to not follow thru with what they said they were going to do.

This is not as easy as it may seem, it takes time and effort on both the part of the parents but also of the children. It is easy to tell someone what to do, but takes more time and effort to show them what to do. The real problem is that many of us ourselves don't know exactly how to accomplish our goals as well. Many of us set New Years goals and yet many of the goals end up being forgotten and become unrealized.

Michael JOrdan made a quote when he was asked why he would risk his hall of fame basketball career lustre to go into baseball and make what others seemed to be a fool of his abilities andhimself. To this he responded..."I can accept failure... but what I cannot accept is not even trying..." Unfortunately there are very few of us who even try, the majority of the world just accepts where they are as the reality and that no matter what they do they will be unable to change it.

I was told in my years after my mission that I needed to stay around here and get a good job, go to school do all the things that the majority of the population do so that I could be just like everyone else...guess what I did, I went to school go a good job, go two degrees in good fields that have some use to them, yet in the end I was still no better off than when I started. I am not saying that school was not worth the education, but that is as far as it goes and education. School did not teach me anything aboutlife, nor about how to become successful in life, that I am learning now.

Yes I had opportunities to do manythings in my life, in fact after talking with many people over the past few years I realize that I had an above average life growing up, was around successful people and hard working people. Some of these people went on to be very wealthy others did not, all were happy but not all were free. I was tought to strive for what everyone else was doing and not what the trully free were doing, there have been a few regrets in my life, not going back to wisconsin to goto school and play ball, not taking a chance on this or that. But now looking back on these experiences I have found that they were growing experiences for me, for the best teachers we can have are our own past experiences. We must learn to look at them and discover what life was trying to teach us and then follow the guidance that was given from the right teachers...LIFE!

Be well...Live long and prosper inspiring words that many of us just pass over as cute phrases that we once heard in a movie line or TV program, yet we tend to miss the true meaning of such words. maybe that is another conversation for another time.

So for now I wish all of you who are out there the best in life and that true happiniess may find you or better yet that you may find true happiness and freedom in your life.

Leadership

We have to be thankful for hte type of leadership we have had in our lives and currently in our lives. If everyone had the opportunity to hear what we hear thru our company and they type of thinking, mentoring and leadership that we recieve has made a world of difference in our lives. To see our family especially the older children begin to realize that there is more to life than just going thru the motions.

I thought of a saying today...I'm Somebody because GOD don't make no junk!... I've seen this around before and was reminded about it today. We are not here to just get by we are here to do our very best for ourselves and for our families. Then if we achieve what we dream about imagine what we can do for those around us. I wish everyone who reads this could know the depth to which we are willing to fight for the freedoms our fmaily deserves. If only others would realize this as well, it would make a world of difference in our community.

We are so excited in the direction we are headed, we do not have to depend on anyone for anything, other than God of course, but financially, physically, emotionally and even spiritually we are reaching new heights and have a greater understanding of what our worth is. We have opened ourselves up to learn from those around us, and those whom we come into contact with that are successful in life. They have been able to bring us to new heights. I am sooo greatful that no matter what happens in the economy, we will always have the ability to take care of ourselves and our family.

I can't even imagine the person I used to be or the type of people we used to be before opening up our minds to learning from others. We wish you all out there the best and hope that your lives are as full as ours. There is no one who will stop you from accomplishing other than yourself, do not depend on anyone other than yourself to make it happen.

Nawlins

What an incredible place to visit, not so sure I would want to live in New Orleans though there are some very nice areas on the north side of the city.

So I spent 10 days in Orange, TX and New Orleans. Had to go to Orange for work but was able to take the weekend and visit Nawlins. The French Quarter Festival was in full swing both Saturday and Sunday. I always thought that Mardi Gras was the big festival but apparently it is just the most renowned, the French Festival and Jazz Fest are two of the biggest and most popular among locals and nearby states. The F.Q.F. takes place on the Riverwalk and encompases the streets over to Bourbon, there is so much going on, three large stages for musicians that rotate acts every hour or so. On top of that there are many street performers both musically and theatrically along with all the other types of street performances you might see. Like I told Danielle in one text "Didn't need to see that" lol. Definately Bourbon street is not a place for younger kids, that type of education so young may not be good for them.

The food is great, so many types of food, all with the sothern flair to them. I love fish so the varieties of fish was great. There is also a wide variety of sausages, many fo them with a cajun flair, spicy just the way I like things.

On both days there were many street vendors for artists of all types, I found one great local artist there on Sat. but didn;t want to buy that day and then he wasn't there on Sun. guess I should have just bought the first time. Oh well lesson learned.

Spent both days walking around the festival and doing some sigt seeing around the city, just in case you did not know. There was also a farmers market and other markets where you can purchase many other items. The city is famous for it's VooDoo type of heritage or black magic. The cemetary we all see for the funeral parades in many movies is the one that has the most famous of all buried there, the Queen of VooDoo Marie Laveau. She is practicallyright in the middle. There is so much heritage there and it is great to see. There is also what most people know about it, Bourbon street has anything and everything for sale, needless to say if you haven't seen it before you visit most liekly you will see it when you are there. Vegas is know as the city of sin but I would have to say that Nawlins is rigt there with it if not even more so. Still a fun place to visit and I would recomend anyone to at least visit, just don't go to Bourbon during the night unless you really want to.

Picture Time Again!

Yes it is that time of year, the Easter time of year where new clothes for the year are bought and there are plenty of things going on. The kids are enjoying hte nice weather when we have it, getting outside and playing again. They really enjoy playing on the playground after being cooped up all winter it seems like. I think Danielle also likes to have them outside rather than inside buggin her all day.

So part of our Easter time of year tradition it seems is pictures. I Love them.... Well sort of. Though this year was pretty good, we were able to get thru them fast and didn't have to deal with very much whining for the kids. Usually there is wailing and gnashing of teeth and dead kids everywhere. Ya know dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria that type of stuff.

All of the kids were great for pictures and they loved it. Sydnee was the only difficult one for part of it, she did not want to sit down, she just wanted to climb on the little ladder, so we ended up getting a picture of her sort of sideways with her climbing, she just did not want to hold still, she wanted to go explore and climb things. So we did what we could with it.

Glad that it is over and yes I am glad that we do have updated pictures. Last year it was soooo bad that we didn't even get a family picture together, so much improved this year.

Austin's 1st wrestling match

So the football season has ended and now the wrestling begins. Austin told us last year that he wanted to get into wrestling, well we waited to see if it was something he really wanted to do until this year and he still wanted to try it.

It has been three weeks since the start of the season and practices, and today we had his first meet at Juan Diego in Draper. There were so many kids there, all grade levels Kindergarten thru 8th grade, both girls and boys were able to compete.

So Austin in his first match he wrestled against a boy who had been wrestling for 3 years already. Austin was able to hold his own but eventually lost the decision on technical points, we were proud of him that he fought so hard and scored many points of his own, you could tell that as the match went on he got better against the other boy.

Austin was not very fond of loosing his first match but sat and watched older wrestlers and we talked about what he could do in his next match to get better.

The second match went better, he was able to wrestle a boy who also was in his first year of wrestling. Austin totally dominated the match, the other boy did not score a point on Austin and Austin was able to pin him nearly halfway thru the match. He was so excited to win, so not bad for his first time out, 1 and 1. He is very excited to wrestle, the fact that it is an individual sport I think he likes, if he makes a mistake he knows what to do to correct it for the next time. He looks to be talented at this so it might be good for him over the years.

Now that Maddison has seen the wrestling and the fact that she saw plenty of girls wrestling against boys she has become all excited for wrestling and really wants to try. Danielle and I are not as excited about it but hey if she wants to try it I guess next year we can try to put her in as well and see how she does. She does wrestle with Austin all the time so who knows...

Sydnee's 1st Birthday

WOW!! Sydnee is now 1 year old.

It seems like just the other day she was brought home from the hospital, yet then again we are counting down the days till we are able to drop her off in nursery in 6 months so we can have some peace and quite during some of church. lol

Sydnee had a wonderful time on her B-day she really got into the opening of her presents.

The birthday cake is a different story she was not so sure what to do with the candle. She would rather play with the fire than blow it out eventually her sister Trina had to blow it out for her.

The eating of the cake started out slowly as Sydnee figured out whether she liked the cake or not.

Then well as you can see there was no stopping her. For a little girl a big slice of cake sure can disappear quickly. It is amazing how much can either fit in or on a little girl.

We had a wonderful time celebrating the birthday of our little girl who now no longer can be called a baby and is now a toddler who is learning how to walk, is talking and her favorite thing to say, that she learned from her brother Brayden, "Stop It" and she points her finger at you. Oh boy do we have our wokr cut out for us later on.

A New Year with GREAT Aspirations

So here it is again, we finally took down the tree and all the other holiday decorations. For some reason it takes us a little while to get things down, one I don't particularly like getting out inthe cold to take down the outside stuff, so I wait for a good day. And second is that really I just don't like having to clean up all the mess. Well it is now done so good bye for another 10 months.

"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." - Anatole France -

Have you ever noticed that each year most people make resolutions for the new year on things they want to change about themselves. Yet when it comes down to it most people give up after just a few weeks or even days of trying. It seems that for most of us it is just easier to give up rather than put in the effort to improve ourselves.





This year Danielle and I did something different. We made affirmation lists for us and each of the older kids to hang on their walls, that way as we each get up and go to bed every day we can look over these lists and remind ourselves of who we are and what we think about ourselves, the goal is to help us improve oursleves over the year. Danielle and I also have a goal to read 24 books over the course of the year between the two of us that will improve each of us, so the "Twilight" type of books don't count. Though they are good what really do they do for our benefit. We have made a commitment to spend more time on ourselves than we have in the past, so turn off the TV and start doing things that will help us improve as people, parents and a family. Stop wasting our time here on earth with things that are meaningless to our progression.





One of our two big goals is to move into this gorgeous big home in Draper. It is about 5300 sq ft on almost a half acre lot down a private lane with only about 5 other homes on it. It will be a lovely home for us to continue to raise our family. It already has all the room we need plus the basement is still unfinished, so now I can get my office and man room. hehe

The second of our big goals is to grow our business to where we have a personal income of over 200k this year. This is probably going to be easier to accomplish than the home since we will want to sell our home first and that may take a while the way the housing market is. But hey maybe we will keep it and just rent it out. who knows but we want this home.

We have on our list about a dozen other things to accomplish this year personaly, together as a couple and as a family, nice vacations, better realtionships with each other and our kids and so on. This is just the beginning of what is going to be a wonderful year for us. Good luck to you all in your own efforts on your resolutions this year.

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." - John F. Kennedy -