My favorite part of Christmas

We've been drilling Christmas songs into Kaylee's head. Whenever I try to record her singing she tries to take the camera from me. Randomly she wanted to take a shower. While I was around the corner this is how I caught her.

Christmas jammies from Grandma at the sibling party.

Riley got a cute pair of Squeakies from Hunter.

Kaylee got a dress up tutu and shoes from Bella.

Katie got some make-up from Penny and shared with the girls under the table.

Happy Birthday Evie! We were glad to see the Soules and Lowes at Diane's house.

Annika came up to our room at 6:30am to announce that Santa came and he brought a bike! We made her wait until our girls woke up around 8 to open presents.

Papa got Riley a cute stuffed bear. They are best buddies.

A frequent expression as Kaylee opened all of her presents.

A new table a chairs, just their size.

Kaylee called Santa and said thank you for the kitchen!

The deer came a bedded down outside in the neighbors back yard. We have seen quite a few deer as the snow has come down.

tagged

I was tagged forever ago, it's just taken me a long time to get it together.
In no particular order...
10 intersting things about me

1. Since I moved out of my parents house after high school, I have moved 23 times. Of all those places, I have never lived in the place for more than eight months consectutively. We've had our house in Utah for almost 2 years, but we've moved out each summer. I've lived in various cities in Washington, Idaho, California, Utah, New York and most recently Rhode Island.

2. In February 2002 I saw 311/Incubus/Hoobastank performing in a bull ring in Spain. My parents took me and Brent Spain, so naturally that was planned in our itinerary. No, my parents did not go. I've actually been to five 311 concerts, which is wierd cause I've only been to like 10 concerts total. Here are a few samples of the groups that played.

3. I have never broken a bone. When I was about 5 my brothers dropped me from the top bunk on to the bed frame of the bottom bunk. I got stiches right down the middle of my head, leaving a permanant scar that hairstylists often mistake for a part. I think I would have prefered having a cast and no scar!

4. I survived Hurricane Kenna! Oh you've never heard of that one? Well, in October 2002 in sunny Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, my sister and I were learning Spanish and teaching English to kids that lived at the city dump. On our last day there we watched from the hotel room as the rain and ocean waves poured through the hotel lobbies and into the streets. I mean, more than pour, it was a hurricane after all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Kenna. A traveler who must have been there at the same time as me took the following footage:

5. I watched the sunrise at Machu Picchu. I went to Peru with my parents and my sister during the summer of 2005. Although this famous wonder of the world was incredible to behold, we were so exhausted from our adventure the day before that I don't think I fully appreciated it.

This a ladder on the trial up the mountain, Putucusi. It is directly across from Machu Picchu. We climbed to the top of this the day before, and on our way down, ran into a man who was passed out on the trail. He died that night after my sister and a group of other tourist gave him CPR. Crazy experience, to say the least.

6. I had an article written about me in the Ensign... kind of. In the April 2001 issue there is a story called "Standing up to Profanity". My aunt had written the article 7 years prior to it being published. There was even a little artistic representaion of me with my hands on my hips. Read the story here.

7. During our trip to Spain we took a ferry across the Strait of Gibralter to Morocco. We were just there for a day but I rode a camel! I don't think I have ever seen a camel before or after that experience. Kind of cool, right?

8. From as far back as I could remember until I left my parents house, we have had 48 different cars. They ranged from typical sedans and minivans, to classics, trucks, scooters and so on. Some of them had clever names, like the Sassy Chassy, Queen Latifa and the Toucher (creepy, I know).

Helix Precis (our's was white) Aerostar

9.The doctor who delivered me 26 years ago also delivered my first baby, Kaylee. We moved to Seattle 2 weeks before she was born. We didn't have a lot of time to find me a doctor and although I had no memory of him, it was comforting to know firsthand that I turned out just fine!

10. Before I got married I worked at a barter exchange called ITEX. I worked there for 3 years and must say I was a pretty good trade director. I won an award for my acheivements at a convention in Florida. When Jake and I moved, his mom took my job and now rocks the house and runs the show in the Utah office.

my cute little family

Jake's cousin Jandee and her husband Jordan took these pictures for us up Hobble Creek Canyon. Just for an update, Kaylee is 2 and a half and Riley is just over 1.

quilt contest

You've got to check out the amazing quilt at www.potsandpins.com. You could even win it!!! Maybe one day I'll be clever enough to make such a masterpeice!

Busy Fall

It has been a crazy crazy few months.

Here's the run down:

Jake's birthday on the 11th

Dane and Lindsey got married on the 12th

The Hydes and Jake Tanner stayed the weekend with us

Birhtday party on the 13th

Riley's 1st birthday on the 16th

Jake Tanners wedding weekend in San Diego on the 18-21st

Visit my family in Seattle the 24-1st

Rented out our house in Lehi- packed everything into storage in 3 days!

Moved in with the Dahl's October 5th

Jake started a company in Utah. We couldn't be happier!

Goodbye New York, Hello... Rhode Island

We're home! We're Home! We're home! It is wonderful. I love my house, I love my yard, I love my family and friends that are here. My girls are happy to have their beds and their toys and their cousins and grandparents.

So to catch up, 2 days after I got home from Nevada, I packed up the apartment and met Jake in Utica, NY. Luckliy we were only there for one night. We headed down to Rhode Island, where the team would finish out the summer. I was really excited to explore a new part of the country. Whoever thinks about going to Rhode Island? Well I lost my camera battery charger and only got a few pics, but here are some of the highlights of the Ocean State.

Riley making a dash for the water. She is fearless when it comes to the water. She can't get enough!

Kaylee and her dear friend Olivia. We sure miss her!!!

Gotta love these girls! These pics were taken at the Naragansett beach that Marie and I went to the first week we were there.

We also enjoyed the coolest park ever! There was a huge playground, swan shaped paddle boats, a carousel, a wonderful zoo that we were sure to take advantage of. If you're ever Rhode Island, be sure to check out www.rogerwilliamsparkzoo.org.

While we were there I had a surprise visit from my sister! Kami flw in on Sunday and stayed til Wednesday. We had fun driving around Providence and got a night with no kids in Boston! We also went to the Providence Children's Museum (kind of lame) and bumped into some colleges like, Brown, MIT and Harvard. If I can get some pictures from Kami I will post about our adventure.

I have found and am currently charging my camera battery. Hopefully I can update more in the next week. Jake is out of town, so I should have some time.

Happy 50th Birthday Rob!!!!

To finish my vacation with the girls, we drove down with my parents and Kami to Mark and Anne Hyde's beautiful home in Fallon, Neavda to celebrate my favorite uncles birthday. Rob lived with our faml for the majority of my life at home. He recently moved in with the Hyde's and seems to love it. How could you not!

Rob took all the little scallewags on a pirate treasure hunt. The found all the clues and turned the peices over to make a map to find Rob's treasure. The hightlight for me ws watching Jackson take the plunge to get the clue at the bottom of the pool.

This is on our drive down. It may seem a little tight, but trust me, it was WAY! more enjoyable that the seven hour flight I took from Reno to Buffalo with just me and the girls! Thank heavens we survived.

We had such a fun time swimming in the pool, seeing the horses, watching classic family movies, eating lots of food and making fun jewelry. Kaylee loved playing with all the cousins. Thanks so much to the Hydes for letting us take over their home!

The sacrifice of summer sales

Its 2 a.m. and I cant sleep so I decided to update everyone on the craziest summer of our lives thus far. I came over to APX ALARM in January 2008- I decided to build a team with my good friend Kyle Fransen. We chose our territory in Yonkers, New York. It covered Yonkers to Manhattan. It looked to be very promising and a great market to sell alarms. On April 10th, Kels, the kids and I left our beautiful home in Lehi, UT and set out on a three day drive to NY. 2400 miles later we arrived in Yonkers. This was one of the views from our apt window. The other side was of the Hudson. A great place to live.

Or at least we thought. To sum it up, after 2 solid weeks of testing the area, trying to map out crazy NY for a 4 month program, and after knocking lots of doors and having little success we made a decision to pull out. This has to have been one of the most stressful times in my life. Kyle and I had 45 guys showing up to work and the market proved less than reliable.Ahhhh what to do,where to go. Luckily for me, my long time friends Dane McCartney and Chris Cowhick had built a team in Rochester, NY. After two 12 hour days of driving to Rochester and back to NYC I decided to pull my team of guys and move to Rochester. I felt good about it. It had lots of ghetto and lots of church history. This is a pic I took of Hill Cumorah.

By the time we moved to Rochester it was April 27th and luckily I had retained all my sales reps and they all started to show up. For all of you who has never sold alarms or gone through a summer program before, this is what football players would consider hell week. Or in summer sales hell month. Training reps before and after work, knocking with 2-3 reps per day. The first month of the summer I hit 74 good accounts sold, it was a record for me. The team was producing great numbers.

After 2 months of knocking Rochester in the ground, we were forced to travel 200+ miles a day back and forth from Rochester to Syracuse. It was expensive with tolls of 7 dollars per day, an average of 4.35 per gallon of gas, 5 stinky men in my honda accord, and 5 other cars full of reps. For 3 1/2 weeks we drove everyday back and forth. It was horrible. It was so hard to leave work at 10:30 everyday, drive 100 miles one way, knock 7 hours, and drive back home another 100 miles.To top it off most of my Sales Reps flew out and didn't have cars so it forced to me take our only car we had out there. Kels was stuck in an apartment 100 miles away with our little demons.....I honestly don't know how she did it all day and kept so positive. Fortunately the sales were great in Syracuse and I hit the 125 mark while I was there. Well on my way for a record summer.

To rewind back to Yonkers, before I moved to Rochester I had my regional manager promise if we needed to, we could move to another city to finish the summer out. I was worried about not having enough market to sell in. After Syracuse we went back to Rochester and tried to re-knock it a third and fourth time. Sales for the team and myself became harder to get. We made our case and moved to hotels in Utica NY, I was looking for pics online to post of Utica and I found one of the homes that I sold.

To be honest, Utica is beautiful, but extreme ghetto. I have never heard more swear words, seen so many parents smack their kids, and seen more trash in the streets. I was walking down the road and I had a 8 yearold boy throw a soft ball size rock at my head! Luckily it missed. It was good selling but holy crap it was gross. All the homes where like this one, huge old homes that 5 families lived in. God would do well to wipe this crap hole off the face of the earth. But I guess it's good for my job so eh, lets keep it. Due to the size we only stayed a week and a half. During the time there we decided to end the summer in providence RI.
The team woke up at 5:30 am on Aug. 5th and drove 5 hours to Providence. The apartments are great except no furniture. We have now knocked 3 days in Providence and it seems to be very good. Rhode Island is so beautiful. So green and lush with trees. My team is currently sitting around 1350 good sales and should end at 1600 installs. I am personally at 170ish accounts and have a goal of 210 before August 30th.It will be a great year for us.

I want to thank Kelsie my amazing wife for being so dang supportive. It's not easy to leave your home, take another risk, move 5 times in 4 months, and never complain once. I am the luckiest man ever. Fortunately it all pays off when I can take 6 months off a year, and give us great financial rewards. I feel very blessed to be able to sell. It's what I want to do in some respect my entire life. Hopefully I will graduate off the doors soon. But until then I say give me ghetto and I won't complain.
So to sum it all up, since April 10th until now, which is 117 days, my little family of 4, has moved from, Utah, to Yonkers NY, to Rochester NY, to Syracuse NY, to Utica NY, to Providence RI. in 117 days. I have drove a total of 15,565 miles, which means everyday I have averaged 133 miles. It's been an adventure to say the least. We are better for it and are grateful for the lessons of life. It's never what it seems. I have come to learn over the 5 years iIhave done this profession that attitude in life is everything. No if's and's or but's about it. And as my Co-Manager Dane would say--"Excuses are for Duesches" Amen to that.



Here is what i want from anyone who reads this blog. I have 3 weeks of hardcore knocking left to complete. I need motivation as I am getting trunky. Please leave me your favorite quote, of short motivational story. Wish me luck! my cell phone is 801-372-5253 motivate me!!!

A trip to Utah and Idaho

Over the 24th of July we went to Jake's Grandparents house in St. Anthony, Idaho. Here's Jake and Kaylee on the private lake by the house. Josh holding his favorite girls. I made all of the i heart ny shirts for the cousins. It was fun to see them wear them at the parade. Jake went to this same parade as a boy. They throw out tons of candy, so of course that made Kaylee happy.

Jake and Kaylee at the St. Anthony rodeo.

Grandma and Riley at the rodeo.

Another one of us at the rodeo. We had a lot of fun.
After a few days in Idaho we spent some time at our house in Utah. Kaylee's favorite thing to do was water the plants.

Riley, Kami and Grandpa Grandpa at my parents house in Provo, Ut.

Besides trying to motivate myself to knock the next door in Rhode Island. I dream of my winter when I can go snowmobiling three to four times a week. This was took last year on one of our snowmobile trips.