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.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
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.
Monday, October 27, 2008
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!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
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!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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!
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.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
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!
Friday, August 8, 2008
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.
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!!!
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!!!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
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.
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.
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.
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