Coaching the Brick Masons

Pathetic name huh!  I guess the city ran out of team names by the time they got to naming the 11th and 12th grade teams because all of them have stupid names.  Tyrel got a few of his friends together to make a team this year.

 They wanted Travis to coach and Travis was so super excited to wear his suit like Jerry Sloan and coach the team.  We figured it would be ok since he was 18, but the city said no that they thought he would cause fights with the other coaches (Really??  They apparently don't know Travis, he is one of the most mellow even tempered people around).

So anyway, they talked Sean into it, which is good anyway since Travis has had to work almost every game.  They haven't done so well, but they have had fun and Travis did get to be the assistant coach and help with one game.  Sean wouldn't let them dribble the ball at their last game and they came really close to winning by just doing passes and no dribbling.  

 We'll see if they can pull off a win next time.  He didn't have them do it until half time, they were down by 20 and got to within 2, but then lost by 7 at the end.

Halloween with the Termite-inator

This year for Halloween, Sean helped with the Chamber of Commerce Trunk or Treat in Salem.  He got his spider rings (because that's what is appropriate for a pest control guy to give out on Halloween), but he didn't inform me until 10 minutes before he had to leave that he also was supposed to dress up.  So, we quickly pulled out the Albert Einstein wig from wax museums of the past and decked him out with his Zap hard hat and bright yellow Zap vest.  He said, "I'll just carry my hammer drill and I can be the Termite-inator." Very funny honey!

Travis went out with his friends, Tyrel's friends came here, Trevin went with one of his friends, and I stayed here to hand out candy.  At 9:00, I turned out the lights, closed the blinds, and ignored the doorbell the rest of the night.

Combined Family Home Evening

We decided to do a monthly combined Family Home Evening with the Nielsen's. We are rotating through everyone to plan and host the evening every 3rd Monday of the month. This month Diane and LaMarr were in charge, but they were sick with colds so they passed it on to Shar. We met at Todd and Haylee's and had a lesson "Love One Another" and then we decorated Valentine sugar cookies for our activity and treat. We were done in about 40 minutes and that included everything plus some visiting. Only the Utah County family members were there and we missed the rest but we had fun!


We are in charge in March and then it will just rotate down through the brothers and sisters.

I am excited to get to spend quality family time together and have some fun!

Guitar Man

I snapped a few photos of Sean over the past couple of weeks playing his guitar. As you can tell, he was thrilled to have his picture taken! He is a funny man......

I love it when he picks it up and plays, and now I love it when Travis picks his up and plays and especially when they play together. Travis played Silent Night for our closing song at Family Night the other night and did a great job. It sounded so good. Tyrel will be taking guitar at school the 2nd half of the year and I am so excited to have 3 guitar players in the house.

I guess I should do my gratitude post for today while I am here. Today I am grateful for my wonderful husband that takes me out to lunch for a date every Friday. He is awesome. He even humors me and takes me to the same old place every week. I should probably take a picture of us there to scrap so we can remember. LOL!

ZAP Pest Control

I guess I should finally blog about this. Sean decided about mid summer that he wanted to do pest control. He had looked and looked for what he wanted to do as far as starting a business and he was convinced that this is one that is fairly recession proof because people are either afraid of bugs or not. He finally decided to buy into a franchise with B2 Pest Control and started at the end of July actually doing the work as he was getting his licensing and registration in place and getting everything set up. After a couple months, he decided he wanted to start his own company instead because they weren't coming through on the training and advertising they had promised him and knew he had to get out soon or he would have to worry about non-compete agreements and stuff like that.

So, we got the business name registered, designed a logo, got new signage for the truck, new shirts, hats, pens, and business cards and he is now doing business as Zap Pest Control. So, if you have any bugs, rodents or weeds and need help getting rid of them, let us know. I wish we would have had it all set up last winter so that we could have been busy through the Spring and Summer, but he has landed a few contracts with hotels and banks so hopefully it will keep growing and get us through the Winter so we can survive and pay off the start up loan.

I love Sean!

So, you will all probably get sick of me this month. November 7th is national Digital Scrapbooking Day and the store where Heidi andI sell our scrapbook kits is having a challenge a day. So I'm going to try to participate in all of them and hopefully get the rest of my pictures for this year scrapped before we begin a new year. So I will probably be here with at least one new layout every day.

Yesterday's challenge was to scrap about a family member picking one thing about them that makes you smile. I chose my wonderful husband who has a quick wit and a funny sense of humor that I also see our boys picking up on.

I also love him because he took me to the temple last night for our ward temple night. I think we had over 60 people there. It was like sitting in heaven with all those people I know from my ward. Thanks Sean!

If you are reading this and you are in book club with me, don't be offended if I put your book in the "Didn't like" category. I guess I shouldn't have watched the movie of the Count of Monte Cristo before I read the book. I love the movie and the book was just way too long (and I even read the abridged version) and he wasn't as much of a good guy in my eyes reading about him in the book as he was on the movie and mostly because he didn't even get the girl at the end of the book. How dumb is that!? I'm glad I read it, I was just disappointed because I, for once, liked the movie better. The Friday Night Knitting Club was a little heavy on the foul language. The end was pretty good even though it was sad, but overall, the bad language made me not like it. I will not recommend it to anyone and I will not keep the book.

The So-So books were okay, glad I read them, but will probably not read them again. On the bright side, there were lots of books in the Liked category so great job overall this year ladies on picking books. The Remembering Isaac book was not a bookclub book, it was a book written by Sean's sisters husbands sisters husband. Did that make sense? It was a good book and now I have to wait for the sequel. I hope he gets it out soon.

My Husband, the dork

I know I've mentioned this before, but it seems like Sean is the hardest one of my boys to get to cooperate for family pictures. We did a photo shoot with my family at Thanksgiving in Leamington, and we only ended up with one good picture of the two of us together and he had on that bright yellow Steelers jacket, so B&W photo's work right?!

I just wanted to wish my sweetheart a Happy Valentine's day even though he is a dork and even though he got me a frying pan for Valentine's Day! I love you Sean!

Over the Hill?

I wanted to wish my wonderful husband a wonderful birthday today. I'll post layouts and details of his party later this week when I get them all edited, but today, I'm giving you the list of 40 things you may or may not know about Sean for his 40th birthday.
1 - Is a wonderful husband to his wife and father to his boys
2 - Knows how to play the guitar, trumpet, french horn, melophone, a little piano and the kazoo
3 - Loves the Pittsburgh Steelers and BYU football
4 - Served a mission to Michigan
5 - Likes to go camping, fishing and hunting
6 - Is a level 70 on WOW (World of Warcraft)
7 - Likes to ride his 4-wheeler, jeep, and go for Sunday drives in the golf cart
8 - Doesn't really enjoy reading unless it is the Rush Limbagh website, Ford Enthusiasts Website, or KSL.com
9 - Rush Limbagh is his favorite speaker
10 - Has 2 cute dimples on his face
11 - Earned his Eagle Scout award
12 - Used to have his own Landscaping business
13 - At one time owned 3 Jags
14 - Spent a few years as a cabinet builder and installer
15 - Enjoys playing golf
16 - Favorite question to ask his boys is "How'd you get so stinkin' cute?" And the response is supposed to be "I got my good looks from my dad."
17 - Doesn't really like Italian food - he thinks it all tastes the same
18 - Mt. Dew is his favorite drink - he wanted to have Mt. Dew fountain drinks at his wedding reception
19 - Is the oldest of 9 children
20 - Likes mission style furniture
21 - Loves chocolate - especially ice cream, and peanut m&ms
22 - His favorite season is Fall - he likes 70 degree temperatures
23 - Honors his priesthood
24 - Loves his Harley Davidson edition truck
25 - Likes to mow the lawn
26 - Thinks his wife looks good driving his truck
27 - Favorite room in his house is the covered deck
28 - Doesn't like to play board games but will occasionally play cards
29 - Hates reality TV shows unless it is sports or hunting shows or the Discovery Channel
30 - Dream job would be to build and sell computers for people but there is no money in that
31 - Went bungee jumping once
32 - Likes vegetables - even brussel sprouts, artichokes, and asparagus
33 - Is a good story teller
34 - Doesn't like to travel but does like to drive - at one time he wanted to be a long haul trucker like his grandpa
35 - Has only changed about 1/2 dozen diapers in his life
36 - Has always had the dream of retiring at age 50
37 - Likes sunflower seeds, beef jerky, pistacios, pine nuts, and black licorice
38 - Likes fireworks (watching them and setting them off)
39 - Likes pumpkin pie for his birthday instead of cake
40 - Hates watching a movie more than once

So how many of those things did you know about Sean?

Being Heroic........NOT!!!

We had an exciting evening in the emergency room last night. It so happened that Sean, busy talking on the phone while filling up with gas, went to step over the gas hose and tripped, the concrete won! He managed to get home and eat dinner and then we took him to the emergency room where we commenced to spend the next hour and a half. He broke his radial head, better known as the elbow. He is in a cast and can't eat or write very well and needs my help to get dressed. Did you know that they don't do plaster casts anymore? Just fiberglass and a sling. This is his first ever broken bone so he was disappointed that he didn't get one that people could sign and he could auction off on EBAY once this is all over.

He had to re-tell his story like 10 times while we were there and was feeling kind of silly about how it happened. He told the receptionist to put on his admittance that he was helping some old lady who was getting mugged, or was fighting off Ninja's or something more heroic like that. They all laughed and thought that was funny. Should make for lots of fun over the next few weeks.

Only a week late......

I know, I'm late, but I just barely got the Father's Day photo layout done. This is my first ever digital layout. My sister always does her layouts this way, and I think it makes her blog so cute, but it took me forrrrrreverrrrrr! I'm sure I'll get faster. Maybe I can find a class to take that will help. Anyway I thought it turned out pretty good. I want my hubby to know how much I love him and let him know what a great father he is to our boys. I didn't get his project done, so all of the trees we bought for the yard ended up being his Father's Day gift, but I'll be sure to get it done for his birthday. The top 3 things that I think make him a good dad are:

#1 Honors his priesthood and has a strong testimony (OK that is really 2)

#2 Loves spending time with his boys doing what they like to do

#3 Has taught his boys to love and respect their mother (ok this one is kind of selfish, but I love it)

I also wanted to tell my dad how much I love him. I couldn't have asked for a better dad. I hope he knows how much I respect and look up to him. Top 3 things I love about my dad:

#1 Humility (I need a lot of practice here, I can only hope to be like him someday)

#2 Taught me independence (he helped me be able to do lots of things on my own, like when he had me learn to change the oil and tires on my car and how to complete my tax returns before I went away to college, I know those may be trivial, but he has taught me many things that have made me a better person)

#3 Patience (he always was very patient, no matter what problems I was having, he always took the time to talk things through with me and help me see others perspectives on different things, I also have a long way to go here as my kids will attest to)

Love you DAD!

I also want to tell my Father In Law how great I think he is. Top 2 things I love about him

#1 Sense of Humor (always is happy and fun to be around and can make any event or situation a ton of fun)

#2 Raised a wonderful son (again I am being selfish here, but I do love all of the values and things that he instilled and taught Sean so that he can be a wonderful husband to me and father to our boys)

Love you too!