Catching Up...

Okay blog, it has been like 3 weeks since my last post. Basically I went to AZ for a week to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family and never posted again. I am always so bad at keeping up with this kind of thing. I am going to try harder though. Blogging is kind of fun. SO, that being the case, how about we play the catch up game? Let's do it... So, like I said we went to AZ for a week to be with my family to celebrate Thanksgiving. It was so much fun. I just love spending time with my family. It's kind of a funny thing actually. You see, I have 5 older brothers. I really was only ever "close" to one of the five when it came to having a relationship. My 4 oldest brothers are quite a bit older than me. Basically I never was "friends" with all of them until about a year or two ago, after I got married, moved away to Utah and then moved back closer to Las Vegas. I am just starting to realize now how much fun it is to be a part of a big family. As we all get a little older and start to have so many things in common, we just really enjoy spending time together. So, while I was down in AZ here is a list of some of the fun we had:

• Went with my brother just older than me and saw the Bourne Ultimatum at the dollar theater

• Had a family bowling tournament, complete with a real bowling pin give away to the winner...it's a good thing my beautiful and talented bowler wife Nikki wasn't in town at that point b/c she would have cleaned up and walked away with the pin. We are going to make this a family tradition over the Holiday's and go every year, and pass the pin along to whoever wins.
• Thanksgiving day we of course ate our brains out. We had massive amounts of turkey, honey baked ham, and even prime rib. BUT, even better was that we had our traditional stickball game before dinner. We were short on time this year and had more players than usual, but it was a lot of fun. My team won...WHAT WHAT!!
• After dinner on Thanksgiving day we decided to have a Nintendo Wii tennis tournament...with the entire family. Nicole and I brought our Wii down and everyone got a chance to know how fun a Wii really is, so we broke the family into brackets and teams of 2. Needless to say, my brother Mike, who organized the tourney tried to rig the outcome by giving himself a very good team and very easy competition. They didn't play a team with a member over 8 until they got to the finals, which was against me and my niece Kirsten. Unfortunately, I did have to down my little wifey Nikki along the way, but it was necessary so that me and Kirsten could put the hurt on my brother Mike and cousin Mitch. And oh, WE DID! The game went the distance though, being best of 3 sets with best of 5 games per set. In the end, cheaters never prosper and in this case they don't even win as Kirsten and I reigned victorious and captured the first WimbleDeen title. BOOYA!
• On Saturday, my Dad and all brothers but one who had gone home to Utah went out golfing. This is always one of my favorite events when we go down to Phoenix. I and my brothers are all terrible at golf, but we love going out to knock it around every now and then. I usually suck the least and come out with a "W" but the last 2 times that hasn't been the case. I started off slow as usual, being down by 3 or 4 shots by the time we finished the second hole. My Dad, who was driving in my cart with me but not playing was getting noticeably worried. I kept on telling him that I always pull it together after 4 or 5 holes and then stay pretty consistent which gives me plenty of time to watch everyone else fall apart. He wasn't convinced but nonetheless, things progressed according to my evil plot. I like telling this story as though I am the Emperor from Star Wars. So, in the end, I played like I do, terribly... and everyone else played a little worse and I ended up being able to come out of the a big winner. Who cares right, I just really enjoy being with my family.

Work is busy as usual. I am doing a lot of things right now to get ready for big changes that need to be ready by the end of the year. Tell you what, trying to get people to do things on a tight time table this time of year is like pulling teeth. I traveled to Minnesota last week to enroll a company in a new 401(k) plan. All I have to say is that MN is CHILLY this time of year. Apparently everyone thought I brought the warm weather with me though b/c it was practically 20 degrees the day I was there, where as the night I left it was supposed to be 20 BELOW! I got a pic of the flight departures while in MN. My flight was the one at the very top of the list. Exciting stuff...


One last thing, we got a new car on Saturday. I took a quick photo a few days ago but there will be more to come later. We are pretty excited. It is very fun. A Cadillac CTS. Thanks to the help of family we were able to get the car for a very reasonable price.

MORE PHOTOS to come of all the festivities in AZ. We got a lot of really fun photos.

Oh, and I almost forgot, my Sis. in law Rachel who goes to school at Ole Miss found out yesterday that she did very well in all of her classes in her first semester at college. Congratulations Rachel!! We took her out for Sushi last night to celebrate. It was a lot of fun. She is great.

A fun filled Saturday...

So, yesterday was a pretty good day. For starters, anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a huge Phoenix Suns fan. I mean, I am border lining obsession. No matter where I live, the Suns will always be my team. I mean, how can you not love the following: Amare Soudemire (STAT), Shawn Marion (The Matrix), Steve Nash (The Nash Rambler), Grant Hill, Boris Diaw, Raja Bell, and my personal favorite Leandro Barbosa (The Brazilian Sensation. or Brazilian Blur depending on who you talk to). Also, let us not forget Marcus Banks, who is Nicole's favorite.

Anyway, back to yesterday, first of all the Suns smacked the Houston Rockets around. BUT, even more exciting is that while I went to bed very early on Friday night with a major headache, my little wifey, who happens to be an artist extraordinaire stayed up until nearly 5 am making a painting for me, as an ode to the Phoenix Suns. Dead serious!! She took the Suns colors and made me a totally unique and awesome art piece to hang in my office at work, which was until now, admittedly dull and colorless. Now, I can have an office worth being proud of...THANKS HONEY! Following are pics of the art piece Nicole made for me, as well as a few pics of her other stuff hanging in our house. Enjoy!!So, the colors are obviously those of the Phoenix Suns.
The winding lines are the road to the championship.
On the right you have a basketball, headed for the very hard to see hoop below.
On the left she painted in what looks like a big foam #1 hand.

This is the artist herself. The art piece on the right is nicer
then the one on the left. WINK!

This is me and my mad hoop skills. Steve Nash better watch
his spot in the starting 5.

This is my office now looking much more lively with the colorful
addition. The room now bursts with Suns pride.Okay, so this is another of Nicole's art pieces. She painted this
back before she was LDS, but had read this part of the Book of Mormon.
Pretty cool thing for a convert to have painted before even being converted.I am pretty sure Nikki calls this one "Bombs over Baghdad".
I don't know that this one has a name, but I sure do like it.

Roughing it in Brianhead...

Nicole's parents have a cabin in Brianhead, UT. It is really beautiful up there, and I always look forward to going up. We went up over Labor day, or something like that, back in September. I took some photos with our new camera while there, and thought I would post them for everyone to enjoy.

Cabin Front


















Great Room








View from back balcony













A tree carving Nicole and I made back in 2005













The off-roaders. These are such a good time. I could spend all my time at the cabin just to ride these things.

Living Las Vegas...

So, my little wifey Nikki wanted me to post a blogarythim with her blog address on it. So, for all the peeps who come through here be sure to check out:

nikkidee1.blogspot.com

She is way funnier than me. She is like Jerry Seinfeld, but a woman, and w/o a syndicated TV show and movies and stuff. Anyway, no matter, she is WAY more babe-a-licious than Jerry anyway.

Anyway, I got to go down to the Bellagio today for a business meeting. For those of you who haven't been here, this is what I am talking about...


Pretty Cool, huh?

















This isn't too shabby either.




















This guy resides in the botanical gardens, which are changed seasonally to coordinate with the time of year.







It's funny, but when you live here you really start to take things like this for granted. There is a lot of ugly things about the Strip, but some things are just plain nice. I really like living in Las Vegas. It's not perfect, but no place is. There are a lot of things to love about this place, and I am glad that we have ended up here.

In other news, I found a few other pics that I am going to post, but in separate postings, so that way there is some semblance of order on here, unlike in my brain.

It's never as good as it seems, and it's never as bad as it seems...

So generally I think that my blog will be pretty happy and fun. BUT, today I wanted to write about something that is a bit of a downer.

You ever have a few things happen in a row that just get you a little down? You almost can't help but say to yourself, "Geez, it would be nice if something went my way here!!" Well, the last few weeks have been like that for me, and Nicole too I think. Allow me to explain...

A little background on what I am talking about here. When we moved from Utah to Las Vegas, Nicole has this job all lined up that was supposedly a sure thing. It was with the company she used to work for in Vegas, they loved her, and it was basically her old job again. Well, at the last minute it fell through and she was jobless. She really likes the company she used to work for, so she took what she could get as soon as we got here, a.k.a. a job a customer service. So then, her old job for a different boss became available again a few weeks ago. She interviewed, they loved her of course...all is well, right. Wrong, they passed on her b/c the person who had left that same job about a year earlier wanted to come back to it. BAM! Shut down again, on what was supposed to be a done deal, doing a job she is already way too qualified for. It kind of hurts though you know. Like, "Geez, what is my problem? Does everyone I thought liked me, actually hate me? Am I just plain not good enough to get hired." Of course, none of that is true, especially about Nicole, but you just can't help but feel that way it seems.

So, now onto me...I have been working for several months now on a deal at work. (I sell 401k plans to small and medium sized businesses by the way) This was my first "big deal". Everything looked so good. We were saving them a LOT of money, nearly 85% of what they currently spend on their plan. We were increasing their benefits substantially. We absolutely knocked the presentation out of the park. My boss, who is also my father in law, was genuinely impressed with the work I had done. After we left the big presentation he said, "That was great. If we don't get this deal, I will honestly have no idea what to say to you. You just gave the best presentation on this stuff I have ever seen." We are good, right? Wrong. We didn't get the deal. They stayed with the company they already have, and all for really bad reasons. And to top it all off, we could have resolved every concern, but we never had the chance to do it.

Anyway, I just found all of this out yesterday. I am sitting in my office; our building is empty b/c we were closed for Veteran's Day. My father in law had just broken the news to me, and I couldn't help it. I thought to myself, "How can all of this keep happening? What are we doing wrong here? We're trying so hard. How can all of these failures be a part of the plan?" Oh, I know, it's so dramatic isn't it? :) Sometimes that is just how you feel though. This frownie face below is meant to illustrate what I mean.

Anyway, I wallowed in pity for a few hours. Feeling like "the wind had really been taken out of my sails", or I had been "kicked while I was down", or whatever else. And I mean that. Yesterday was the worst feeling I have had about things in a long time. I'm a pretty happy guy. I can't remember the last time I felt depressed. I sat here in my dark office just feeling really alone and pitiful, reflecting on all the "misfortune" that has come our way the past month. And then I thought, "You know, I have felt this way for 3-4 hours now, and it is time to move on, get back to work and get over it. Things are what they are, and you can't always change that." And then I thought, man what about those people who feel like this all the time or most of the time anyway? You know? People who are really sad and depressed and lonely, and just feel like nothing is right, and everyday they just mess it up worse. They feel like things really aren't going to get better. And it made me sad. I guess I haven't felt down enough about something in a very long time, and I have kind of forgotten how it feels. It made me realize that I am probably a callous jerk a lot of the time b/c I just don't relate well to people who just feel down-trodden.

Anyway, my point is I am going to work harder at this kind of thing. People struggle sometimes with things and feelings that I don't understand. That doesn't make them not real though. It just means I need to wake up and think about others more and myself less. That's it really. Like I said, this blog is really for me, not anyone else. It just makes me feel better to write some of this down and get it out. The end...

Taking a look-see

So here I am. Blogging. Always have thought this is kind of a goofy concept, but recently I have been thinking it would be nice to start "writing" down some of the happenings. My wifey, Nicole is currently searching diligently for a photo to be used on my blog, which if we uploaded it correctly should be there now. That is a pic of me at Disneyland!! We went this past month to celebrate Nikki's birthday. How about another snapshot or two of our adventure? Ok!




So, while seeing the see's and doing the do's of Universal Studios, we ran across home boy here who was clearly starting something. Thankfully for Hulk, Nicole was able to calm me down. More photos you say...

Okay, apparently this Native American was also picking a fight with me. Oddly enough, this pic was taken during our honeymoon trip to Disneyland nearly 3 years ago. Apparently my sense of humor hasn't eveolved much since then. That's ok, what was funny then, is still funny now. Alright, one last photo of Disneyland...until I can download more that is. Nicole and I don't really believe in going on vacation unless it is to Disneyland. I tried to take Nicole to Laughlin once a few months ago for a weekend (you know, so we didn't wear out our welcome at the Happiest Place on Earth)...anyway, it ended up being a total bust. Our hotel was shaped like a giant steamboat, which sounds cool, but when it comes at a staggering cost of $49/night...well let's just say you get what you pay for. Anyway, long story short, I learned my lesson, mended my ways, and have accepted that I will never see another vacation destination as long as I live, or at least as long as Nicole lives. :o)

This is me and my boy Jordan down at the Bellagio fountains. The fountains are like the White House of Las Vegas. Now, what I mean by that is that in my brain, if you live in D.C. then when people come to visit you, they ALWAYS want to see the White House. I don't know if that is true or not, I just like to pretend that it is. Anyway, if you haven't connected the dots yet, my point is that we make our way down to see the dancing water anytime we have visitors. Good times though. Nothing like the old h2O ballet.

Anyway, that should do it for now I think. This entry really doesn't have a point. Just getting things started