The 4th

We had an awesome 4th of July holiday weekend. It was the perfect mix of everything good ... fun family time with both sides of the family (BBQ with my family, Sunday dinner w/ Angela's family), lots of great friend time (Thai dinner and outdoor concert date with the Mitchells, ,

It started off with a great Friday night date with our friends the Mitchells. We went to Thai food and then to the outdoor rooftop concert in downtown Provo, which was a lot of local artists singing Beatles songs (quite well I might add). Saturday morning was early for us all as we picked up Micah and Maddie Healey from EFY at 7am, and then we went over to watch all the hot air balloons launch for the Freedom Festival in Provo. Our favorite for sure was the Darth Vader balloon! I guess as you can see in the photo, it's also true that pigs can fly... After seeing the balloons we all went to all-you-can-eat french toast (with the killer buttermilk syrup) at Magleby's Fresh. We sort of broke the rules a little bit by accidentally ordering too much food and having to take it with us rather than waste it.

There's nothing like a bike ride on a full stomach, so I immediately headed out after breakfast on a great 40 mile ride up Hobble Creek Canyon. I wanted to check out the lodge where we'll be staying for our Richards family reunion later this month, so I rode up there. Should be really fun. In the afternoon we did some projects around the house - I painted Micah's bed, we unpacked more boxes, set up a desk in our office, and I think I caught a few ZZZ's on the couch while watching Stage 1 of the Tour de France.

Evening was awesome. We headed to my parents for a super fun BBQ with all of our family who's in town. The food was spectacular (especially the ginormous hot dogs and the Day's Market donuts we brought), everyone was happy, and it was fun to catch up with all the brothers. There was a huge firework display at Eaglewood golf course, but we wanted to come back and see the Stadium of Fire show in Provo with our friends, so we left just in time to miss the traffic but still make it to Provo in time to sit with our great friends the Neymans and Davis's on their driveway and watch the firework display. We were SO happy to not have to drive in traffic afterwards but just be able to walk around the corner and be home.

On Sunday Ang and I got set apart for my our new callings - Ang is Activity Days leader, and I'm in the YM Presidency over the Deacons. We're both excited about the callings and happy to be working with young people. Sunday dinner was at the LeBras' where we enjoyed good food and hanging out for a while with family. That evening we went over to Kiwanis Park to help set up the finish line area for Monday's Freedom Run races, our friends are in charge of it so we wanted to help them out.

Monday morning saw Ang and me running the Freedom Run 10K. I was having stomach problems throughout the night - maybe the chicken curry from Sunday dinner? - and that discomfort unfortunately carried on throughout the race. It was still fun though, and we're glad we did it. We collected the kids and then met all our friends down at the parade, where we were amazed at how big the parade was. It was fun to see, and we were grateful for the huge trees that kept us shaded, not to mention the Davis's business office that provided bathrooms and soft chairs when needed. The BBQ afterwards was really fun, and also another great way to miss all the traffic. Later on Spencer and Molly's family came down to see our house and hang out with us for the evening, which included some swimming at the neighbors and JCW's burgers and shakes. That evening was Culdesac of Fire, where the whole neighborhood gathered - in the rain as it turns out - to eat desserts and watch people light off newly legal big fireworks in the street.

And then it was back to work on Tuesday ...

Couple Good Books and a Decent Table

I recently finished reading an amazing book: Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand. It's a biography of former Olympic Athlete, WWII bombadier, and Japanese POW, and I couldn't put it down. I was blown away by the unbelievable experiences he had in his life, and I HIGHLY recommend the read. Very well written, which just added to the incredible story of Louie Zamparini's life.

Another fascinating book that I'm currently reading is called The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, by William Kamkwamba. It's an autobiographical account of growing up in Malawi, and how this boy learned how to do things that changed his life and culture. Some of the most interesting things to me thus far in the book were relating to the African superstitions prevalent in underdeveloped countries - often things that could be explained easily, but once they latch onto supernatural explanations it's hard for them to see logic or common sense in the explanations. Also incredible to me was the devastation that one bad season can have on a country that exists solely on the back of growing crops... and the ingenuity this boy showed once he internalized the drive to pull his family out of the primitive crop cycle.

And finally, in an admitted moment of self-congratulations, I would like to announce the completion of our kitchen table. Lest I get ahead of myself, Matt Maxfield was very, very helpful with this project and deserves most of the credit (along with my Dad), but I'm still very proud of the final result and the work I had to do to finish it. Of course it's not perfect, and it does have blemishes, but it's still a pretty good product, and it's just nice to have a kitchen table! Now on to the beds...

Summer

Well let's see... In the three weeks since I last wrote, we've had some great things going on. In as summary form as possible, here are the highlights:

--Our 17 year anniversary, which passed with little fanfare, to be celebrated properly later this summer when we can catch our breath
--Micah and Kennan did awesome in their dance recital - super amazing dancers especially considering they haven't had too much formal training
--Dave and I competed in the Ironman Boise 70.3 race. We both did better than we expected, and were super thrilled with our times. Dave beat me by 2 minutes, which was fine by me because we both did well. I was very pleased with my swim and bike, but extensive leg cramps sort of impeded my ability to finish strongly like I had wanted. All in all, awesome to do it with Dave, to spend time with he and Mere, to have Ang and the kids come support me and set an amazing standard for loud cheering every time they saw me, and great staying with our friends Greg and DaNel and their great family - their three boys were amazing with Brig!
--Micah went on Trek with our stake and loved it
--Ang, Micah, Morgan, and Brig drove to California for the week (currently there). Kennan stayed with me to then go to a week school camp up by Sundance.

So I've been home this week, and I've used the time to try and finish some of the furniture I started months ago. I've got the dining table stained and ready for clear coat - the goal is to have it upstairs and ready to go when the fam gets home from their trip Saturday night... couple more days of work should do it.

I'm going to a black-tie dinner tonight up in SLC. It's an awards gala dinner where our CEO is a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year. I picked up a tux yesterday and it should be interesting... Thought I'd take a couple hours beforehand and squeeze in a round of golf with my brothers in the afternoon - looking forward to that!

I've been grateful to our CA friends for their continued friendship to all of us. Each time Angela calls me from her trip she sounds very happy, which makes me happy. I've also been grateful for our new Utah friends - they've already made our lives better in being here.

Happy Birthday Angela!!!

This is always a great day to me every year - June 6th. Yeah, it's Angela's birthday, and yeah, it's a happy day of celebration. But really it's all about the fact that on this day each year, Angela pulls within one year of my age, so when people ask how old we both are, she's just one year behind instead of two. Yep, I have a completely objecting and non-selfish way of looking at things...

Seriously, Angela's the best! I'm so grateful for her in every way. Even when she's not perfect, she's great. I've been taken aback recently about how proud I am of her. I'll be watching her in public - while she doesn't know I'm watching - and just marveling at how amazing she is. I'm one lucky guy.

Wow, wow, wow

Brig has said probably five or six times over the last two days: "I can't believe we live in our own house!" I can't believe it either, to be honest. This move is a culmination of lots of work, lots of miracles, and lots of waiting. We're absolutely thrilled to be in a beautiful home, in an awesome neighborhood, in a great ward, in a good city. We count ourselves very blessed.

You know I like lists, so here's a list of projects and things we've accomplished over the last month or so:

• - ran tubing and electrical for central vacuum system with the help of a friend in the ward
• - ran speaker wire for our sound systems with Cameron
• - arranged interior insulation for sound proofing
• - laid out, taped off, and painted five coats of paint on our beautiful hardwood floor in the entry hall
• - researched, price matched, exhaustively comparison shopped, and purchased washer and dryer
• - did the same for refrigerators (kitchen and garage), mattresses, and a BBQ grill
• - built a king bed, a queen bed, and a big dining table with the help of Matt Max and Dad
• - primed and painted the garage walls with the help of Cameron
• - acid cleaned the garage floor and sealed all the garage floor seams
• - epoxy'd the garage floor with the help of the whole family
• - got bids and designs for landscaping
• - Trips to Home Depot, Lowe's, Kwal, lumber store, RC Willey and other furniture stores = at least 30

So now we unpack some boxes each day, and we love sleeping, eating, and playing in our new home. It will probably be months before we hang any pictures and really settle in with nothing to do, but it already feels like home. We have lots to do, but somehow it's much easier to get it all done and feel excited about it when it's for your own home, not for your landlord's!

Um, forgot that...

So in talking all about our busy weekend last week, I neglected to mention two of the most important things: Morgan's 9th birthday, and Mother's Day.  That was not because of a lack of love for those two special people, it was simply because I'm an idiot, and my simple mind has a hard time thinking about more than one thing at once.

So we had a fun day for Morgan.  I didn't participate in all the festivities, because that would've required me to get brightly colored toenail paint.  But I did submit myself to the Justin Bieber movie as part of our family celebration for Morgan, and we had a fun dinner at Pizza Factory.  It was so fun to see Morgan happy and loving the attention.

Mother's Day was a bit less celebratory for Angela, unfortunately.  With my ox firmly entrenched in the mire (a biblical reference that helps me feel better about having had to paint the floor on Sunday due to a strict Monday deadline), I spent many hours, both before church and late into the evening, at the house finishing up the floor.  Church was good, my long afternoon nap was great (nothing like telling the mother of your children you love and honor her by taking a two-hour nap... sheeesh), and it was really fun to go to dinner up at my parents where many of my siblings gathered for my Mom's final American Mother's Day for a while.  (and I feel like I should explain the nap thing ... I had been working on the floor until 1am three nights straight, and then was up at 5:30 Sunday morning to try and get more done before church, so Angela was very understanding...)  See below for my Mother's Day gift to my dear wife...

Also, here are a couple of links to YouTube videos of Micah's last two performances for Centennial Idol.  I particularly love the first one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlkLQmxOTu4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwDlbx-amdE

Busy Weekend Coming Up

It's dang hard just to keep up with my life, let alone with this blog.  So that's my excuse for not being more active in writing.  We've had a good week, but I'll admit it'll be very nice when life slows down a little bit. Aside from the normal hustle and bustle of life, we also had a fun date with Mom and Dad on Monday night, Kennan's Hope of America concert on Tuesday night, I went to SLC to build more furniture Wed night, last night Angela and I were at our new house until after 1 am working on our latest project (more below), tonight Ang and the kids are going to a play in Bountiful followed by a sleepover at cousins while I work on the project again, tomorrow we have a niece's baptism, a baby blessing, an important rugby game and BYU rugby alumni even, lots more work on the house project, and other stuff I can't even remember.

So the house... it's going great, and scary fast.  I say scary because it will reintroduce us to real life - mortgage payment, utility bills, home maintenance & repairs, etc. ... and we can't wait.  Our friends in CA built a beautiful house a while back and they had an artist come in and paint a really cool pattern on their hardwood entry floor.  Angela got it in her mind that our house will just not be complete without doing something similar at our place, and so I was commissioned as the artist in charge of ruining the beautiful hardwood floor ... err, painting the floor.  Here's a tip for all you aspiring floor painters - the actual painting is the easy part.  Laying out and scaling the pattern, and then taping off the floor, were 5 hours worth of back-breaking labor last night.  I'm not kidding, I feel like I ran a marathon yesterday.  I'm sore, tired, and grumpy because I have to go back onto my hands and knees tonight for sanding and then painting a second coat.  And all this without the sure knowledge that it will actually look somewhat decent...

We could be in our house in two weeks.  Yep, less than three months after breaking ground, we are doing final walkthrough next week, and we should close the following week.  Did I mention we're excited?

Micah found out today that she won Centennial Middle School's "Centennial Idol" competition, that included singing a number of songs over weeks of eliminations, until she competed in the finals yesterday.  It's no surprise to us, but we're happy for her because it was fun for her to show her talents.  Kennan and Micah were also in a dance competition with their cousins and dance teams last weekend, and -- somewhat surprisingly to me -- they both brought home first place awards in their team's categories.  Both are good dancers, but the thing that sticks out to me are their genuine smiles and happiness at doing something they love.

Morgan took first place in her most recent swim meet in the IM, and didn't win in butterfly but she was competing against much older kids in the 12 and under division.  Frankly, I'm just impressed she can swim 50 meters of 'fly...  She's a super good little swimmer and we're excited to support her in daily workouts.

Brig is officially outgrowing his clothes.  He was walking around today in jeans up to his ankles, and a t-shirt that had to be size 3 - up to his belly button and hugging his armpits.  Ok, it wasn't quite that bad, but it's definitely time for new gear.

This is already much longer than I planned.  I'm out.