Erasure concert tonight with Anna.

Hopefully this one goes better than the last one when Tatiana faked a serious injury on a trampling and made us come home from the Colors tour 4 years ago....That was interesting with Glen, Jeannette, Geoff and Alisha.

Maybe I'll post some pictures of Andy and Vince. Those two crack me up...okay, mostly just Andy Bell and his sensationalized gayness.

So Life has been a rollercoaster.

Football has started for both boys. Yesenia is trying out soccer...she says she has always wanted to try. We'll see how that goes. We are excited for school to start again....summers are not easy with both of us working and all. A lot of stress with the kids around 24/7.

Was going to go to byu/texas football game for reaching some weight loss goals, but have decided against it. My brother has quit his job...in this economy it isn't easy to find a new job. A lot of overqualified people taking lower end jobs.

Working hard to get a better raise this year at my work. I have had great results the last 4 years with no high ratings..hopefully that can change. A lot of personal goals and things to do the next 4 months.

My mom is coming out to see us next weekend. Should be a good few days. I think Gabe's games start that weekend.

We have a new foster daughter R. Situation is unclear but she is 12 and has been hanging out with Yesenia a ton.

Bekah is currently in pre-school limbo as we are trying to get something for her. She is only 3 but she is pretty smart and we're hoping to get her started sooner than later.

I just heard some terrible news from

a friend of mine. Our prayers go out to her and her family. So much sadness in this world these days...

Passed my coverage test from that class

in Seattle. So I don't have to take it again!!! Probably only 25% of the people pass it on the first try so go me!!!

Going on a weight loss journey again...need to take it more seriously to feel a little better about myself. Worked out five days last week and it felt pretty good. Now more cut backs on food and soda this week. Trying to take a gradual approach to hopefully make subtle changes along with the increase in exercise.

Going to Canada in 3 weeks for a week...haven't been up there in a few years. Should be fun. Although coming back from long breaks kills me at work.



The California trip was nice. Although the colder than normal weather made it difficult at the beaches. The kids did get to swim once back to my parents' house as the weather quickly went up to over 90. It was hot.

Still seeing what is going to happen at Anna's work with her job.

I am buying my erasure tickets tomorrow...

Coming to SLC in September!!! I'm excited.

Trip begins tomorrow-

After all of the turmoil over the past six months, we are finally headed on our long trip tomorrow. Headed to Vegas and staying the night. Then to Disneyland for two days, the beach for one and then back to Disneyland for the third day. Then driving up to Monterey/Santa Cruz for the family reunion for 4 days. Should be fun. Lots of pictures as I'm sure the girls are going to have a blast at DL.

Too much simple minded thinking in this world.

I am no genius, but thank God and my parents that I am not an idiot.

That class was terrible in Seattle.

I sure hope I passed the test and don't have to do the class over again. Overall things are going well. Damon should be coming home at the end of next week. He is doing much better. We are all very excited to head to Disneyland here in 3 weeks. We are also headed up to Monterrey for a small family reunion before routing back to Utah. Also staying in Vegas one night on the way down. Should be fun.

We have been doing some great landscaping in the backyard. We planted one tree, with 3 more trees on the way, about 15 shrubs/flowers, lots of sod and waiting on curbing/black stuff around flower beds and bark pieces. Should look really good. We had some drip systems put in that make it easier to do all of these things. Still have to plug up some holes in the sod pieces eventually but perfection will take awhile with that. The clay under the top soil mixture make holes while watering so much. We've tried not to walk on it much for that reason. We also painted the garage floor after doing some much needed cleaning and organizing. I love getting projects done.

Overall things are going well.. Now just need to lose more weight.

Seattle is pretty exciting...

So I am up here for four days doing a coverage training for work. Yeah it is as exciting as it sounds. Sitting in class for seven hours with another 3 hours in my hotel room working on coverage. I did get to see my two sisters, my brother in law Cracka and my nephew. Carter is a cute little bugger. And the most important thing...he didn't cry when I held him for about ten minutes.

Anna and the four kids are traveling around northern california...I miss them a lot. I will be back on Friday and the kids on Sunday.

My sister has a sweet Mercedes...

Liars and deception-

I'm having some issues with trust lately. All stemming from people lying and deceiving us. I consider myself a pretty honest person, so when this happens to me I am not too pleased. I guess some people are so delusional that they think lying is the answer to all of their problems. They have no idea how this affects others and how others may deal with them and their lying.

Keep N in your prayers...I'm not sure where he

is at this moment. But it is sure hard to think about the future and how this will affect him and his relationship with his siblings. And also our relationship with his extended family....

N is still gone.

I wish we could plaster his name all over the news and get some attention over this. Kid is going to screw up his life even more.

N has run away from his foster home...

Not sure what is going on or what is going to happen but this is creepy with the different dynamics going on.

I just got defriended on facebook by my own

sister. Can someone help her learn how to deal with others?

It's Anna's birthday.

I just wanted to do a quick post and tell the world(well those 5 of you who read my blog), that I am incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful wife as my companion. After having her as my best friend for over 10 years, I can easily say I married up!!! Happy Birthday sweetheart!

As a birthday present, we are getting our largest federal refund ever. Too bad we are responsible and stuff...otherwise we could do some really fun stuff. Although we are going to spend some money finishing our backyard this spring/summer.

You know, life really doesn't have to be that

hard. It has been nice around our house the past few weeks. A lot less tension and problems. I'm not exactly sure what is going to happen with Damon, but we love him regardless of his choices. Anna is doing pretty well at her new job. I'm surprised how well she can function while sleeping a lot less. She is a trooper.

Anyway, we are chugging along. Trying to plan our trip for this summer. Trying to fit in a family reunion type deal as well. Trying to make sure we can actually budget after mocking others who can't budget. Trying to treat each other with more respect and kindness. Anna's birthday is in a few weeks.

So things are a little different in our family...

We have struggled with things and have found some solutions. It has been a rough road.

I wish the phrase life isn't fair never crossed

my mind. Please God, help me.

Dang it is cold.

I have lived in Utah for what 9-10 years with a year and a half break in between that and has it every been this cold for this long of a time? No!!! I am used to it snowing and then the snow melting within the next 2-3 days. But it has been below 40 degrees for awhile now. How frustrating. Maybe I have to actually shovel snow to avoid the ice skating rings around the outside of my house now. Crazy!!! But the snowpack is going to be good this year...so good for the summer activities.

Anyway, life is going well. It has been a little better around the house since N left. It's sad to see him go, but the family dynamic was crazy there for quite awhile. We also gave away our six month old lab Marley...the kids just don't care much about him and we figured he needed a home where he could be trained and given more attention. He reminded me of Hedo when he was a pup.

Overall things are going great. We are doing some family therapy to see if we can continue to grow as a family and clear up some issues we are having. But hopefully the hard work pays off and we can foster again soon and have a baby someday...

Anna starts her new position next week...she'll be working from 2-10am. She seems to be excited for the extra time during the day. Her current job is quite the busy position and seemed to really stress her out when you consider the issues we were having at home with a full time job. I hope this helps relieve her stress. I appreciate her sacrifice right now in working as we are trying to financially set ourselves up after moving into this new house last year.

Christmas was fantastic!!!!

We had such a great time over the break. I was off of work for about 10 days and that was great in and of itself. But we had some fun times with my parents in town as well as Anna's brother Ben and his girlfriend Sara. So let me try to go through what we did:

My parents wanted to upgrade our pathetic air hockey table we had just bought for $10. So we found a brand new one that was seven feet long. So my dad and I headed into Lehi on Thursday to go pick up this new one who didn't want this in the box table. Little did I think I would have trouble fitting it into my pilot...well it was quite squishy. Imagine us cramming the seats all the way forward to where my gut was squished against the steering wheel. Had to adjust some and imagine us going down the highway looking sideways with my gut driving the car as my head was hitting the ceiling. But it was a great gift and the kids love it. My parents also got us a nice used pool table that is fantastic.
Went up to Temple square with everybody, including my brother and sister law and their kids. Was fun and came back to a nice Christmas eve dinner and small reading of Luke and the night before Christmas. Anna and my mom then got going on presents and got very little sleep. I didn't get to bed until 1:30am trying to help wrap presents and get things organized. But there was so much to do. My mom likes to do projects with Anna...they were making Christmas pillow cases and some aprons for the girls. Then my mom even got some drapes and a rod to place over the guest room shutters. The room looks very nice as they chipped in some lamps from some online store. My parents spoil each of us when they come visit each of us...I'm sure she misses spending time with us as she spends so much time with Craig and Joanna in Sacramento and gets to spoil them year around.

Christmas morning I went and picked up our foster son that is moving to a new home so that he can be with his siblings. They haven't found a new home as of yet. Woke up at 6am to drive down to Provo. We were all tired on Christmas...came back and took a nap. Did presents around 9am. Hung around and cleaned up and had dinner around 4pm. We had turkey and ham. It was nice to have so much room for everybody in our new house!!! Having the basement done is a definite plus as well with all the new toys. We also got a new playstation 3...for the bluray of course. The boys happen to like it for the games too. Then we went to a kids movie...yogi bear was boring. But the kids thought it was okay.

Sunday was just another day of church. Nothing too exciting. Last day of 11am church for awhile...
Monday we had Damon watch the kids while my parents, myself and Anna went to Little Fockers. It was quite the funny movie. Had a nice lunch at olive garden. Went home and got my parents packed. Went down to watch Gullivers travels with the kids and my parents. It was okay. I feel asleep and my mom kicked my chair. Went to mountain mikes for half price monday pizza with everybody including Ben and Sara. I then drove my parents to the airport for their way late flight home.

The rest of the week was crazy as Anna had to work some days and I was home with the kids. I'm sure they love it. Had a small new years party with some friends and Dan and Becky with the kids. Our hour lock on the directv even turned off right before it hit 10 seconds to midnight...it was quite the crackup as everybody was counting down. Went and picked up N from his current spot and took them to a nice lunch at Tucano's for some Brasilian bbq buffet and then a movie seeing Tron. Tron was pretty good. Anna, Yesenia and Bekah saw Narnia.

Overall it was a great ending to a very interesting year. We moved twice, adopted four kids, trying to deal with four adopted kids and one foster son, get our new house ready, get a new dog who we are giving away now, and I have been sick for the past 3 weeks. Finally went to the doctor today. I was talking to my mom on the way to the airport. I think I have been doing a lot she was doing when we were teenagers. So caught up in things/worrying, that we weren't enjoying the ride. I am working on not worrying so much and being myself. I am a very easy person to get along with. I usually don't get worked up over the smallest things. Anyway, I am feeling much better lately.

Here's to a fabulous 2011!!!