Felt very blessed the last two days.  I have been struggling at work so far this year.  I started asking the kids to pray for their dad while he is at work.  I have a short opportunity each week to take calls that come in the company.  this can be a great opportunity for large cash flows into Fidelity that I can get in front of.  Sometime this inbound yields nothing but other times there can be a few good leads we get.  Yesterday I prayed in the morning I would have a lot of opportunities to work with.  I prayed before my 2 hour block I was given I would get some good leads.  My 2 hour block had a lot of great opportunity.  I was able to get in front of about 2 million dollars which can be as much as I see in a whole month.  This is not the first time this has happened.  When I feel like I need help at work I ask the kids to pray for there dad and normally things turn around in a hurry.  I fully belive the Lord wants us to pray over our fields, our homes, etc.

I have not been able to log into this journal for a few months.  I keep meaning to try something new to get access.  Finally I realized what I needed to do.  A lot has happened since I last had an entry.  I'll try to recap what has been happening.

We are entering Emma's last year of school.  Soon she will be on a mission and off to whatever adventures she has a head of her.  She is very determined to go on a mission.  She will doing MDT again next year.  It has been fun to see her have more confident with her talents.  she has gone from not being able to sing in front of us to singing all the time.  It has impacted Hyrum.  We took hyrum to see some end of year plays at the High School.  I think he has had his mind opened to other possibilities.  He has decided he does not want to do football this Fall and instead has asked for voice lessons.  I didn't feel like I could force him to stay with football.  Because of his birthday he does not qualify to play with his friends.  he plays a year ahead and some of the kids are two yeas ahead of him in school.  I'm still trying to come to grips with it all.  Mari has decided she does not want to do sports any more and with Hyrum not playing football this will be the first Fall in about 10 years that I will not be coaching anything.  I'm ok with not coaching but I have a lot of time on my hands now.  Tiffany is very excited to have her Saturdays back.

The Summer has been very busy with camps.  It seems every week we have one of our kids off for a week.  The camp that sticks out is when Emma took her cousin Lauren to Oakcrest.  Lauren, having down syndrome, can't go to Oakcrest without a camp buddy to assist her.  Emma took her after she had already been to a camp 2 of the last three weeks.  She was very tired and I think not fully aware of what she had volunteered for.  Lauren would not have been able to go to the camp without Emma volunteering.  Once we got her home she broke down.  Exhausted, frustrated, and mentally strained.  I was very proud.

We just completed the Mutli Stake Triathlon yesterday.  I was in charge of the finish line like I have been in years past.  I got there very early and got everything set up.  Very proud of Eve.  She was nervous to do the Triathlon after her accident last year.  We took her on a bike ride last week to get ready and she cried the whole time.  she was white knuckled the whole way. She could not make a left turn.  Her elbow would lock up and not allow her to turn.  She finished the race and feel good about the outcome.  It is always good to have the Triathlon over.  We had about 400 sign up for it this year.  It grows every year. 

Mom and Dad are finally in Africa.  They were suppose to leave in June but they could not secure the Visas needed to get there.  After about a month of patience they were able to get them.  They have been there for about a month.  we Skype on Saturdays with them.  We are all trying to assist in helping Grandmother while they are away. 

Lincoln is in the MTC.  Mark asked that I smoke a bunch of pork shoulders for the farewell.  I have been able to use the smoker a lot more than I thought I would.  I was able to talk with Mark about work at Fidelity.  I have needed a mentor and have asked that he help me determine an appropriate career path.  I get into these funks where the stress of being in a high paying sales role is a bit much.  I have been in my current role for about 11-12 years.  I feel like I need to do something new.  I think the stress I have is causing some imbalance in me.  About every 2-3 years I get into a funk where I feel down, stressed, I don't eat as much.  I have been able to work through it and eventually be ok but I wonder if I changed things if I would not have this cycle of  . . .  I dont know what it is.  The last time it happened the doctor thought it was depression.  I have a new doctor now who thinks I might be able to power through if I add exercise.  I officially retired from basketball last august when I turned my ankle.  I have not yet found something to replace it.  Tiffany thinks this funk I'm in comes when we spend large amounts of money.  The last time it happened we were finishing our basement.  We spent about double what I was expecting.  I have since learned to read an invoice properly.  We are currently remodeling the kitchen.  It is a mess and we have been at it for 4-6 week.  We will not be done for at least another month.  I have started the process of moving to a support role with the insurance side of Fidelity.  It is one of the few roles that will not require a massive pay decrease.  it will still be a decrease of about 25-35% but they pay my current role to try and keep us there forever.  We should still be able to make a living at this new role.  I have been spending a lot of time this past month downloading and reconciling out finances through Quicken.  It has been a lot of work and some painful to see what we have been spending our money on.  We have had some large expenses like our patio, the fence, Eve's cello.  We have also been spending a lot on food, accessories, and other stuff we don't need.  I think we have a handle on it now.  I feel very poor.  We have the funds needed for the kitchen but I have liked how much security I felt having that cash there.  If I take this new job it will be some time before I get that back.  I have lowered how much we are adding to retirement hoping that will help.  As soon as I started the process of trying for a new position we are having a lot of success in our current role.  Tiffany feels this is a tender mercy of letting me leave the role on top.  I hope I'm leaving the role for the right reasons.  I hope I'm not looking for something that is not there.  There is a lot of security I have with the clients I work with.  Having direct access to clients is the safest job at Fidelity.  I would be leaving that to help reps like me.  Not as secure.  I have thought about trying to negotiate a move to be a manager of my current role but I'm afraid that pay cut would be too much.  I'm also concerned that at my current base I might be at risk of being paid more than others in my same role.  That might make me at risk the next time the company is looking to save some costs.  Mark tells me I can't worry about that.

We had Ward Conference today.  I learned two principles I wanted to write down.  Sis. Lisa Saunders taught out of Mosiah.  She went away from her prepared talk.  She reminded us about Limhi and the problems they were facing.  She read from Mosiah 24:14 about how the Lord will visit his people in their affliction.  He does not remove the affliction or use from the burden but he promises to make it light.  the affliction sometimes is necessary to make us who Father wants us to be.  It can be hard sometimes.  It is supposed to be hard.

Pres. Saunders taught us many things.  He told a baseball story about not living up to commitments.  He was a pitcher and was told he would not be needed to bat anymore.  he told the coach that he would be ready to bat if called upon.  He forgot about his promise and deep int he season the coach turned to him to bat and he struck out.  the coach reminded him of his promise and they he didnt deliver what he promised.  The principle that he taught that stuck out to me was how when we look back on our lives and are grateful for people who are patient with us.  They dont get frustrated about who we are currently as we struggle to become who our Father intends us to be.  When he was called to be Bishop his father told him to see people as who they are rather than who they will become less you add to the damnation of their soul.  We are grateful for those who have mercy on us as we struggle to learn what they already know.

Mari's baptism was a wonderful experience.  It is always a special privilege to baptism my children.  Iwas wanting to make sure I savored everything I could about this one.  I've told the kids that if they marry right this would be the last baptism I perform.  The Spirit was strong.  Grandma Mildred gave a great talk about Baptism.  She covered the covenants we make.  She has Kits Kats to hand out to the kids.  Mari felt the Spirit and began to cry.  It was as perfect as it could be.  Mari invited everyone she knows.  Most could not come but many did.  It has been a challenge to see by baby girl grow older.  I want to keep her small for as long as possible.  She doesn't quite fit on the lap like she used to.

I have great kids.  They try hard and seem to be making decisions that will provide them happiness.  Emma has had a string off rough outcomes.  She went to DECA state as a Finance competitor instead of marketing.  I think she did this do to a cute boy with a great smile.  She did not place high enough with State to go to the National competition.  I tried to suggest she play to her strengths but she was pretty determined to try something new.  She went to Drama State and did very well.  She did a Comical piece as a crazy Cheerleading Coach.  We went as family and watched her compete at Bingham High.  I thought she did very well.  She was easily one of the better performers.  The judge we witnessed judging her gave her a lower mark than Superior which kept her from medaling.  She took this hard.  To make it worse she and one other act where the only performers from the school who did not medal.  In the past Riverton and Lone Peak have tied for first place as the top school for Drama.  Riverton missed being the top school by one medal.  Emma felt like she should try to be an SBO for her Senior year.  She did not get that either. She is due for a win somewhere.  She wanted to compete for Miss Riverton.  I feel like she has been too busy trying to be everything that she had not been able to be her best for these things she has been trying.  She has been coping well.  She has had a great attitude and I have been very proud about how she has been handling it all.  She will be OK.

It might not have helped that eve has had some unique success.  She has been selected in being part of a Mormon Message.  She will be playing her cello in an inspirational message. We went to Provo for her audition an shortly after Tiffany got a call that she had been selected to be the cello girl.  tiffany took her to Provo a few days later to shoot the scenes.  They called a few days after that to have her do the voice overs.  They did this at the conference center.  Tiffany and I both went to that appointment.  They took us to a small recording studio.  I was impressed with all the buttons that were on the sound board.  Their were two women who where asking Eve to say many lines over and over in slightly different ways.  There was a man who was starting the recordings.  It took less than 30 min.  They let us know that the recording studio is used for many things by many important people. They recently had Elder Christopherson record his Conference talks.  He is fluent in Spanish and can do OK in Portuguese.  He prerecords his Conference talks so those who want to listen in their native tongue can do so with his voice.  They try to prerecord most of the foreign languages.  I think they said they record the messages in 77 different languages.  It could have been 44.  I remember ti was a big number.  They said the Elder Holland caused them some concern with he talks.  he likes to provide some ad-lib to the beginning of his talks.  it keeps them on their toes.  when they have a talk that is done in the "native" language they have a small army of translators who translate as the talk is happening.  This last Conference they did not have any native speaker which made them happy. 

I sometimes forget I have this as a way to keep a journal.  A lot has happened.  Regular season church basketball is over.  We are still in Region play.  We had a  change to the Region sports leadership and they are struggling to get a schedule together.  They had the Region championship during Spring Break/Easter Weekend.  they changed the last weekend to be a month later in April.  Allowed some stakes to attempt to reschedule games so all their players could attend.  It was a Deacons game against our ward and a Ward that had 5 players that play on super league teams.  I think they thought they were going to win big.  Kyle Chandler and Jared Medina played very well and by themselves won by a big margin.  My obligation is done.  Now on to Dodgeball.   We dont have a Region date for dodgeball yet.

We went to Disneyland over Spring Break.  We went with the Chandlers.  It was fun.  I don;t like amusement parks or crowds.  Easter weekend is the busiest time to be at Disneyland.  Melissa found a way to use fast passes so we got on all the rides we wanted to before the park got too crowded.  The weather was great.  We rented a home closer to the park so we could get out of the park and swim when the park got too crowded.  We went to the beach after two days at the park.  It was a fun lazy day.  We discovered that most of the kids need a tutorial on how to apply sunscreen.  Emma and Hyrum has very bad sunburns.  Emma had handprints on the back of her legs that we ok but the rest of was bad burn.  hyrum normally swims with a short but took it off for the beach.  He attempted to apply sunscreen on wet skin and it did not work.  We spent most of the night applying cold compresses.  I had my hands in ice water ringing out whatever rags we had to put on the burned skin.  We did it again Sunday night for the boys who where still struggling.  Mason had a bad burn too.  IT was a trip taht was fun but we were glad to be home.  I took the day off after we got home to sleep and recover.  The rest of the kids are still not right with their sleep.  Mari falls asleep on the way to school.  Emma can't focus and tries to get to bed early. 

Friday was the BYU alumni day for BYU Football Spring camp.  Keith gets us into a practice where we can watch what the team is doing and eventually intertact witht he players.  they always make me feel small.  Fred Warner made me feel like a little boy.  I got to meet Ty Detmer who has always been a sports hero of mine.  Since the Miami game in 1990 I have not been the same.  I told that I have two sports heroes in my life that if I hear they have done something bad it would destroy me.  He can;t mess up.  If he does it can;t make the news.  Hyrum always runs around and gets the players to sing a shirt for him.  we ran to Walmart on our way to the event to get him a shirt.  Eve came and got a few pictures with the players.  They served us JDawgs after the practice.  It was good times.  After the alumni event we got to watch the BYU rugby team beat up on Utah.  Ryan plays for the B Team.  Utah does not have a B Team due to sanctions that has depleted their team. 

While we were in Provo we went to an audition for Eve.  She was asked to auditor again for a mormon message.  They had her play her  cello trying to show different emotions.  She says it went well.  She was very nervous but felt good about the outcome.

We had a great General Conference this last weekend.  It is great to hear what has been prepared for us.  hyrum came to Priesthood session for the first time.  He and Jacob did great.  Pres. Uchtdorf made a Star Wars reference.  He thought it was awesome.  We built a tent like we always do.  We did not have as many of the traditons that we normally have due to our trip and Mari's baptism next week.  We didn't buy the baby food and make butter.  That is a weird tradition anyways.  Tiffany brought that one into the family.  I don't understand it and I don't participate.  It is always sad to see Conference end.

We had a good FHE tonight.  Tiffany has been weeding to get the home ready for Mari's baptism.  We planted some flowers as a family and we had a lesson on baptism.  We reviewed what the baptismal commitment is.  We reviewed KATS, CC, MM, SAW.  We reviewed how to stand in the baptismal font.  I asked the kids to share a memory from the baptism and Mari shared her testimony.  It is a special privilege to baptize my children.  It is a challenge to have them get bigger and not be my little kids anymore.  The next stage is fun too but it is different.  Whenever I think that I still want very little kids all I need to do is be around really little kids for a few minutes and remember the noise and smells that come with the cuteness.

Eve provided a sweet experience that made me very proud.  There was a new girl in one of her classes.  the way the room is set up the girl had to sit by herself at the back of the class.  Eve asked if she could go back and sit with the new girl and ended up eating lunch with her.  We used it as an example of how to fulfill your baptismal covenants.  Super proud of Eve.

Tiffany's 12 days of Valetine's

Day 1 - Key Lime Soda  -  Honeymoon was first time Tiffany had Key Lime, loves it
Day 2 - 4 cans of Principles   -  I'm Chipper
Day 3 - 2 back bamboo back scratchers  -  because I have her back
Day 4  -   Smokehouse Almonds - Nuts about me because I'm smoking hot
Day 5 - Dove Dark Chocolate with seas salt Caramel  -  Thanks for San Francisco
Day 6 - Accomplish the Impossible - Russel Nielsen  -  With you I can do the impossible
Day 7 - Bag of Funyuns  -  You are a Fun One
Day 8 - Cherries and Cream soda  -  You are the cherry on my Sundae
Day 9 - Gummy Bears - You are my cuddly gummy bear
Day 10 - York peppermint Patties  -  York awesome for singing with me, we where mint to be together
Day11  -  Rootbeer  -  Thanks for Traditions
Day 12 - Hot Tamales and the DVD Church Ball  -  You look hot in your ref shirt.

Football season is over and we have had a great season.  We were able to go to the championship game.  We lost in a close game.  Hyrum did very well this last season.  We was able to learn his left guard spot well.  The offensive scheme was challenging.  they expected Hyrum to cut block and and pull occasionally.  He picked it up really quick.  he is undersized for this age group but held his own.  He would be great if he could find a way to get mean.  I don't think he has that in him.  I'm very proud of how well he did this last season.

I took Tiffany to San Fransisco for our Birthdays.  we thought that Emma and eve are old enough to handle the family/house while we were gone.  It was fun.  I want another shot at the city.  I feel like we got the tourist stuff out of the way.  We spent a lot of time on the Piers, we went to Alcatraz and saw the Muir Wood National Park.  It was crowded.  We walked a lot the first two days and felt we would be ok walking many miles each day.  After the first day we were very tired.  I got us lost as we were trying to walk from the hotel to Fisherman's Wharf.  It was a great scenic view but required far more time than we had allotted for.  We took two days to explore the city.  San Fran is supposed to be a great food city.  We were disappointed with the places we ate at in the city.  We had a couple of ideas on where to eat and relied on Yelp to help us out.  It didn't work out as well as we had hoped.  The last day we went back to the airport and got a car and went to see Muir Woods.  It was great to get out of the city into an environment we were more familiar with.  We went north of the bridge and got a few pictures.  when we got to Muir Woods the parking lot was very crowded.  we had to walk over a mile from where we parked to get to the park.  they wanted to park in a park and ride that would have added about 1.5 hours to our trip.  The park was awesome.  Almost required reference.  On the way back to our hotel we stopped in Sausalito to kill some time.  We went to aprk that Tiffany saw and it was a fundraiser for a local music school featuring some Creole music/food.  It sounded cool until we walked in and saw that everyone was drunk and partying it up.  The food trucks were shutting down. The food did not look that good anyways.  we walked down the road a bit and ate at a restraurant with a blue roof.  I had the best seafood dish I have had to date.  this helped me feel better about the food experience we had been having up to that point.  Except for Ghirardelli's.  that place was awesome.  Salted Caramel sundae!!!  It was fun to get away with Tiffany without anything to do.  I want another shot at that city.  I want to plan our food tour a little better.

 October is always a bit of a crazy month for us.  Between birthdays and Tiffany's witching it gets a little crazy.  I think this will be Tiffany's last year working for gardner Village.  All the witches she has started with have moved on.  She is no longer feeling like she is needed.  With hyrum in football and her witching it feels like we don't have much time to celebrate the birthdays.  It will be interesting to see what happens next year.