Work is a changing

Well it looks like things will be changing some for us. On Monday, it was announced that Land Title of Nevada, after 33 years in business, will be merging into a local sister company of ours, Commonwealth Land Title. Land Title will be going away as they feel it is better to stick with their nationally known name.

Things in this industry have already been pretty bad. We had to make employee cuts several times over the past 12 months. I have gone from managing 40 people down to managing 12 people. Out of those 12, only 4 are going to move on with the new company. So things are pretty gloomy around here right now.

As for Steve, well....we are really not sure about me right now. The new company says that the really like me and want to keep me around. They have even put name name in as a candidate for a position that would be a promotion for me. But it looks like we won't find out about that for at least 2-3 months. So in the mean time, I just have to hold on and show them I can excell at whatever they throw my way! I guess we will just go day by day and take things as they come. I feel surprisingly good and have faith that one way or another, things will work out for us.

Girls Camp

Devynne went off to girls camp a couple of weeks ago. They went to a little place near Zion National Park, in Utah. There are a lot of activities that the girls got to do while they were there. It looks like they had a ton of fun.

I am not sure, but I think the only reason Devynne agreed to do the Zip Line was to go meet this guy. Apparently, ALL of the girls wanted to have their picture taken with him.

Devynne, Breanna and Kimmie all shared a tent together. I am sure that was one "wild" and hyper tent!

I think they have lost their minds!!!

This was a skit that the girls were doing. Looks like Devynne is a Cowgirl in pajamas!

Havasupai

Last weekend, Dylan and I went on a high adventure campout with the Varsity Scouts into the Havasupai Indian Village in one of the off shoot canyons of the Crand Canyon. It was a 10 mile hike into the campgrounds from the start of the hike. We started the hike at 6:00 p.m. on Wendnesday and got into our campground at 11:00 that night. Carrying a fully loaded pack with everything to eat and sleep with for 4 days is not an easy thing to do!






While we were down there, we were able to see some of the prettiest waterfalls and rivers. The water was this beautiful green color from all of the minerals in the water. But it was clear and you could normally see to the bottom of the river.







The hike in almost killed us so we decided to get a mule to carry our packs back out for us. In fact, out of the 17 people that went, 7 people took a helicopter out and the rest of us got the mules to take our packs out. On the good side, we got out in 4 hours, even though it was up hill. Having no pack made all the difference!















This is about 1/2 of the group at the start of the hike. Notice the happy faces and high energy. That is because we had not yet taken a single step.









This is part of the group at the end of the hike when we came back on Saturday morning. We woke up at 3:00 am and started our hike out of the camp at 4:00 am. This is 4 hours later at the top. notice how tired we look!











Right by our camp was this large stream. We could jump in anytime to cool off. Dylan and the other boys often took these tubes that were given to us by the people who camped here right before us (no doubt because if you pack your stuff out...you leave behind everything you can!) and floated down the stream a hundred yards just for fun.

These last pictures are of the 3 different waterfalls that are all within a mile of our campground. We did lots of swimming in the pools they created. The water was a chilly 60 degrees, but during the day after hiking to get there, it felt really good!

This is me in my hammock. It only weighed 2 pounds so it was really light to bring down. That and a fleece blanket that weighed less than 2 pounds made for perfect sleeping! It was the best thing I brought on the hike with me!

Over all, Dylan and I had a good time. I won't lie, it was the hardest hike I have ever been on. We came away with no real pain or brusies. Just one dollar sized blister on my right foot that has caused me to limp for the last 4 days, but other than that, we held up fine. Would I do it again????

Better ask me a few years from now. I need to let some of the memories of the hike fade a little.

Day at the Lake

What a day. We went out to the lake last Saturday with my brother Rich and Sister Jenn and her friend and Toni, myself and the 3 D's. What a blast. We had so much fun skiing and knee boarding. The water tempurture was fantastic and the part of the lake we were on was pretty smooth. You couldn't ask for a better day. See for yourself!









Dylan and Dakota riding in the front of the boat.












Toni was able to get up on the skiis. She had great form!













Deveynne surprised us all today. She was the first of the kids to volunteer to get in the water and try knee boarding. She got up on her 3rd try and did a great job!











Dylan also impressed us. He was the first one in our imeadiate family to try a 360. He wasn't afraid to try, even after wiping out a couple of times in the attemp. He kept after it and eventually he was successful in performing the "trick".









After watching my sister do a 360, I was not to be out done, so I got back in the water and went after it. It turns out to be much easier than it looks an a ton of fun!

Memorial Day

This year for Memorial Day, Mike and his kids and Tracy and her family and me with my kids all went into Salt Lake to the Wasatch Memorial Gardens and visted the grave site of our Grandma and Grandpa Robinson and Aunt Patti. We also found that right next to them is the grave of our Great Grandma and Grandpa Robinson. Anyway, it was nice to take our children and share stories with them about our grandparents, whom we love so much and have such fond memories of. My son Cody is actually Cody Robinson Dover. He was named that to help carry on the Robinson name.

He enjoyed hearing me tell about the time I used to spend with my Grandpa Grant at McDonalds and Grandpa Grant would have a cookie and say "this cookie says it is for Grant" and then both he and I would try to eat it since we both have the name Grant. It is a simple memorie, but one of my favorites of him.

The Actor

I am a little late in getting this up, but Dylan was in a school play a couple of weeks ago. He is in theater and is really quite a good actor. Especially in the comedy department. He had two main roles in the performance this year and everyone we talked to had nothing but praise for the way the performance went and especially about Dylan's parts.

Over the past couple of years, his class has also put on some improvisational performance. Let me tell you, Whose Line Is It Anway has nothing on Dylan and his class. They did some skits that would have been worthy of putting on that show. Dylan is really quick on his feet and will come back at you with a zinger in a heartbeat. It makes him extreamly fun to be around and very popular at his school. In fact, he was also voted the 8th grade King, by his classmates. No doubt because everyone loves to be around Dylan.

Fathers and Sons

This weekend was our ward Fathers and Sons outing. Dylan, Dakota, my dad and I all went. It was at Willow Creek in the Mount Charleston area. As we were doing 20 mph on the freeway at 4:00 trying to get out of town, the thermonitor read 113 degrees. So the first nice thing about this outing being in the mountains is it was 80 degrees when we got to the camp site. By the time we went to bed it was down around 60. MUCH nicer than the temp in Vegas. We had a really good time. Dad and I played horseshoes and the boys were climbing the nearest hill. We made some dutch oven chicken and potatos that were awesome. Later that night, we got together with all the other fathers and had rootbeer floats and a small presentation of the Restoration of the Arronic Priesthood. It was a nice night. Dakota was beat so right after, he and grandpa went to bed and I followed a few minutes later. I am not really sure what time Dylan made it to bed, but everyone was up by 6:00 the next morning. The Elders Quarum made breakfast burrito's for everyone and then we came home. I am really glad my Dad could go with us this year.

Making Ravioli

Last Sunday, It was Dylan's turn to help me cook. We decided to make Giant 3 Cheese baked Ravioli Alfredo. What a task! I thought that it might be difficult, but it turned out to be really easy. The pasta turned out great and baking the Ravioli was a lot easier than boiling them. It was the most fun I have had cooking in a long time!

Next time, I want to do this with regular Marinara sauce. If only the kids would eat the good food I make!!!

Snakes...

We just had one of the best weekends up in Utah. My cousin Livy got married last weekend so we went up to Utah for the wedding. All of her family came in from Wyoming and Texas. Don and Tammy, June Ann and Keith, J.O. and Becky and all of their kids. Plus a lot of my cousins, George and Susie, Greg, Meghan and Jeff, Mindy my Uncle Mark and Aunt Marilyn. The list goes on and on. We had a bar-b-q at Meghan's on Friday and then the wedding was on Saturday. I can not tell you how fun it was to see all of my cousins. I have not seen a lot of them in quite a while and I loved it. Plus seeing Don and Tammy is always high on my list. I think it helped us push to make a decision to go up to Cody in 2008. I already can't wait.

Since Toni and the 3 D' came up for the wedding and we picked up the 3 C's, we had a lot of fun together. We spent the first night with my Aunt Shannon and her husband Merlin. I can't thank them enough for taking on all 8 of us! They also told us that we should go down to the Store that cousin Brittney works at. It is a fish and reptile store. So we did. Brittney handles the snakes and reptiles for the store. They had a couple of Boa Constrictors, one of them an albino. She took them out and some of us were even brave enough to hold them. Take a look.

Here the kids are just acting normal...I mean silly. Looks there are two party poopers that just didn't want to get into the spirit!
Anyway, all the kids had a great time together and they can't wait until August when the three C's get to come down to Vegas for a week.

Steve will never learn

For some reason, I just can't seem to get it through my thick skull that me and sports no longer mix. I first discovered this about 5 years ago when I was playing softball on a company team. I was playing rover in the outfield and having a great game. I had caught the first 2 outs when the third batter also hit a line drive my direction. I sprinted for the ball when all of a sudden my hamstring tightened up and left me in great pain. Ever since that day, EVERY TIME I play softball, I seem to injure my hamstring. So I told myself, that I just had to give up playing and stick to golf.

Well, last night, my brother Mike called me to see if I could fill in for someone who was going to be out on his SOFTBALL team. At first I instantly said no. (I should have stuck to that answer). But then after thinking about how since January, I had been going to the gym regularly and I have even run a 5k race this year with a 10k coming up in June, I figured I would be O.K. this time, so I said yes. I was really excited to get out their and play. I got to the park, got my shoes all laced up, and Mike and I went out to warm up.

Silly me. I am not even sure I should really go into all the embarrassing details of this. Mike and I were just playing catch to loosen up. He was throwing me these nice knuckle balls that had really good movement. It was like they were dancing in the air. Fun to see and play catch with....until....one of the knuckle balls did a hi jump to the left right at the last second. Apparently, my glove failed to make the same jump up and to the left. The result was the ball smacked me directly on the left eye brow. It made a nice gash that started to bleed right away. After only a couple of seconds, the bleeding was more like dripping and I knew that I just set a record for myself. I had not even been out on the field for 4 minutes when I hurt myself. For crying out loud, this happened during WARM UPS!!! I was not even in the game yet!! The eye instantly swelled up and started to turn purple.

Here, take a look:


However, They still needed me to play in order to not forfeit, so Mike taped up the gash, and they put my in as catcher. (in my defense, I actually went 2 for 3 at bat with solid hits and caught a foul ball for an out while playing. Not bad considering I was wounded) However, while running the bases in the 3rd inning...you guessed it, I pulled the hamstring. Actually, it is really the inner thigh muscle this time, but same issue...I am just not able to play softball anymore. In fact, I have decided to give up all sports where you throw or hit balls away from you and then they come back at you. I am sticking to Golf where you hit balls away from you and then you walk down and find them instead of having someone hit them back at you!

When will I ever learn!

Steve

p.s. here is what the eye looks like the next morning:




Here I am now at day 4. The welling is gone and the purple is starting to turn to yellow. Another week of having to explain this to everyone I meet and I will be good to go!

More Pictures

Today is Saturday and we have made it through another work week! Work is actually really slow right now. Too slow. I had to lay a couple of people off work 2 weeks ago. I am down to a pretty small staff right now. We are at about 50% of the work load we should be at this time of the year. That, coupled with our company being recently purchased by a Fortune 500 company, has things at work feeling a little scary. I guess I won't worry about it. It won't do any good to worry anyway. It is what it is.

As for this blog, I got a little harassment from Dakota about the pictures I used in the last post. I tried to tell him those were the only pictures I had on the computer I have at work. Now that I am at home, I will find some better pictures of him to add to the blog, so here they are.



This is Dakota in the backyard on the 1/2 pipe. He was able to do this after only a day or so of practice. He really took to skating on this.

Here is the most current photo we have of our family:




This picture also includes my Mom and Dad. What did I tell you in the last blog about Carson. We go to set up for the picture and instantly, he climbs into Toni's Lap. He may be a little embarrassed by me saying this right now, but I hope he understands that it is one of the most endearing things about him. Toni and I just love it!!! Also, I guess this is the first photo of me on the Blog. Let's see if I can find a better one:




These are the boys in my family. My dad, brothers Rich (back) and mike (left) and me. Just so every knows. Mike is standing on his tip toes!!! He is not THAT much taller than me!


Here are all the girls in the family. From the left, is Mike's girlfriend Gigi, then my sister Jenn, Then Toni, my sister Tracy, Devynne, then down to my daughter Cadie. My mom is right in the middle then Mikes' daughters Mikelle (in grammy's lap) and Taylor (looking thrilled to be here)

So that is all of my immediate family. Here is one last picture of the entire group:





Here we are acting just a little crazy.

Well, I guess that is it for toady. We are off to a picnic at the Church Park. Should be fun.

Happy blogging!

Steve

Here we go!

I am not exactly sure yet, WHY I am going to try this, but I thought I would start with Blog #1 and then go from there. My friend Brian started his family blog and after reading it, it inspired me to try one of my own. My brother-in-law, Ron also recently started a family blog that I thought went well, so I feel compelled to add to the Blogsteria going on.

It may take me a few tries to start getting things in here the way I want to. I have never really gotten into the blogs before this. To be honest, I haven't even really read that many blogs. So this will be a new thing for me. I sure hope this blog has a spell check somewhere or I will come off looking dumber than I really am.

To start with, here is a picture of my family:

As you can see...there are a lot of us. We are your typical "Brady Bunch" type family. Three kids are mine and three of them are Toni's. They conveniently have names that either start with the letter C or the letter D. Mine are Cadie, Cody and Carson, while Toni's are Devynne, Dylan and Dakota. Only the three D's live with us right now. The three C's live with their mother up in Northern Utah. I miss them all the time.

The best time of the month is when I get to go up and be with them. They are a ton of fun to be around.

Carson is my youngest and he is also the craziest. He loves to laugh. He comes up with some of the goofiest things to say. Anything to get a laugh. Sometimes he goes a little overboard. At the same time, he is the most affectionate little guy I know. He will snuggle up in the lap of just about anyone. He just loves the attention and the hugs.

All of us are huge Utah Jazz fans. It is nice to have the Jazz back in the playoffs, but the way they are ending the season has us all concerned. I was talking to Cody on the phone just yesterday and I asked him how he was doing? He said terrible. I asked why and he said "you know why". And I did....the Jazz had just lost to the Sonics the day before. He said..."exactly". I love talking basketball with "Code Man". He is so into it. Trading cards and all.

Cadie didn't like my last Blog, so here is her version of herself: I am 13 years old. I enjoy reading books, and playing any Sport. I also enjoy anything that has to do with Harry Potter. My favorite food is pizza, and my favorite color is blue. I like talking to people and hanging out with my friends. I get really good grade in school, and my favorite subjects are English, Utah Studies, and art. I also enjoy drawing and Sketching my Surroundings in my spare time if I'm not already playing outside or reading. theres a little about me.

Devynne is crazy about BOYS and cheerleading. Both subjects are very difficult for a father to stomach. I know it is just a part of kids growing up, but it still turns my stomach into knots. She is also the queen of using words that she doesn't even really know what they mean. It does make for very fun and interesting conversations. It is almost like she is playing off the "dumb blond" card, but since she is so smart...I am sure it is just her sense of humor.

Dylan is major into music right now. Our neighbor taught him to play the guitar and now he won't put his down. I must admit that he does play rather well, so I try not to discourage him. It is just that EVERY spare second he has, he grabs the guitar. Oh well, he could be into worse things (I will get into his hair and music choices some other time)

Dakota, the talker, is so full of energy, you would think he eats sugar for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He is actually the one who eats the least amount of sweets, but is still just full of energy. He goes 90 miles and hour and can never sit still. His favorite thing to do is skateboard. He and Dylan even helped me build a 1/2 pipe in the back yard that they can skate on. He really likes being outside, running, jumping and skateboarding. They are building a huge skateboard park at the Rec center and Dakota can't wait to go.

Toni and I are doing great. We love to go to movies, eat out and play golf together. We just love being together. I still make her laugh, but lately I think it is more AT me than WITH me. Oh well, as long as she is happy. Life is really great. I feel very blessed. I know that we are being watched over.

Happy Blogging Everyone