Wyoming Vacation

Well here we are in Wyoming on vacation this year! All 8 of traveling around for about 2500 miles. But everyone really had a good time together and there were no issues at all. That definatly made the traveling seem better. Enjoy the pictures!



This is the chair lift to the Alpine Slide

Jackson Hole

Dakota and Steve practicing roping



Everyone excitedly waiting to start a hike.

Summer Fun

I spent this weekend in Utah with Cadie, Cody and Carson. Dakota also came along this trip. Thanks to the long drive, I now know about what 2 super hero powers Dakota would like to have. They happened to come up in conversation....no wait...no, they just pretty much came up out of now where!!! Along with many other interesting, albeit, random thoughts of his. But I was never bored!!!

Here are some pictures of some of the fun we had:

This is a homemade water slide. It didn't go as good as we would have liked...but it was still WET which was the main point anyway.

This is at The Gateway in SLC. Again...I just couldn't keep them out of the water. I said, you can run through the water, but see if you can stay as dry as possible...like I really thought that was possible!



Here I am, just hanging out trying to stay dry in all of this!

4th of July

Friday was the 4th of July. We had a really great day. It started off with a Breakfast buffet at the Sam's Town Hotel and Casino. What is really funny about this is Toni does not like buffets and Toni and the kids do not like to get up early in the morning. During Family Home Evening this week, I asked if anybody wanted to get up early to go to the buffet with me on the 4th? I actually thought that only Dakota might say yes. But Devynne and Dylan were also very excited to go. We convinced Toni to also go with us if Devynne would agree to go to the movies with us. We were planning on seeing Hancock which is an action movie and Devynne typically does not like action movies. Anyway, everyone got up at 6:45 and we went to the buffet. Truth be told....it wasn't even that good. Next time I will just make breakfast at our house!!

We went and saw Hancock that afternoon. We do like Will Smith, but this movie had WAY more bad language in it than we ever thought it would. Not a movie for kids, thats for sure!

That night, we had my parents and sister over and some friends of ours from the neighborhood, the Millers. We played games and cooked on the bar-b-q, then did some fireworks in our street. The kids like to take Piccalo Petes and turn them into bombs. Boys...what are you gonna do!

One funny thing that night, is Toni was a little concerned with us leaving trash (used fireworks) out in the street where our neighbors would complain. So, she started to sweep up the fireworks that the kids had been doing for the last hour (mostly the boms described above). Well, I guess she couldn't stop because when the adults came out to do the rest of the fireworks, we could not get her to sit down. She was even cleaning them up as they were going off!!! As soon as it finished, it would get swept into a pile!

This is Devynne and her boyfriend Justin. Justin also went to breakfast with us and came over for dinner and fireworks. He is fun to have around.

Steve and Toni

Well, I guess I should include a few photo's of Toni and I so that everyone knows the kids have killed us off...yet.

Toni is beautiful as always. She is still enjoying being a stay at home mom. It has been a real blessing in our lives that Toni is able to be home with the kids. So many people think that parents only need to be home with their kids when they are little...but trust me...it is even more important to be at home with them when they are teenagers!!! Talk about needing stability and and a positive influence around and not leaving them alone for hours wondering "what trouble can I get myself into".

Toni is also an avid reader write now. She just re-read all the Harry Potter books...again and also has read her favorite, Twilght series several times. She is now just waiting for the newest book in that series to come on on August 2nd.

Here I am. Not a really flattering picture. There are just so few pictures of me because I am the one usually taking the pictues.

Things for me are going pretty good. I am settling in at my new position with my company pretty good. We are still struggling in this real estate market, but I have hope for the future. I have made some changes that will hopfully make a difference in our profitability next quarter.

Home life is great. I still love my church calling and am playing in a golf league once a week with my Dad and sister, jenn. I enjoy being with them very much. Maybe I will have to take some pictures of that and put them on the blog!

Dylan's Eagle

Also in April, Dylan received his Eagle Scout Award. We did a Court of Honor for him and I tried hard to embarass him with a slide show from early childhood until he received his reward. I think I did a good enough job of it. Here are some of the pictures that I used.

But the one picture that really tells it all is this one:

Dylan is really growing and maturing into a fine young man. We are very proud of his accomplishment before he even turned 15. Well done Dylan!

This was April for us

It has been a few months since I have written (again), so I thought I better get on the ball. How can I expect everyone to keep up to date on my family, if I am unable to keep my family up to date on the blog! But....I have a new goal. It is now my intention to get up on Sunday mornings before the rest of my family and update this blog and my personal journal (I now use ldsjournal.com It is an online journal that is really cool and easy to use that I think will help me do a better job of journaling) every Sunday morning. If I can accomplish this goal, then this blog will be able to stay current!

So this is what we are up to these days. Here is a current picture of Devynne, Dylan and Dakota. School is out next week and I think somehow we survived another school year. At least with the older two. Dakato is in year round school so he still has a month and a half left to go!




Here is a picture of Cadie, Cody, Carson and Dakota. We went to the Dinasour museum up at Thanksgiving Point, Ut. It was a lot of fun. I actually like it better than all the kids. Thye move to quick through it and don't take the time to read and learn. I guess that is kids for you. Always in a hurry just to see the big stuff or do something instead of just see something.








I think their favorite part of the museam is plaing in the sand and water. They likes to set up a little city and then direct the water to wash it all awy in mass destruction. (I think they watch too many movies!)

Dylan's new sport

Dylan has decided to take up swimming. He is on the Eldorado Swim team and is off to a great start. It was really interesting to go to a swim meet and watch. The first time that he dove in was for a 50 yard free style relay. He really surprised us with how he got after it and swam so hard. Dylan is typically a non competative type guy (except with his brother of course), but he really dug in and swam hard. We were really impressed!

Catching Up

Well, I have not updated this blog in so long, that I feel like I need to do some catching up. Where to start. I guess I left off with work changing last time so I will start with updating that. As previously stated, Land Title closed down and I am now a Busincess Center Manager for Commonwealth Title. It is a new business structure for Title companies and we are one of the first companies under the LandAmerica companies to go to this. So far it is working out great. My responsibilities are totally different from what I used to do. I am no longer on the title side of things, but on the Escrow and Sales side instead. In additiion, I am responsible for running my business center like it's own little companie. I am responsible for the Profit and Loss statement and am directly compensated based on the profitability on my business center. With the housing market the way it is....that is tough right now. I did recently get some additional help in the form of a high revenue generating unit that we hired away from another local title company. they may be just what I need to get profitable, even in this market and their future potential is even better! Church life is going great and home life is the best.

Toni is loving the stay at home mom life. She was recently released from her chuch calling with the Young Women and now is part of the Primary. I guess it is her time to spend with Dakota now more than with Devynne. She said that she loves the primary and the women she works with in the presidency, but she still misses the girls in Young Womens.

Devynne is growing up before our eyes. She has a boy friend now (even though we try to tell her a steady boyfriend is not a good thing!) He has yet to take her on a real date, but he does come over to our house sometimes and "hangs out" with her. She is currently cheering at the High School basketball games but really can't wait for those to be over. then she gets to go find a job so that she can have money of her own (Dad likes this idea a lot!)

Dylan has become quite the guitar player. He now has an aquistic guitar and an electric/aquistic guitar. He can be found at any given moment to be playing something on it. He will often run up to his room to do something or get something and then pick up his guitar and start playing and then forget what he went up there to do in the first place! He is a fairly mellow teenager but still tries us by testing what he can get away with. Over all though, he is great fun to have around.

Dakota is loving school this year. I think a lot of it has to do with the girls are crazy about him. He even got a better Christmas present from a girl thatn Devynne got from her boyfriend! He is very popular and love the attention. He is still VERY active. So much so that we have to constantly bring him back to earth and settle him down! He also got a guitar for christmas and is learing how to play. I think he likes doing what his big brother does.

Cadie is crazy over books right now. First it was the Harry Potter books and now it is the Twilight Series. She also wants to read Eragon. She is doing really well in school with all A's and B's and loves playing games of all kinds. She baby sits a lot so she is raking in the $$$. I am impressed by how well she saves for big ticket items that she really wants.

Cody is playing in the Jr. Jazz basketball league. It is fun to talk to him about it because he acts all shy and humble about it. I went to see a game and he knew I was coming. He told me to not expect to much because he is not that good. Well, he scored 18 points that game, twice what anyone else on the team did and he had lots of assist too. He has a real head for the game and used his smarts many times to creat opportunities for he or his teamates to score. He has some real talent and was just being modest with me. Since that game, he moced up to a more competative league and is doing really well.

Carson is also really good at basketball. He is not on a team yet, but playing with him and watching him shoot, you can see he has a talent for it. He is just active in everyway. Loves playing anything that means he gets to run around. He is also a huge fan of the NBA and loves to watch the games and talk about the players. Derek Fisher is his favorite player. One of the main reasons is because family is so important to Fisher. He loves the way Fisher takes care of his sick daughter, even if it meant he left the Jazz. You don't see that in kids today. They only want the high jumping, slam dunking all star. Not Carson, character means somthing to him.

The sad news since the last time I wrote is my big brother, Rich passed away. He had an opporation on his back and we thought everything was going fine in the recovery. Then one morning, he just did not wake up. He passed away during the night in a very peaceful sleep. Apparently, Rich had an enlarged heart that no one new about and the pain medication he took caused the enlarged heart to stop. We always new he had a big heart, we just didn't know that it was literal. I miss him so much.

Well, I guess that catches you up on us a little bit. I will have to do better about being current on this blog again. I got an email from my mission friend Critchfield this week and it made me realize, this blog is important to keep current.

Take care,

Steve

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!