So at the beginning of summer Chad and I started looking for a swing set for our girls, wow I can not believe how much they are for just one of the little ones the girls will out grow in a few years,plus I could not find one I really liked.
Chad and I decide that we will make one ourselves and we are so glade we did.
A few Saturdays and week nights and its done. well almost we want to add a few more thing but not until next year, we are done with out side projects for the summer, It’s football season now.

My bro-in-law (Jeremy Walters) showed me this gnarly web page that I began to use to track some of my rides/runs. Here are a few of my recent routes that I’ve done and some past hikes/runs/routes. Good way to get a general feel for how your run/bike route will be.

Bike Route 1 (SLC to NSL and then back)
Holbrook Canyon: Not sure if this is accurate, had a hard time reading the satellite map, so this might be off a bit.
Grand Teton
Home to work
Emmigration Canyon: Good route that my bro and I did last week. I was jonesin to get some climbing time in on my bike, and this was a good route to get some climbing in. BEAUTIFUL for sure!
Bountiful Blvd: From Eaglewood Golf Course to the Bountiful Temple and then back. We did this route for scouts and it was fun, although probably would have been a lot less stressful without the scouts.

NOTE: For some reason these “permalinks” don’t work exactly right, so if you click them, put your cursor in the address bar and hit enter again and it “should” load the page correctly. Enjoy!

Those of you who have seen this movie know exactly what I’m referring to. The transformation from script to screen was probably the best I have ever seen. The villain (Joker) wasn’t just a villain, he was a psychological destroyer, an Agent of CHAOS. It really is too bad that Heath had to move onto the next life because he did a phenominal job in this movie (and a ton of others). A moment of silence for Heath…………

Throughout the movie a lot of the characters were presented with decisions/problems that not only affected them but had a more far reaching affect. I would give examples but don’t want to spoil it for those that haven’t seen it. These decisions and psychological challenges the characters were faced with were so intriguing to me from a human being standpoint, a piece of the “society puzzle” standpoint, ethics standpoint and personal decision making standpoing. The reason that these items had such an intrigue to me is that I performed the WWCD exercise on them. I tried to project myself into that situation and think about what I would do in each of these situations. Yea, a little frightening.

I’m glad that our world is as good as it is even though it is as bad as it is (make sense?). If you’ve seen this movie, try the WWYD (What would you do) excercise on them and see how you fare.

The invention of BRINNER is one of the best inventions ever. You get to eat breakfast for dinner!!!!!! Me being a cereal/breakfast lover this is just awesome. So Marcee was having a GNO (Girls Night Out) the other night and she asked me to feed the kids, maybe a grilled cheese sandwich or something. I thought “Nah, I don’t cook” and the only option I wanted to do was cereal, but our disposal is broken, kitchen was a bit ‘o disastrous so I asked the girls if they wanted to head out to one of their favorite places that their daddy takes them, IHOP.

Their responses were an emphatic yes! Last time we went they had pancakes with a sucker in them. Who can beat that for a kid, pancake, butter, syrup (one of the 4 food groups) and a SUCKER. They were hoping to get this same thing but it wasn’t on the menu this time. Kiara got the little dollar sized pancakes and Kayli ordered the smiley face pancake. Both were in HEAVEN!

To be or not to be, that is the question! Actually, the question a few months ago was “Should I stay or should I go now”? I had been employed for almost 8 years, had some good progression as far as work experience and promotions go. I began working as a call rep, moved to Call Center Mgr after a few months, then moved on to the ranks of Customer Service Manager, Account Manager and then into a position that I like to call the QuadraFecta. In title it was a Director, Project Management position, however in practive the position was a culmination of a Project Manager, Product Manager, Business Analyst and QA/Testing all mixed into one person. Experience wise, this was great, but sanity wise and stress level wise, it was I think off the charts. Thus began the inner thought process of trying to identify where I should go next.

Coupled with the thought of exploring different employee opportunies and the fact that there were a few things mentioned in my patriarchal blessing that I couldn’t see occurring at MCN I decided to put a line in the water and see what fish would bite. I wanted to stay in the same realm as far as job type goes, but was looking for a decent pay increase, good solid company in the health care industry with a technology focus, one that I could advance in to upper management positions and a matching 401k.

During the application process I did veer from this initial plan slightly in trying to apply for some companies that didn’t math this criteria. I applied at Zions Bank - first application they said “no thanks”, the second application for the SAME JOB they invited me for an interview. This of course being after I’d already accepted a job offer at my new place of employment . I also applied at a few other places as well as Ingenix.

I went through a few rounds of interviews for a Sr. Business Analyst position and was offered a job at the West Valley, UT office which I accepted. It was a HARD decision as MediConnect had been my home for so long and I love the people I worked with. I definitely prayed about making this change and in my prayer I just asked that I get a pretty solid answer since this was a pretty huge life changing event. While on a day off I received a handful of calls all of the sudden asking me about the job and providing support and encouragement; I even received a call from my future boss asking if I needed help with anything or any questions I had.

I have completed one week at my new job and went through some pretty big emotional swings this week being at a new job. Human nature is always such that you want to be in a place that you feel loved, wanted, comfortable etc. Changing jobs I think throws your body into “comfort zone” tail spin. This coupled with my desire to just want to hit the ground running and provide input etc. was a little challenging firt week. About Thursday/Friday this week I started to get a feeling for things, learn stuff, start to feel a little more comfortable etc. Things are going to be OK! I love the job, enjoy the people I work with and already found some XBox buddies to play online with.

All in all, a difficult decision. Long term though, I’m definite that this was the correct decisioon.