New year...

Wow I don't write for a while and so much changes.

I bought a house in Las Vegas, Had a 4th baby, and barely traveled in 2010. Probably a few small factors related to why I didn't write much!

So I have been working on some small sites lately on the internet that are all focused on a single product and term. It is interesting to see what is out there! I have been struggling for a while to get traffic to these little sites and tonight I realized that a big part of my research has been focused on things that will mean my conclusions are all off based. Wow. There is a few months wasted. Dang. It is late at night and I am wondering what is the freaking point? Success feels like it is going to be further away than ever before. I am just not sure what to do. Well the truth is that I want to keep trucking and make things work. I just don't want to try and think about that tonight!

I have to remind myself in light of big disappointments that long term success is riddled with disappointments. I just need to keep moving forward towards the overall goal that will lead me to the success that I desire! I just need to remember that making decisions with disapointment as my outlook is going to be a big mistake! Have a clear and composed head and things will begin to make sense and the right decisions can be made.

Dang man, months wasted! Well I guess I know what I what, just not exactly how to get there just yet. Things are still looking up and up, I know what I want and I have the opportunity to work towards it. I am also learning and becoming a much better person along the way. That is a blessing that I can't forget about!

 

Teton Pictures

Well I am sadly just now starting to really work on the pictures I took in the Grand Tetons. It does get a bit hectic when you are sick, have three kids, a beautiful wife (she actually makes everything better so she isn't actually a part of the hectic list...I just want to spend all my time with here!), and a job that pays well but does require a bit more effort because it is a little bit better!

Anyway, I am just now going to pic out the select pics and start editing. The frustrating thing is that I will have a bit more editing because of dust spots. Oh well! Anyway, things are good, and my little 44 days project I am excited about. For the next 44 days I am going to focus all my extra time and effort on building my business, improving my health (I am actually quite healthy according to lab tests, feeling strong and powerful is the goal), and improving my writing. I am writing down my goals elsewhere but this is day one and things are looking good so far! 

Sick again...

Well it seems that everytime the weather changes I get sick. I don't honestly understand why or how this happens. I was feeling healthy and then bam! I am getting sick with a sore throat and cold. Perhaps part of it is that I had to ride the bike about 16 miles this morning in suddenly cold weather. Argh. The ride was nice but the weather wasn't. I guess I have got to deal with these things however they come. I think having three kids really adds to the effect. At least they aren't sick. They all basically had what we do, and gave it to Alison and then me. I guess that is just part of being a parent...you get all the little presents your kids can come up with for you. Even the ones that they make themselves! 

On our way...

My family and I are on the way towards another adventure! I am pretty excited as usual. We are headed up to provo and then the tetons, and back to provo then back to vegas. This is going to be pretty nice. I have found several places to shoot that I haven't before and a few that I have. I am excited.

We are also canning some food and That gets the chills going up the spine as well! PEaches, Soup Mix, Beans and some other tomato products hopefully.

Anyway, work is almost done for the day and month! I have just a few more things to mix, cool and let sit for a few weeks!

Okay that is all for now, but I will be on in provo!

Chris

Fwd: Bike and Sore Knees

I have discovered that I have really sore knees lately! I am pretty sure it is from riding a bike that just doesn't fit me. It is so aggravating. Mentally and now physically. My wife tells me to just go and get a new one. I don't want to spend the money. Well I guess if buying a bike keeps me from buying a new car it is really worth it to buy a nice bike to commute on.

I still haven't talked myself into it. I think it is mostly that I don't want to spend my money on something like that just yet. Funny that I will drop cash in a flash on some things like camera gear or almost anything my wife will let me buy her. I am glad that I have restraint in some places at least. That is nice. Now I just need to not focus on the places that I have no restraint, ignore them and only think about the places I don't want to spend money. Then I will  keep money in my account for a while longer at least!

Okay, I am heading home. Tonight I am going to the temple with my wife. I am pretty excited about this. I love going with her. Lately we have had a plethora of people tending for us and it has been nice to be able to get out with my wife and do stuff with just her. The kids are great but they have us all the time!

Anyway, I am out. Hopefully the knees will make it a while longer...

More Work!

Today I found out about the new job posting that my boss created for me. I hope that it works out well. I mean I hope that I get it, and can support my family. That is the plan, but I guess we will see if things go according to my plan and that of my boss's. It would sure be nice, and make things really convienent in supporting my family. That is my main goal. I can't imagine my family not having what they need. Well I honestly can, and don't really want to do that.

The job is basically the same position I have currently, and would be a raise of 8 dollars an hour. That will be really nice. That will make paying off debt especially easier. That is a big thing my wife and I are trying to do currently. We will see if we can meet our goal of being out of debt by December of 2011. That is a while away, but we have a pretty be pile.

Now I am headed off to try and fix a machine for my old professor at the DRI. That seems to be going okay at the time being, but you never know what trials you will face when your dealing with the unknown.

Valley of Fire

Tonight I am going out for some night photography at the Valley of Fire State park near Vegas. I have wanted to head out for some time, so I am going tonight. My wife is pretty loving. Really romantic of me on a friday night. Sorry honey, but this can at best happen once or twice a month...

Anyway, I have quite a few shots I am hoping to get. We will see how things work out.

I made a little story board so that I can have an easy visual reminder of what I would like to shoot. We will see how the vegas lights affect things!

Websites...

So I think I am a website-aholic. Perhaps even more descriptive would be the fact that I am a project-aholic. This may be worse. I think of a decent idea and then think how awesome it could be, glossing over any serious work that would be involved and then jump in. Sadly I usually jump out before the real work hits.

Well I have been thinking that I pretty regularly spout off about information I have built into my little brain and I rarely actually am doing some of this stuff my self.

Case in point. I was giving advice to my brother on how he could perhaps get his little business started. He is very good at ceramics works. Well I was spouting off and thinking to myself this is really a good set of ideas to be busting out. To bad I don't really do the same type of things he does because I could make myself rich! or a little better off! Well anyway, after I hung up the phone with him I kind of kicked myself and said hey loser, that actually would fit beautifully with your work.

So I decided to go out a do it myself. So in the next few days I am going to follow my own advice and out the process I was preaching. We will see how well it works out. I am actually getting chills thinking about how neat it could really be!

Well I am off to start it happening. I will let you know what I find out from actually doing the work at hand...

Chris

Work...

Well I have succeeded recently in fixing a machine and breaking one at work. Okay well I didn't really fix the one it actually finally got set up. Well that took 2 months and definitely wasn't an easy to do project. After a while it felt like I was basically fixing it. Well it is working now. The next step is to figure out how to make it actually work! Okay so in figuring out how to make it work I may discover that it actually doesn't work, but that I just couldn't see it now. That is another adventure in waiting. I will tell you what though that machine definitely isn't a damsel in distress!

Okay so I also didn't break the other machine. I believe a fellow co-worker broke it and didn't realize it. So I have been spending several days now getting it back in shape. I have done several needed maintenance tasks and I thought that would fix it up nice. Well that didn't do it. We did find a part we needed and maybe that is the cause of the issues. We will have to see, the part is currently in the mail.

The kids are also getting over their colds yesterday and today. I hope they are feeling better. We didn't help them much yesterday when our neighbor cleaned their carpets and offered to let us use the cleaner as well before they took it back and we took them up on that. The kids were up till past 9 pm. I think it was actually closure to 10. They don't usually sleep in much either so it has been hard today to tell if they are feeling better through the crankiness of not much sleep. I am headed home to play with and wrangle them and to hopefully keep them out of Alison's hair so she can write her talk for Sunday. I am looking forward to hearing her talk. That doesn't mean I will actually hear it while keeping the kids in some state of reverence, usually they go to pieces when one of us leaves during church. We will see how that goes.

What a week!

Okay so it has been a while. There were some issues that I was dealing with over time on getting a journal written. Basically I dealt with a new computer at work and then a but of temporary security restrictions because somebody got a bad virus in their email. Then at home our computer died. It is definitely interesting to have a time in life where there is no computer. Wow. I kind of like it. I also don't really know what to do with myself because lots of what I like to do revolves around that. Oh well.

So this week I have had an interesting and hard few days of work. Basically I had a co-worker get let go or fired. She was on a trial period of work and she managed to not do well enough for them to want to keep her around. Sadly they were really looking for enough of a reason to not have to let her go. She just didn't get enough done, and could focus on hardly any one thing at any time. Overall she wasn't productive in any area and actually never accoumplished completion of any major project on her own. This is a place where you have to be productive on your own. The hard part about the situation is that she focused some frustration during her interview on me being the cause of her downfall, claiming they wanted me instead of her and that they trained me instead of her. From her perspective I can see it. Overall though she did receive at least 5 times the training that I did and still managed to do nothing. She had lots of time where she was reading the news and surfing the internet.

That all actually happened last week, and this week my boss who had to fire her spoke with me and said that he really wanted to hire me. I would have to compete for the job and all that but he laid out a step by step plan of what I would need to do to best present myself and get past the filters to the people doing the hiring, mainly him. So I am optimistic about that potentially opening up. I am not sure if I really want to be "chilling" in Vegas for a long time but perhaps it will do for a bit.

I also thought I was bout done with some samples, and found ten more I needed to do. Then being unfocused, tired and careless I broke a bottle holding another. That means about 8 days work to prep it all over again. Argh. Oh well, at least there are 10 others that need it as well.

So I have decided that I really need to not get less than 7 hours of sleep a night, or I become a zombie and am miserable, and totally unproductive...oh well.

That is all...dinner is waiting.

Bills...

Why does paying bills have to be painful? Well I guess because you see all your work going out the door so quickly and you don't think about all the benefit you have received all month long. For me that is definitely the case. Anyway, things are getting better each month we pay towards our debt. We are actually doing really well at lowering our debt each month. For the last 3 years we have overall lowered our debt each month on average, if you don't count the addition of the new van we bought last halloween. That isn't really to bad actually, we may be able to pay it off soon as well. I hope that does get done soon. That thing is a beast I really hate paying for.

Anyway, things are good. This month we have some extra money and we are going to pay off 4 credit cards so that we will only have 4 credit cards with any balances and those with amazing interest rates. Then we will be saving up all our extra money for a rainy day. We are going to ideally use it to pay off the van but we are going to save up all our pennies and dimes so that we can pay it off all in one go when we are pretty sure our Job situation is secure for the next little while. When that is good then we will pay off the van and start saving all over again! Great times...Then the goal will be a house I believe. That is when we can decide where the heck we even want to live!

Okay that is all for tonight, it is definitely my bedtime!

Corinthians 13

It is me again...

Okay but really, I was reading Corinthians 13 today and it is really interesting! Consider all the gifts of the spirit. Alma talks about them and Paul talks about them. But when Christ comes Paul basically says that all of those will be done away because we will no longer be separate from him.

So what will be left? Only a few things will last forever. Even in the presence of Christ. Of the greatest of those is Charity. That will always be present.

Take home message? Well it seems that seeking to develop the attribute of charity is much more important than seeking spiritual gifts.

Wow.

Enjoy!

Growing Fast

Well Joshua went to the doctor today and definitely out shined what we thought he would actually do in the growing category.

He is now 14 pounds and 6 ounces. I believe that puts him as our heaviest kid at this point. He is also at about 26 inches. I believe he has grown 6 pounds 6 ounces and 4 inches since birth. He is a beautiful solid kid.

Sadly he is the heaviest kid we have at this age so far and he is only the 30 percentile for weight. Oh well. We will see if he outshines Andrea later. She definitely has hit some major growth spurts that have put her at the top of her class. Sadly she makes cousins of similar ages look like midgets sometimes. Oh well...

So the kids are healthy an strong. Interesting note, Andrea and Zach when they got shots really didn't scream a lot. They would cry a bit and mope all day long. Josh on the other hand I am told screamed to a level we hadn't yet heard, but the rest of the day the kid is pretty happy with life. No grudges over the shots. Funny how each kid is so different!

Hey They Are Fragile...

So last night I believe that Alison and I may have dealt with the closest near death experience that any of our kids have ever had. Sure we have had Andy and Zach choking on something and we fished it out. In those situations though we were really worried just pragmatically took care of the issue.

Well last night I had a serious scare. I was woke up by my wife just before 2 am and I could clearly understand what she was saying, but I have been married to her long enough to hear some very serious worry in her voice. So I sat up and listened again to what she said. She was holding Josh and saying he wasn't responding to anything. I first noticed a really limp baby. He is usually very active and wiggly. He was limp and I started to get worried. Alison told me that he wasn't responding to anything. He was burning up, and soaked in sweat.

Alison woke up and had a major prompting to check on Josh. She was wondering why he hadn't woke up yet to eat. He usually is only going 6 or 7 hours at night and it had been almost 8. So she went in there and found his face completely covered by his warm heavy blanket. She uncovered him and found a kid that seemed almost dead. His eyes were open but not focused on anything. It was totally freaky. This is a person that we are taking care of and he was near death.

So we prayed for help to understand what he needed at that moment. I gave him a blessing and knew that he would be okay very soon if we did what was needed right now. If that then he would be okay for a while if at all.

After the blessing we stripped him and took his temp which came in at 101. Wow. So we stripped him and wiped it entire body down with a way cold rag. Before this at some point we had changed a huge poopy diaper. When we were washing him down he was starting to finally wake up a bit more. He was actually trying to look around at us. Not grabbing our hands or anything but trying a bit more. So then Alison fed him. After that he was doing a bit more and acting closer to normal.

A few minutes later after a bit more freezing the pore kid with the wet washcloth we gave him some water in a medicine dropper. The kid sucked that up like he was dry as the desert. 1/4 of a cup later he slowed way down. So we let him be and tried playing with him to keep him awake. Honestly though he was basically trying to tell us "its okay now I am fine, just need a bit of shut eye." Well I was thinking he couldn't go to sleep because he might just die on us, so we kept him awake longer.

A hard part of this situation is that we had just moved him out of our room and his crying voice is actually kind of timid. So when he cries we barely hear him. So imagine the doors are only cracked open and the fan is on in the hall. Then the kid gets his face covered by the blanket. So he is screaming for help and can't get any response. He probably just screamed himself senseless and then gave up. That is when is mom came and rescued him. She feels like she has totally failed him forever. I feel bad to because I probably would have slept the entire night through and not noticed a thing.

Overall I am just so happy he is doing great. This entire day he has acted just fine, with perhaps just a bit of fatigue around the edges. That is it. Wow. They are fragile, but heak they can be resilient as well thank goodness.

Einstein

So lately I have been reading a book about Albert Einstein. It is actually his biography that has been written by Isaacson. It is well written. I guess I am a bit disappointed because I wanted more about his life and less science but reading his biography it isn't quite possible to get that. His entire life was about theoretical physics and everything else came second. Oh well it is really interesting. I am even beginning to understand why is theories are so important.

One of my favorite quotes is "A blind respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." He definitely lived by this phrase he coined the first half of his life but the second he went away from it and actually hurt his career and where it could have gone. Very ironic.

On the kid side of things it is so funny the things that kids can say and do. For example my daughter is now 23 months old is such a COPIER! she copies Alison, Zach, Josh and Myself. She is also very hard headed. Overall though she is amazingly adorable! If you read this years later Andrea, you are an amazing child. Even if at times amazingly hardheaded for good and bad. We often want to discipline you and your skin is to thick! Or you think it is just a game. Other times your brother beats you so hard that it is hard to believe it doesn't hurt you little head but you bounce right back up and look at us and ask with an adorable look "what is the bid deal?" You have definitely sustained some seriously significant blows to your head buy accident and brother and hardly flinched. The worst that comes to mind is one time Zach was rocking the chair back and forth very roughly and you walked behind it and got hit with a horribly perfect blow that knocked you flat on the ground. It looked like a cartoon segment (one you hope will never actually really happen, but it is okay in cartoons because it is pretend) that is unreal. Alison and I watched is pure horror as we both had thoughts you may just be dead (I was seriously concerned as I rarely am). You popped up and didn't even think twice about it. Wow.

The start of that previous thought was a funny thing my kids do lately. If they see us eating anything they say "I want some! What are you eating?" Which I think is absolutely hilarious. Most of the time however we are eating something yummy and they know it. Their instincts on these subjects are really good. I tend to think that my kids and perhaps many other peoples kids often are more precocious in thought and action than we think.

Last night Josh went the entire night without eating. We had to help him back to sleep a few times, but we are on our way to him sleeping all night long. For my wife this is a wonderful thing. She will be able to sleep through the night when he does. This is mainly because of breast feeding. I just don't seem able to do it! Josh is becoming quite an amazing little boy. He is so interactive and follows our every move with beautiful eyes.

Yesterday my wife and I had to turn in several papers that verified our income, living situation and the existence of Josh for our welfare insurance. What a trial that is. Wow. Our greatest benefits were that we were organized and had done it before. Usually we have a few days or weeks to get it all together. This time we had only two days. It really did consume all that we did for a few days! I am glad that we are done. I did have to wait in line for an hour to drop the papers off which was quite a trial. Luckily that is much better than other times when I have had to wait longer than two hours. Ouch!

We have everything in and it will be interesting to see if we still are qualified for the free insurance. It is been wonderful to have while we were in school and especially in paying for out first 3 kids births entirely. Now though I feel ready to move on. They may tell us it is time to move on as well because we are doing a bit better than previously. I will like the continued support if we qualify, but if not then we are ready for what is next and totally believe that we aren't going to be on that forever. We will see.

Lately Alison and I have been trying very hard to pay off our debt. We have been trying hard to make smart decisions and are doing really well. The frustrating thing is how fast we have been able to proceed. Just recently we have had a second job open up for me back at the Desert Research Institute where I did my masters degree research. The good news is that it pays well and I will likely be able to do quite a bit there while still maintaining my current position. It will basically amount to about $5000 extra over the next few months. That is really nice and will go a long way towards helping out our financial goals. I am very grateful, and now a bit busier!

Today now that I don't have much to do I will be happy to go home and swim with my family (whenever I get home)!