January 27, 2019

Week Ending 1-27-2019

End of Swim, Five Mile Run, Treasure Hunting, Jazz Game, Sal meets new friends

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future….

Yes this is how I feel sometimes, time keeps on coming and we just have to do what we can.  As we start the last full week of January are busy schedules.

Maggie started an internship this week at Weber State. she has scrubs with her name on them and she goes up to Weber either 2 or 3 times a week and goes to a college level class.  She really seems to like it and it is fun and crazy to see how quickly she is growing up.

Tuesday I had the privilege of taking my two beautiful girls to a movie called Glass.  We watched the other two shows last week that are connected.  It was kinda scary and Allie was sitting in the middle of both Maggs and I holding our hands.  The show was kinda slow then it picked up.  I told them after as we were driving home we usually don’t do go to late shows on a school night too often but once is a while is okay.  It was fun date with my gals!

Maggs had her last swim meet on Saturday we got there right as her 50 M Free started and then we were able to see her improve her 100 back stroke by 5 seconds.  She was SUPER excited and we were very excited her for.  Great way to end her swimming experience.  After the meet Sal, Coop, Al and I went to the  D&I to treasure hunt.  They found some stuff for Al and her play.   There was some stuff I liked but did not get.  We then ran some errands, shopping at Wal-Mart, then getting some lunch at In and Out and the I went to McDonald's drive through eating an burger from the other joint ordering me a diet coke, classic!

Coop is able to do new things as a priest in church he gets to bless the sacrament today which is pretty cool!

Allie went for a 5 mile jog and Saturday.  Duke and I would stay back and listen to my book then drive up each mile and give her a sip of water and then rinse and repeat.  She did it without complaint and I think she really is liking the fact she is getting stronger each week.  I am SUPER proud of my girl!

After much trial and tribulation we got our dryer to work!!! So, our good friend Glenn Olsen came and identified what the issue was, Sal ordered the part, Sal put in the part, so when I say  “we” I am not overall involved other than being a great cheer leader!

Duke has had some itching issues on his nose for a while, so we spent $50 dollars at the vet and found out he an some type of allergy so we went to the grocery store and spent $3 on Benadryl.  Love our dog! RRRR.

Coop and I went to the Jazz vs. Timber Wolves game on Friday night.  We had a great chat on the way down he told me of his plans on becoming a machinist to work his way through college, I thought that was very insightful and intelligent.  We had a good dinner at Chick-fil-A, then watched the Jazz maul the T wolves for three quarters.  Coop and I were both kinda “lathaagic” during the game.  I had been up since 4 am and I was feeling it.  At the beginning of the 4^th the Jazz were up by 21, with four minutes left Jazz were up by 1, YIKES!  Coop and I got back into and we ended up holding them off.  It was a fun date with my boy!

Maggs had a dance on Saturday. three couples went and they had a good time at Joyce’s house playing games, dinner at the OG,  the dance and then ice cream at Arctic Circle.  She said it was fun and I am glad she has had a great Sr. Year thus far. 

Sal kept her self-entertained at the swim meet by chatting with Maggie's friend's mom for a few minutes then chatting with a new friend she made there at the meet.  This gal is thinking about going back to school and Sal encouraged her to start subbing then go back to school and teach.    Sal enjoyed the conversation and we all just smiled because that is what Sal does --make friends where- ever she goes. 

I finished a book called Educated about a gal who was raised in Idaho by survivalist, anti-government parents.   I liked it. It had some interesting stories but the feel was very odd since she was raised in an abusive environment and she did not realize it was abusive until she got to college.    

Saturday night Sal and  I had fun yet unconventional date, we stated out by going to my work and hanging out on the floor for 15-20 minutes.  We then went to a place called Virg'

s for dinner.  It is a diner and it was really good food and we had a great time just hanging out and chatting.  We then went to Winco and we saw our Bishop and his wife and son as they were leaving, We chatted with them for over 30 minutes. Then we did some grocery shopping as we headed home and watched the last hour of Ant-Man with Al and Coop.

This will be Allie in May with a Whole Marathon medal hanging around her neck!  She's doing awesome in her training.  Proud of her!

January 20, 2019

Week Ending 1-20-2018

20 Year Anniversary and PR’s, dropping quarters in machines

This week I had the privilege of celebrating my twenty years of marriage with my beautiful wife.  We have had three AWESOME kids together and we have had some wonderful adventures.  We are going on a big trip in March but we still went to a movie and dinner to celebrate the actual day.  We ate at Corbins kinda  fancy place in Layton.  We then hung out at the mall for a minute then we went to the dollar store to snag some treats for the movie and Sal bought some large suckers for Allie for her activity days event coming up.  We saw the Upside sitting on the front row, it was pretty cute.

It is weird not having activities on Wednesday.  The kids went to an etiquette dinner and they and they had a good time, they seemed to have fun.  I had a minor melt down not being able to find the remote and feeling the effects of my incredibly horrible undisciplined eating habits of the last 5 weeks.  You think I would be smart enough to figure out how not caring about my body for the month of December always catches up to me.  Hopefully I will figure it out soon!

Maggie had her last home swim meet on Thursday.  I was able to get out of work for a little bit to come watch her.  She had PR’s in both events the 50 with a time of  39.77 and her 100 back she improved almost a second with a swim of 1:45:7.  My mom and dad came and Joyce came.  Maggs got recognized as a Co-Captain and a senior during the break.  She was very happy with the whole meet, it was fun to see her and see how this whole swim experience has been very good for her.  We are proud of our Maggie.

Sal and I had this strong desire to drive down the road and pour countless amounts of quarters into a machine and hope for wonderful results……That is exactly what happened on Saturday morning when we drove to the local laundromat and spent nearly $70 dollars in washing and drying machines where we did about 19 loads of laundry.  When the owner of the laundromat says “wow you guys have a lot of cloths” you know you have lots of cloths!  Our dryer has not worked for a few weeks and if any of you know our relationship you know Sal is the handy women in it.  She is REALLY good at fixing things.  We have not been able to figure ths one out. But we are getting close to get it done.

I rode on the trainer for 90 minutes on Saturday and after three hours in the laundromat and then my time on the bike I was kind tired.  Both Sal and I took the afternoon and rested.  Sal and the girls and I headed to Chick-Fil-A and had a good dinner and then we picked up Split and watched the movie back at the house.

Coop was able to be ordained a Priest on Sunday after church, he will be able to bless the sacrament next going forward he is pretty excited about this.  He was able to be involved with his buddy from the ward getting ordained as well,  We went to the Davidson’s for a FHE with the extended family Maggs taught on the light of the Savior it was very well done.

Have a great week,

Chris

January 13, 2019

Week Ending 1-13-19

Trip to the MW, Blood Draws and 2 Broad and a cousin party

I am responsible for a wellness program we are doing at work that consists of a blood draw initially.   In order ot have a clinic at the building we needed to have 25 folks participate each day.  So we had two in Ogden/Roy on Tuesday and we had two in the MW on Thursday. 

So, Tuesday I work up early and met the lady doing the blood draw at 6:30 we had a few forget and a few complain they did not know.  But all in all in went well.  Ultimately we had 34 folks that went through it in both sites.  Then I headed to the airplane to catch my flight.  I had never left on a work trip before in the evening after I worked most of the day. 

It was a very good trip I would eat dinner and then crash in my motel room on Friday morning I woke up at 4 and could not get back to bed so I watched a Castle and then watched a TLC show about quintuplets.  Yes, burning the morning oil.

Sal and the kids did great while I was gone, the kids are getting ready for their play they are doing in March and Maggie is doing well in school.  She was asked by the SBP to be the representative for the senior class for the girls for academics.  We were proud of her.

I got home on Friday and came to work for a few minutes I saw one of my employees who I had seen on Tuesday afternoon and told her I had seen her more frequently then I had seen my own family.  Since I had not gone home yet.  She said that was weird and I actually agreed.

I made it home and Sal and we went to Dry Bar comedy at Wise Guys comedy club.  It was one of her presents tor Christmas.  It was pretty funny.  There were some funny bits and we had a good time. 

Saturday, Allie went for her run and I took it easy while Sal ran errands with Allie.   We chilled and took it easy.  That night we had the two old broad and  Cousin Christmas Party.  We ate at Bucca de Beppo.  It was family style we had a good salad appetizers and really good fattening food.   My stomach was feeling a little gurgly so I had a sprite  to settle my tummy, all the food I ate probably did not help 😊.  This was the first cousin party without David. He was missed.  It was good to have Michael there.  We actually got a parking ticket that was a mistake since we had already paid, 

We headed up to Primary Children’s Hospital to see little Daisy. She has RSV and is only 9 days old. We saw Kelly and Dave for a few minutes then Sal, Grandma and Kelly went to see Daisy.  Kevin and I watched the end of the Cowboys vs Rams game in the waiting room until it was time to go.  I had fun putting my sticker on Kevin’s back on the way to the parking lot he just could not quite reach it.  It was fun to have Kevin drive. Both Joyce and Sal were giving him crap rather than me for his driving.  Grandma had to get some ice cream on the way home. I did not try to talk her out of it too hard.

We had our 3^rd hour of church in the morning and the discussion went very well.  We had ward Conference on Sunday Bishop spoke about Hope and President Snow, the one from the Humger Games. He made a good point.

We had FHE Deann Noel spoke on the power of music it was a very good lesson.  I cannot believe how fast my kids are growing it is pretty crazy! 

Have a great Week- Chris and Family

National Anthem, Short Week, Thanksgiving and family time.

Week of 11-25

Monday night was pretty busy: Coop got his cast off, then we met Sal at the Roy Tree Lighting ceremony where she conducted her Freedom Elementary Choir.  It was cute having almost 100 kids singing a couple of Christmas songs while wearing their Santa hats.  After the choir performed, we were walking back to the car when Cooper did his best Elf impersonation and yelled “Santa’s coming!!!” really loud when Santa got there. Then he yelled, “Santa!!! I know him!!”  It was pretty funny. After, we headed over to Spare Time for a bowling activity for work.  We had good dinner of pizza and then bowling.  Coop was within 6 pins of me with his left hand, but my first game was 115.  We stopped at Lance and Teresa’s to hear about the Green Bay Seattle game that they were able to go to last week. Lance was in the middle of teaching a FHE lesson to his own and extending family about how he does not like Thanksgiving, but he then went into why because it has turned out to be selfish rather than full of gratitude.  It was very well done.  The girls went to the RHS play of Little Mermaid and seemed to enjoy it.  Coop and I watched a shoot out on MNF between the Rams and the Chiefs.  It was a good night.

Allie sang the national Anthem on Tuesday for a girls’ volleyball game.  She had practiced several times, she was ready.  When you get the microphone and all the attention is on you it is pretty nerve wracking!  She started then made a mistake then got going for a sec and made another mistake, then her AWESOME mom quietly walked up within 10 ft of her and sang with her to help her get back on track. Al kept her composure and then NAILED the rest of the Anthem.  She got several compliments on how well she sounded.  She was a little embarrassed at the end on making a few mistakes but I told her, that her keeping her composure and then finishing strong was SUPER impressive.  We were very proud of her.

Maggs got a full ride presidential scholarship offer at SUU!  She’s not sure if that one is on her list, but it was pretty humbling to get that kind of offer for her.  She was pretty stoked.

Sal and I had the opportunity to clean the Ogden Temple Tuesday night from 9:30 to 1:00 AM.  I was not negative about doing it but I was not doing back flips either. Yes, I can do backflips in my mind!!!!!    It turned out very good.  We hung out with some folks in our stake we did not know that were fun to chat with and it was a good experience all around.

Our Thanksgiving was very relaxing and nice!  We went to Jeff’s house. His family minus Cole, is in the Dominican with Joyce, so Cole and Jeff were the hosts with the mosts. We had Denise, Roger and Michael.  Lisa, Kory, Shane, Heather, Parker, Ethan, Jared, Keegan, Jake, Kaden, Jamie and Clare.  We had a TON of food: 2 turkeys, prime rib, salads, shrimp, and a ton of other good grub along with a huge selection of pies.  We had our family pictures taken by Kory and we hung out more and then headed to a family movie, yes family movie Creed II.  It was a little slow but it was fun to hang out.  We saw Maggie’s friend Odessa Anderson and her family there.  They were surprised we were going to Creed. I thought it was awesome!  Sallie may have dozed a bit.

We have a fun family tradition the kids have come up with.  We watch “Christmas with the Cranks” and make homemade pizza on a Friday sometime before Christmas.  Well, the tradition continues.  Allie and Cooper made pizza on the Traeger grill.  Cooper loves the grill.  They made half pepperoni and half turkey alfredo.  It was very good and we watched the movie while we ate.  Family time is a good time until Cooper stabs Allie with his raptor-like toenails on purpose. GT—good times, what up?!

Sallie went Black Friday shopping.  She wasn’t going to, but then she woke up at 7:00 and decided to go.  Well, she was gone for like 6 hours, so I guess she was successful on her list, but not on our checking account.  Sallie does enjoy the hunt for a good deal.  It seems like an adrenaline rush for her with getting a good deal. 

Coop and I set up the lights outside and we are getting ready for inside as well.

Awesome Seats, Great Games, and Voting

Week Ending 11-12-18

The weather has definite gotten colder and pre-winter is here.  Coop is doing really well with NAL he is one of the top point getters in the rounds he is in.  Maggie had her first swim meet and did four events at the end one of the boy captains wanted to get a picture taken with all the Captains so she got a pic with the other captains we thought that was pretty cool.

Sal’s brother has been away for a little more than a year and we were able to go see him on Tuesday night, he is staying with his Sister Denise and brother in law Roger.  He looked really good and we had a little family date we went and the girls dropped off their ballots, yes girls.  Maggie voted this year pretty crazy my baby girl is technically an adult (I voted earlier in the day with no lines) then we went to Pollo Loco for a little dinner then we checked out Krispy Kreme and spent 8 bucks on 6 doughnuts then we got a dozen for free because of the kids good grades, so that was fun, then we stopped off at the store and picked up a couple of things for Michael.  He was appreciated and he looks good, we are hopeful that he will do well.

Sal and I had a last-minute opportunity to go to a Jazz game and sit in the Toyota Club, we sat on the 10^th row and had access to as much food and drink as you can handle.  Yum!  I am feeling the effects of my winter weight gain I have every year right now!  It was the first win at home for the Jazz and it was fun hanging out with Sal.  Donovan Mitchell had a really nice dunk at the end of the first half, I was going to more free food when he did the awesome dunk, I heard the crowd roar and went back and the half had ended, Donovan you have to wait until I get back to do awesome dunks!

The kids went to YM and YW did a talent show and went mini golfing.  Maggie had a meeting for Sterling Scholars on Thursday that I slid down to, Coop needs to have one more cast for the next two weeks. Then it should be healed up pretty good.

Roy High plays in the State Semi Finals for football today down at Rice Eccles I think I am headed down to it but I am not sure. Maggie is headed to it so I think I will see here when I am there.  Today is Friday and tonight Coop and I are headed to the Jazz Celtic game it should be pretty fun!

The NAL game went good Roy Junior High won again in impressive fashion.  Coop and I went to the Boston Jazz game on Friday and it was AWESOME!  It was a good game from the get go.  Gordo Hayward got the business the whole time which I thought was fine.  Coop and I stopped at Crown Burger in Layton and then got to the game a little early.  We had great seats and sat behind an obnoxious Celtics fan.  It was entertaining for a while then it got a little nerve racking when it was almost a fight.    The game itself was great and we had a good time.

Then on Saturday I was able to go to the Ute game my buddy Bruce. We met in Bountiful then had lunch at a restaurant by the stadium and then we saw a great game with the back-up quarterback and running back for the U.  It was a great game the Utes won we met up with Bruce’s boy, Ninoah and he gave me crap for wearing a glove and a mitten I told him it is the style and it is trending on twitter not sure if he believed me!  It was all in fun!  I got a little sick on Sunday just trying to battling it.

Have a great week!

Chris

Weekly Letter January 23-30, 2017

This week there were some fun things that happened that normally don't.  On Monday my family did a Family Home Evening over at the BeeHive House which is an assisted living center.  All prepared a great lesson.  There was tell me something good, we played quarta quarta who got the quarta.  Butch who is blind is a stud he was a lot of fun.

I took my young men to the Clearfield aqquatic center we had al the deacons teachers and priests.  It was a lot of fun them seemed to enjoy it.  This week we are going to a Werber State Basketball Game and then next week we are going to the Weber County Jail.  It should be a good time

Thursday Sal and I had GREAT tickets to the Jazz vs. Lakers.  They were row 10 and face value was $230 of course we did not spend that on them but all the same I have not had that good of seats in a long time if ever.  We had dinner on China Platter in Bountiful on the way down and had a wonderful at the game.  We parked at the Gateway and actually did not get charged for parking so that was nice.  All in all had a great time with my lady on our date!

Friday Coop and I went to Clearfield  to meet a Jazz player.  It ended up being a former Jazz player, Thurl Bailey.  It was a little disappointing at first but he did do a good job with the kids.  We took about an hour.  Coop was not overly impressed but it was fun to do something different than just stay at home and watch TV.

I have been having issues shedding my winter weight.  I have been working out pretty good but my food intake has not been great.  I rode my bike trainer for an hour and forty five minutes on Saturday.  I will hit over two hours before I go for a long ride outside.  I have a 65 miler coming up in about 7 weeks.  It will be here before you know it.

We hung at Cosco and then did chores we later worked at Mom's school while wrapping up the night by watching the Reagan/s with an episode of Blue Bloods. 

We had a good ward conference today Sal got referenced in the Bishop's talk about how she did music in sharing time. Then a guy in the Stake Presidency spoke about pot holes on why we get them and how do we refrain from having them.  President Monson had a talk on this it was pretty good.

April 5, 2015 Happy Easter!

March 30- April 5

Guten Tag,

I came across an article on a paper written by an entrepreneur and a life coach talking about 8 spiritual principles for people to be successful. I found it interesting that his first one was giving gratitude. I know I struggle with this at times. But it was a good reminder, that in order to be successful in all aspects of life, giving gratitude is a key principle.

This week went as fast as usual. It started with the kids and Sal having Spring break. Monday night Maggs went up to Heber for her soccer game. We appreciate her coaches for taking such good care of her. She actually went to the doctor this week for her 6 month after-surgery check up to get the go-ahead to play. He was still a bit concerned about her knee not being completely straight. He did say yes she could play, but keep working on it. He even suggested having Allie sit on it to stretch it out. We need to be smart to ensure she is ready. She has to pass a few small tests first, but she is getting close and she is way excited!

So back to Monday, Sal, Al, Coop, Duke, and I went to a park and we played baseball for about an hour. It was blast! We stopped at 7-11 for Slurpee after and Sal saw two sister missionaries come in as we were leaving. Sal went back in and bought them each Slurpee for their FHE treat and she was even working on the clerk to be an investigator! I think the sisters appreciated it. We rented Annie and watched it as a family. It definitely was not a Hard Knock Life on Monday! :)

Tuesday, our nephew, Caden Collier, returned home from his mission in Mexico. He seemed to have enjoyed his time serving the Lord. He had a little bit of a cold, but I think he is happy to be home. Sal sent all of our nephews serving missions a small amount of money for Christmas. Caden got his the day he left and he was able to use this on his journey home.

Baseball has been pretty time consuming. Coop had a hitting clinic where he got some good stuff to work on. Then on Thursday, we got a taste of what comp baseball will be like. First of a all, his team is playing a year up, so we are playing older kids and then to compound it most of our kids have not played comp ball. Our first game we lost 21-0. Ouch! Coop had a good at bat the only time he got up. He swung at one pitch then the rest he took and walked. He then was told to stole second base by his coach and the catcher threw the ball to the shortstop and Coop was out by about 10 feet. Coop saw that he was going to be out, so he headed back to first then he was in a pickle. It was pretty cute and it was a good learning for him. He made two good plays at second to get the out. This may be a long spring to get broken into baseball.

Since it was spring break I decided to take a half day and we headed down to Thanksgiving Point which is about an hour away our good friends The Tesch's came with us. The kids had fun at the interactive museum and we had a fun walking through the tulip gardens. There was man made water falls that were very cool. We headed back home to help with a work Easter Egg Hunt we had fun with the trivia questions we warmed up the crowd with before there was the Easter Egg Hunt. I think folks enjoyed it.

Then about 8 Sal suggested we go on a date, I am always up for a date with my lady, so we went to Cinderella we went to the first theater and it was sold out then we went to the next theater we were being smart cookies and bought them online and there was only two seats left. When we got there we found out that we were the only two seats that had purchased tickets. We thought that was pretty funny there ended up being a few more folks that showed up. It ended up being a good movie and it was fun to hang out with Sal.

On Saturday we watched conference in the morning and I had a good little helper in Allie helping me put both of my letters together. I was going to go on my ride early but I did not get up so I missed the after noon session of conference as I went on a bike ride. My riding buddies were unavailable so I went on my own. I used my new computer I got from my nephew Nate it worked out really nice, the only thing I don't like to see how slow I am going! :)

I went to Priesthood session with Lance, my dad and Robby. It was fun and a very good session. We then went to Javiers for dinner it was basically empty when we got there and when we left there were several other men in ties that must had the same idea that we did! Dad gets free nachos dolce so we took advantage of that and we then we watched the Kentucky Wisconsin game ending we then headed home and I was able to color eggs with my family. Good times!

We had a good Easter today we hung out as a family this morning and we watched conference then we went over to Grandma and Grandpa Hislop's. It was fun to be with the family. I older I get I realize how these small memories end up being very important for the kids and us as we get older.

We then went over to Grandma and Grandpa Davidson's and had a good meal and at both meals there were very good blessings on the food by my brother Lance and my nephew Brandon.

We are almost of week into April, I hope everyone is have a great spring. Have a great week.

Chris

March 29, 2015

March 22-29^th

Family and Friends Shalom!

Soccer, baseball, choir concerts oh my!!!! Maggs has gone to both of her soccer games this season both have been on the road in SL and Heber City. She has enjoyed it and we are getting much closer for her being able to play. She still needs to work hard but we are getting close.

Allie did great in her choir concert on March 25^th. Her choir were dressed in very cute gray vets and bow ties they did three songs and she was adorable on how animated she was. There was another school that did some fun things and they were very good, Al told me at the end that she thought that other school was so good “Daddy I was going to give them a standing ovation” I thought that was pretty funny.

Coop's comp baseball is in full swing pun intended. He has a practice game last Saturday he got there a little late since he just finished his soccer game. We dropped him off and at the baseball and field and we then parked and walked to the field. We had brought Duke with us to enjoy the beautiful Spring day. As we got on the grass a huge dog which we found later to be a British Mastiff came up to Duke to start sniffing him and then all of a sudden our dog gets attacked. Sal is working hard to not get bit and protect our dog, I am screaming at attacking dog, and finally the owner comes up and gets her dog off. She was an older lady and she seemed to feel bad that her dog attacked ours. Duke cried for awhile then he started to feel better. No harm no foul but it was a little scary!

Sal and the girls went to the womens general conference they had a good time and had fun hanging out with grandma and their aunts. Coop and I headed to dinner at the mall and watched Mcfarland USA a Disney show about a high school cross country team in California. We both enjoyed. I hope everyone has a great week!

Chris Hislop

March 15, 2015

Bom Dia,

How are things going for everyone?  I hope things are going well!  I was chastised by my daughter Maggs for not being as descriptive as I should have been for my letter last week.  So I will do my best and try and rectify the events of this week!

It started out with Maggie going to Soccer on Monday. She still cannot play a ton due to her knee, but she was able be on the field and tell her teammates where they should be per her coaches instructions. She seemed to like that once she got on the field.   While she was at practice, Coop and I went up to a store and grabbed him some new cleats and a new glove.  He made a comp baseball team, so we will see how this experiment goes. He seems to really like it so far.

Tuesday, Sal had a relief society activity where she made a really good pulled pork dish from Hawaii (It was an international dinner.) She made some for us as well.  The kids and I brought the food over to the church while Sal was finishing up getting ready.  When we came back, she informed us that Duke maybe have eaten one of our dinners while we were gone.  Come to find out, it was my dinner that he helped himself to.  That stinker!!!

I am in the market for a new road bike. The kids and I went to a house in Syracuse and tested a bike a guy had for sale on KSL.  It was OK, but I will wait and see what else there is out there.

Coop had a play-off basketball game on Tuesday at 9:30.  We got there a few minutes before tip-off and some of his buddies were saying we were going to win by a forfeit since the other team did not know when the game was... and they were in bed anyway since the game was at 9:30 at night. 

The semi-final game was on Thursday.  Coop played well and we won to make it to the Finals!

As you can see the greeting for this week is Portuguese.  My nephew, Robby Housley, got his mission call to Brazil on Thursday.  We are way excited for him and he seems very excited as well.  Currently, we have three nephews out,with one getting home at the end of this month and then Rob leaves in July.  It is pretty awesome!

Duke was having fun playing with Maggs with the tennis ball while she was laying down.  She would put  the ball on her neck and he would grab it and then he would put it back on her stomach.  They had fun playing that game for a while.

While I am in the market for a new bike, Sal was in the market for a new couch.  She got one she liked at RC Willey Thursday night.  After she picked up the couch in her “truck” (the van fits a full length couch,) she and Cooper also picked up an odometer for my bike from our niece and nephew, Nate and Kristen.  They had a fun evening running their errands—there is another funny story  that involved Cooper, a water bottle, and having to go pee-pee on there way home.

Another fun fact happened on Friday.  A buddy from work and I were driving to SLC for a meeting and I saw a receipt from RC Willey in his passenger seat.  He and his wife had bought a mattress there. I told him my wife was there buying a couch Thursday night and he remembered seeing her there. Once we got the day and time, he remembered the fact it was a van and that the couch fit in too.  Sal likes her couch but does not like Duke sitting on it.  He will eventually learn I hope!

Coop's championship game was Friday night.  The score was 12-8 with 6 minutes left with us having a great opportunity to hit two foul shots and get the ball back. We missed both foul shots and did not score when we got the ball back.  We lost 18-11, but Coop played really hard when he was in the game and he was a good teammate.  We went to  Arctic Circle for the last game of the year tradition we do. It is weird how fries and shakes have a tendency to take some of the hurt away! :)

Sal took our old couches down to Lehi/Provo to Lisa—thanks to the use of  dad's truck.  Rob and Maddie, who is in town for a few weeks, went on a road trip to deliver the couches and see our niece, who is their sister, Marissa, who lives down in Provo.  They had lunch and seemed to have fun even though it seemed like a long day.

My buddy helped me with my bike, but we could not get it figured out.  I was able to go on a ride with a friend who moved out of our ward about 6 months ago.  We got a good ride in a week before my race.

Before I left, I was decked out in my riding gear looking pretty snazzy, or a little goofy depending on how you look at it, and I came up to Sal with my tongue firmly in my cheek, I said, ”How do you feel being married to an athlete?”  She smiled.

Maggs and I ran some errands on Saturday, including dropping my bike off at the shop to get a tune up before my race.

Today I saw a classic. There was a little family with 4 kids in our ward.  They come in right when church starts. They all walk in with the dad being the caboose.  The mom looked up and said quietly, “Where is the baby?” The dad looked and shrugged indicating he did not know.  She is about two   and was bringing up the tail end. It was just kind of funny, I have been there where I may not know where all the kids are and I hope they are behind me somewhere.

Our sacrament meeting was very good today with simple lessons and stories about the Atonement, but were very powerful.

I hope you all have a great week.

Chris

March 7, 2015

Czeck my family and Friends back East!

We had a great week again this week.  We had plays, games, tryouts, baby showers, bike rides, home comings, tubing, FHE and a bunch of other things shewww I am tired just repeating that!  My memory seems to work better on going backwords, so we will start with Today.  My nephew Travis Lee returned home from his mission to Spain this week and we had his homecoming today in Willard.  It was good to see him and he  seemed to have a really good time and he did a good job.  We had a breakfast at Roger and Denises house after it was fun to see family adn it was great food.  We then chilled at the house and went to FHE at my mom and dad's house.  Wakley had the lesson adn she did a good job.

Yesterday I Coop had a basketball game his last, they got beat to end their 5 game winning streak.  I then was able to go on a 50 miler bike ride with some friends Steve Richter, Keith and Nancy Mithchell.  We rode to Brigham City and back.  It was a little unerving  to ride on the busy rode, but it was good to do something different.  It took about half the day but it was a fun.

Coop and I were able to go to Soldier Hollow on Friday we had Brandon, Kevin and Cade to come with us We met my brother his wife and their three kids.  We got there late due to some traffic issues and did not see them until the end, it was a blast we went down about five times.  Then all of us went to the Junction for dinner.  Coop had Pizza and I had a burger.  It was fun to hang out with everyone and we had a safe ride home.  Sal and the girls went to Mariluz's baby shower.

I was invited to see one of my old Young Men get set apart for his mission, that he will be serving in Redlands California.  It was a cool experience.  Hope everyone has a great week.

March 1, 2015

Magandang umaga po Family, 


I am writing this letter on March 1st, holy cow how time flies, and it flies!  Here are some highlights of the week.  Sal and the kids went to Pride and Prejudice put on my Roy High our niece Tanah was in it and from what I hear it went very well the my girls really liked it.  Coop and I went to Warrens and had a shake together it was fun to hang out with my boy. 

Tuesday Maggs had her orchestra concert she plays the viola, she does a good job and the concert was quite good.  Her qroup played the William Tell Overture of course I was jammin out in my seat when that was being played.  Grandma and Grandpa Davidon came. We apprecate their support.  I met Sal and the kids there so we drove sepeartely, so I me and Maggs drove home, she is doign no sugar again so we stopped off at Triple stop for a little caffienne free diet coke action, my drink my have had sugar and caffine in it! 

Mr. Cooper was selelcted to perform his Albert Eienstien for the night assembly for all of the parents.  He aslo sang the National Anthem before the event.  He did a good job and it was fun to see these kids perfrom the characters in history they studied about and got to understand how important they were in history. 

Coop also did a Abbot and Costello bit of Who's on First with his buddy Keagan.  All the class had to do one and they got chosen to do it in front of the whole school 

Friday Lance and I had the opportutnity to go to the Weber State Hall of Fame dinner.  My dad and mom are in Hawaii so dad bought two tickets for Lance and I to go to support Dave Arsalanian who caoched football at Weber so several years he also ran track for dad for two years in the early 70's.  It was fun to sit at the same table as Jeff Carlson a former quarterback at Weber who was getting inducted.  Also a former recieved of Weber was there to support the coach he is the current special teams coach of the St. Louis Rams.  He desinged a play that got recognition from the NFL for a fake punt in the football season.  THere was some good speaches at the dinner and it was fun to get a ride in a a golf cart limo from our car to the place where it was held.  The small plates for dinner through me off, but it ended up being a fun night it was fun to sit by Tenile Slacck Haws Junior High Volleyball caoch and to see an old frined from High School I had not seen in a long time. 

Saturday we picked up Teresa and Miles at the shop they had to get thier truck to pass emissions.  Then we picked up Coop and we headed to the Coop and Miles game.  It was a good game, we were down 4 points with two minutes left and we ended up tying it up.  We then went to overtime it stayed  tied and them went to sudden death.  Miles played a really good game, we were able to get Win in sudden death.  Coop played well when he was in and he was very much engaged supporting his teammates as they won.  The kids really seem to still have fun with Duke, he is a funny dog and the kids pay a ton of attention to him.  I think he gets more attention then I do! :( What the crap!:) 

We did some stuff around the house and work in the yard.  Coop hung out with Miles for a while and that night Sal and I went on a date.  We went to dinner at Warrens Craft Burger.  It was goign to be a 25 minute wait, there was a place to play pool and foosball. We played foosball for a little while and I may have been behind a few goals when we were able to get our table.  So, to be fair the final score of the foosball game really did not count! :)  Ok I was getting worked but lopsided victoriees go to Sal's head so I am trying to keep her humble! :) 

Dinner was way good there was live music and TV's of games going on the entire night it was way fun, to hang out with my wife and have a different expereince then what we normally have. 
We stopped by grandma grandpa's house for a minute on the way home.   I was suppose to go for long ride on Saturday but the weather did not cooperate.  So hopefully the long one will be this week.  I hope everyone has a great week.    

February 22, 2015

Konbanwa,

Another week in the record books! This week the highlights are
plentiful.  Sal and the kids had a good Presidents Day on Monday.  They went to
Fat Cats and played there for a minute and got a pizza.  Then Allie got her hair
cut, it looks super cute!   Maggs got home Monday night about 6 she seemed to
have a good time and she had fun telling us about some of the things she did on
her trip.  We missed her a bunch, but it was fun to see she could stay four
nights away from home and survive!  

Tuesday we had a movie night for work. We had a great turnout for the movie, Big Hero 6, 

and we gave out a ton of raffles.  The employees seemed to like it and it was fun to see that many people take part of the activity.  Sal and the kids came and they seemed to have a
great time.

We came home that night and Coop had to finish preparing his
Living History Report and Albert Einstein.  He finished the report the night
before, but he was presenting on Wednesday.  It was very interesting to see how
much he struggled the first few times he did his presentation. He looked at his
cards and would not do his accent, then Sal would help him and I would help him,
then he got more confidence.  He did his presentation about 4 times on Tuesday
and another 3 times Wednesday Morning.  I was able to get out of a meeting a few
minutes early so I could go to school and hear his presentation.  He hit a
homerun!!  He looked a lot like Albert (Thanks to Sal) and he did his
presentation very very good.  I may be bragging, but the main reason was how much
better he got from late Tuesday to Wednesday.  When he was humble and teachable
is when he was able to really gain momentum and get better.  There may be a
lesson in there I can learn from!

I was able to go ice skating with Al on
Friday, it was a blast!  She and I skated the entire time, towards the last 30
minutes she was pulling me around the rink!  I really liked that, she was way
cute and I had a good time hanging out with my baby girl!

Work has been very
busy, it will continue to be so for a while, which is good.  Just need to stay
on top of all of the stuff going on.

Friday night Al had a party at Drew's house for Drew's 10th birthday and Maggs went to 

Grandma Joyce's for a sleep over.  Coop, Sal, and I went on a date; we hit a pizza buffet, like I really need that!  It was fun hanging out with them, then we headed home and then went   and picked up Al.

Saturday, Coop had his game early; they won again and he played good,
he seems to like it, they have won four in a row, at one point they were up by
15, he looked up at me said "Dad, we're up by 15" in the middle of the game with
a big smile!  I told him to be quiet, the other team actually went on a little
run and got it down to six.  Once a gain my good lesson to learn, this one Dad
needs to teach son the lesson :)

Saturday was a kinda a lazy day got some
things done, I worked out really well during the week and it was cold Saturday
so I took Saturday off.  I got a new biking Jersey for a race I am doing next
month, I have to say I am not a biker but I look real GOOD in the gear! :) 
Kidding.

Al has been playing with a Friend from school the last few
Saturday's so that has been good, and Miles hung out with us all day Saturday,
we always love having Miles over he is a good boy.  Sal and I had the Adult
session of Stake Conference on Saturday.  There was a bishop who gave a good
analogy about a bike crash he had about being prepared and how things can change
in a minute and how the Savior has felt all the pain and affirmities we  will
feel.  It was really good.  The rest of it was good and Sal and a friend of ours
Kim went to Arctic Circle for a little treat.  Then Sunday we had Stake
Conference in the morning.  It has been a lazy day today.  Last week of February
is upon us.  I just finished the book David vs Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell, it
was a very interesting read.    I hope everyone has a great week come up, before
you know it Spring will be upon us.

Thanks-Chris

Feb. 11, 2015

Mala Sala Chole,


Well I am getting a little behind on what day I write, but I am still writing which is a good 

thing!  Last week we had a few fun things happen.

Sal keeps in touch with quite of few friends she went to college with. One group she sees quite a bit another one she does not see all that often.  The one we don't see that often we had dinner 

with in Salt Lake on Friday at Maxwells. It was fun and the food was way good.  I think Sal 

enjoyed seeing her friends.

On Thursday Sal went to one of our friends in our neighborhood and
got her hair cut, she left about 9:30 at night, I waited until about 11 then I
tried and go to bed but I wanted her home before I went to bed.  After calling
and texting, I walked out of the house about 11:45 in black sweats and a black
sweat shirt to see if  could see our van down the street,  Sal said she maybe
going to the store when she left.  Anyway as I was walking down the street I see
our van coming towards home, so I turned around to walk back to the house.  As
Sal pulled in she did not see that I behind her.  Rather than scaring her I told
her that her hair cut looked cute she then was wondering why I was walking the
streets with no shoes on dressed in black.  Fair question :)  Just
worried.

Earlier in the week about 12:20 am Duke was barking real loud which
he does not do in the middle of the night.  So I got up he wanted to go outside
I let him outside and he then raced to the corner of the backyard and started
baking, I then ran out to get him in my underwear mind you to bring him back. 
Lucking the neighbors did not wake up and no one saw me running around in the
backyard!

Sal found a desk for my mom and dad in Layton, Robby came and
brought grandpa's truck and we went and picked it up.  When we came back we
headed up to Cooper's basketball game.  The game before was Miles so we watched
him play which was fun then Coop played.  Coop did not play a ton in the first
half and when he got in the second half he made the most of his playing time.  He
stole the ball from a kid a head taller then him and every time a he made a nice
play we would pause for a sec and look to the stands to guarantee our approval he
did that a few times it was pretty funny!  Their team and Coop felt good about
how he helped.

I went on a 30 mile bike ride with two buddy's from the ward
Steve and Keith.  They both have nice bikes and have all the gear, I am still
kind of hodge podging everything together.  When I left to go to the house we
were meeting I realized I left my water bottle back at the house.  The first
thing they noticed is I no water bottle for a 30 mile ride not smart.  Keith let
me use one of his.  Then one of my cleats were coming lose on my shoe which this
was the first time I have ridden with them outside thy helped me tighten them
up.  Then we headed out to Antelope Island we drove there and then rode our bikes
on the Island apparently it costs $3 to get on, I did not have any money so they
gave me some money.  Do we see a pattern here.  Then as we were riding they
noticed that my seat was too low so we stopped and they brought it up for me. 
We rode some hills which I am not use to, but it felt good, then we rode by some
Buffalo and I stopped and took a few selfies with the buffalo.  As we finished
the ride they said they had seen some good crashes at the end of these rides so
be careful, we got to the car I was about three feet from the care when I
unclipped on pedal and my body weight brought me to the other side, falling hard
bruising my hip, elbow and most importantly my ego!  All and all it was a run
day.

That night as a thank you for all the work Sal does for my mom and dad
they took us out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, I had not drank enough after
the ride and was not feeling great after a few glasses of coke( yes I know
that's not the greatest but umm was it good) and a few glasses of water I was
feeling way better.  We had a good dinner and headed up to Morgan to a wedding
reception with a current and former co-worker at Focus.

Sunday was a good day at church and then we relaxed at home and then went to my mom and dad's for
Family home evening.  Aunt Linda gave a fun lesson about the states about
President's day.  All the different kids were involved it was pretty
fun.

January 28, 2015

Salutations,

Well Maggie gives me crap when my letter does not get out on Sunday or Monday, so I need to do a better job of getting it our a little earlier. This past week, Maggs got the go ahead from the Dr. to start jogging! So, she has been participating in PE which she really enjoys and she was able to go to a conditioning session with her soccer team last week which she was Way excited about.

We have a good dog story from this past week. Sal made a big pan of enchilada's that were quite tasty. Maggs and I had to get to her soccer workout so we told Coop and Al to put the food away which was sitting on the stove. About 45 minutes later I get a call from Coop going something like this, "Uh Dad, I was reading in the front room when I heard Duke making a lot of noise. I thought he was drinking out of his bowl really loud, but he actually got up to the stove and ate the rest of the enchiladas." Seriously! Our dog got up on his hind legs rested his front paws on the front of the stove and helped himself to about a half pan of our left overs! Luckily he did not get to sick. I think that is lucky anyway.

Sal has been subbing quite bit lately and she has been working on Allie's room painting dressers re-doing the drawers all kinds of fun stuff. 

We went to a wedding reception last Friday for some folks in our ward and when we got done it was about 7:30 and we had still not had dinner so we stopped off at Taco Bell for something quick. Coop thought the "Fire" taco sounded good and Maggs got the spicy Tostada. The fire taco ended up being pretty accurate to its name. The funny thing is we did not order drinks and oddly enough we did not have any water in the van, so his mouth was burning for a minute. We all got a kick out of that one.

We did chores and ran some errands on Saturday... nothing real exciting and we had a good Sunday. I have really been enjoying teaching my Sunday School class I have 16-17 year olds and they are really good kids. We have a member of our class that has some disabilities he is a great kid and the other kids in the class take really good care of him. It is fun to see that age of kids treat one of their peers with so much kindness. One of the kids that used to be in my Young Men's group had his mission farewell on Sunday. He did a really good job. It is fun to see these kids grow up.

Life goes by at a very fast clip. We have been enjoying playing Racko almost every night, after dinner.  I may have only won once but it was a very sweet victory as I beat my 9 and 11 year old kids! They actually beat me most of the time. Coop got a game of Monopoly Empire for his birthday; it is the concept of Monopoly, but it lasts 20 minutes or so. Allie affectionately calls herself "Allie Empire" because she seems to win quite often. Nothing real exciting this week. I hope everyone has a great week and hopefully I will get this letter out on Sunday or Monday next week!

Love,

Chris

21 Day Testimony Challenge

Try it!  You might like it!

January 18, 2015

Greetings Babushka’s

Not sure what that means, but I think it sounds cool!  Wel,l this past week started with Coop and myself headed over to my mom and dad’s to watch the NCAA Championship football game.  We had the Hislop family there along with Rob and my mom and dad.  When we got there the Satellite was not working so I was going to head back home, but Lance, Grace, Teresa and my dad were problem solvers and after a few Mcgyver moves the dish was up and running.  It is fun to watch a game with no rooting interest. I switched teams like 12 times. All in all, it was fun. My Ohio State Buckeyes ended up winning J 

The weeks really do end up being one big blur as times goes by so incredibly fast, at least it feels that way.    The biggest highlight of the week was the fact I celebrated 16 years with my beautiful wife Sal.  We were gonna keep it low key, but then I decided to throw away the key and make it a little more fun.

So,  we got a nice hotel in SLC, but we headed to the Radisson, we made a few stops along the way.  First stop: Kohls.  Sal bought a coat at Kohls that she got as a Christmas present.  As we were planning our little staycation, we wanted to do things we normally don’t do, so we got couples massages...okay, so it wasn't a "real" massage. (There was a health fair at the Clearfield Aquatic Center and there was a chiropractor giving free massages, so we called it a couples massage J)  Then we window shopped at Farmington Station and then went to the movie, Taken 3. Sal won free movie tickets in a trivia contest so we took advantage of that.  We then checked into the Radisson downtown. We found it on Priceline... love Captain Kirk and Penny from Big Bang Theory advertising for that one. 

Anyway, we got a KSL deal for a fancy shamncy steak house called Christopher’s in down town SL.  Sal had steak and I had shrimp it was pretty tasty.  We got a carrot cake for dessert, on the house, which we both liked-- the cake and it being free. 

We then hung out in the pool and the hot tub at the hotel. As I was sitting in the sauna, there was a 29 year old "kid" who brought me back through memory lane. As he entered the sauna, he had on  four layers of sweats including a plastic sweat suit.  He has to drop 30 pounds for a MMA fight he has in three weeks.  Oh I am glad I am not a MMA fighter.

The next day we headed to the Leonardo museum and saw Body World Exhibit where you see real bodies on display that have ben plastasised.  That was very interesting.  Heavenly Father is definitely the Master Architect.  It is way incredible how the human body is all put together and works together.

After our trip to Salt Lake, we then grabbed some lunch at Buffalo Wild wings with a gift card I got for Chritmas. There are 50 TVs in that place and all were on different sports channels.  I was in heaven!  We then headed home and got our kids--Maggie, Allie, and Duke stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Hislolp and Cooper stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Davidson with Tyson his cousin.

It was a fun little excursion with my lady, and we are both deal searchers so we landed some good deals as well.

As we were at the Hislops, Sallie talked Grandpa Chick into getting a futon for his TV room.  He only had 2 recliners in there, so seating was limited.  She convinced them to get a futon in the TV room. Sal worked her magic and we ended up getting the couch later that night.  Did you know you can fit a full-size couch in the back of our van?  Sal has used our van many times as a truck.

We were also lucky enough to go to our nephew Brandon’s Eagle court of honor Saturday night.  It was really good. He and our other nephews have set a good example for our son and the younger boys to get their Eagles.  

We had a good day at church.  The missionaries spoke: one from Spain and the other one from Italy. They issued a 21 day challenge to everyone, which we will start this week on reading the Book of Mormon.   Later that evening,  we had a good family home evening at the Davidson’s with most of Sal's family.  

I hope everyone has a great week!