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!

January 12, 2015

Dearest Compadres y Familia;

Sunday will typically be the day send these out.  We are getting used to our dog Duke. I made a mistake in last week's letter. He is a Goldendoodle, not a labra doodle.  Either way, he is a bundle of energy and the kids love him.

This past wee,k Coop and his cousin Miles went to the Roy City council meeting for a merit badge they are working on.   That was the day that Roy High football team  got recognized for taking second in State. They really seemed to enjoy that and I think they liked being there.

Coop had his first  basketball game on Saturday. He played against Miles. Coop’s team lost 11-7. It was a defensive struggle!  Coop was struggling with a cold, but Miles had a great game.

We went to grandma and grandpa’s house and showed them the dog that is officially ours even though they saw it last week!  It was fun following the NFL playoffs to see who is going to make it to the Superbowl.  

Saturday night we had our annual Davidson Cousin party.  It was at a little Chinese joint in Bountiful called the Chinese Platter.  It was a very fun night.  Jeff and Lucy dropped off their kids at our house.  Coop actually watched them as a part of earning a merit badge.  Once we got there we ate dinner then did the white elephant gift exchange I got an awesome coffee mug in the shape of a toilet bowl it was pretty cool.  There ended up being an extra gift, the funny things is the extra gift came from my sweet wife who got the idea from my sweet mother.  Our cousin Sam was able to pick this the last gift and it was a Pillow and on the pillow case on side had a big N and the other side had a big Y  each representing YES and NO  on the pillow…wink wink.  We all got a really good laugh out of that, Sal was a little disappointed that it did not get selected but how it ended up there were a ton of inside jokes that were made.  It ended up being pretty funny.

We got home and found everything in order pretty much.  Coop did a good job watching the younger boys and my girls had fun watching some Halmark movies.  Sal and Coop stayed home from Church. 

We had a very good sacrament meeting, there was a boy who just graduated a few months agon that is off to college and he talked about his experiences at school and how he has learned from some bad choices he has made.  My lesson went pretty good we have about 10-15 folks packed in a small office pretty tight.  I asked one kid to put his phone away and he said he was looking up a scripture, I like the kid and we are buddies so I asked him what scripture he was looking up, knowing he was full of crap and he them gave him a fist bump telling him he is a rookie when it comes to making up stuff like that and I am the master!  They laughed.  We had a gal sing all four versus of How Great Thy Art in the small class it was pretty cool I think the kids enjoyed it.

Nothing real exciting this week, I hope everyone has a good one.

Love,

Chris

January 9, 2015

Family, Friends and Friends Back East,

Well, it as has been several years since I have consistently written a weekly letter. My sister in law, Teresa, is incredibly consistent, so I am using her example for this year in writing a weekly letter.

As the years go by, I still find joy in reading the letters I wrote in 2001 to remember all the things we did as a small family. So for selfish reasons, I am going to write a weekly letter and  am counting on  being consistent so I have great memories of all that we accomplished this year.

Well, the new year was brought in at our house with a New Year's Eve Party. We had Jill and Kurt and their kids, Kim and Andy and their kids, Joyce,  and Kevin and Stacy and their kids.  We ate, played catch phrase ,and watched a documentary on Randy Moss, well me and Kevin and Andy watched it, while the others chatted.  I may have gone and taken a quick nap at 10:30 for a few minutes, but I came down and welcomed the new year with the family.  Before the party, we were working on a project from a family friend, Bill Haaser, getting his calendars out for his real estate business.  We had a great assembly line humming and we finished the project New Years Day.  To the kids delight, they all earned according to the time and effort they put in.

As a family, we headed down to Salt Lake on January 2nd, and met the Kevin Davidson family there and we watched Meet the Mormons at the Legacy theater.  It was a documentary style movie that followed the lives of six LDS "Mormon" families.  I found the messages to be very powerful and I hope folks not of our faith can see "Mormons" are not as odd or weird as the media or folklore has us sound. 

As we left, I noticed my wallet was not in my pocket. I thought I had brought it with me. We went back and looked for it and could not find it.  As we walked back to our car, Coop had my Gumby beanie over his eyes and I was directing him down the sidewalk as normally as I could, given the circumstances :).  Kevin called us and let us know the folks at the Joseph Smith Memorial found my wallet and was calling my name. Luckily, Stacy heard it and assured them she was related to me and she would give me my wallet.  Kevin called me and we met them in front of the City Creek mall.  We stopped for a Chick-Fil- A lunch in Bountiful and the kids sat on one table and Sal and I sat on the other.  It was kind of nice having a little bit of room.  We ran some errands on the way home:  bank, bike shop, and then we proceeded to take down the Christmas Tree.  Coop and I had fun tossing ornaments in the boxes and we hoped not to break too many. 

Maggs and her cousin Grace have a little business called Princesses on the Go. Sal and Teresa helped them in their costumes and they took pictures, created a blog, and got a facebook post up and running!  Pretty cool.

Our kids insisted we go on a date, so we headed to a place called Tony Burgers. So on January 3rd with a lot of goals in my mind, I had gone out to eat twice in the same day, nice!!! It was nice hanging out with Sal as we were about done  when I noticed a good friend I grew up with Derek Crimin and his wife Rochelle enter the burger joint.  I told him there were going to have dinner with us they liked it or not.  They gracefully obliged and we sat there for nearly two hours and just chatted about life.  It was a really enjoyable.

We have 11:00 church and I was proud of my crew; we actually showed up to church on time!  We were even 7 minutes early Yikes!  I am teaching the 16-17 year old Sunday school class.  It was a lot of fun. I am excited to work and teach these kids this year.  We had a relaxing day at home and visited my mom and dad that night.  I think we went through 4 bags of popcorn.  Thanks mom and dad for letting us steal your food. We did bring sherbet and Sprite for floats.

The kids made it back to school on the 5th.  Allie got sick and stayed home.  Sal took her to the doctor and she has a UTI.  The other two seemed to enjoy going back. 

The biggest event of the week came when Sal texted me on Tuesday, January 6th, stating her niece, Kristen, wanted to give their Golden Doodle, Duke, to us.  She asked if I was interested.  I playfully responded that we need to discuss something like this in person rather than text and I was thinking taking a job in Belize and wanted her to sign off via text (That is not true about the job offer I was just making a point J) Sal is a school teacher by trade but she has the gift of sales like her mama, Joyce.  On Wednesday, Sal showed up to my work with a visitor, Duke!  My receptionist and recruiter at work fell in love with the dog instantly.  I liked him but the thought of having another dog did not excite me.  After they hung out for a while, Sal and Duke went to my mom and dad's house.  Sal called me and said my mom and dad were excited to meet their new grand dog!  Once Sal texted me a picture of Dad and Duke, I knew it was a done deal.  I do have a sense of security that if  Sal ever wanted a sales job, she would earn a lot of money with her convincing  techniques!

That night, we had Reflections Awards Night at Roy High where all three of our kids received awards: Allie getting Merit and the other two getting participation.  I  was proud of all three of them.  Then we headed to Coop's basketball practice then we headed home to find Sal and Maggs returned home from Young Women’s. 

We told the kids we had to go to Ogden to run an errand, Coop and Al did not know that we were getting a new member of the family.  As we were at 36th and Washington Cooper said to the girls they should put their money together and get a dog.  Our neighbors just got a puppy, a Golden Doodle, for Christmas, so it has been on their mind.  Al wanted a Golden Doodle, Coop wanted a Lab and Maggs knew it did not matter since she was in on the plan the whole time!

When we got to Kristen and Nate's house Sal went in the back, me and the kids went in the front.  We told them that mom had left something at their house that day and we had to pick it up.  As we got in the house, Coop tackled Duke and started playing with him not knowing that Duke was going to be ours in a few minutes.  We hung out and then I said, "alright we need to go." and I looked at the dog and said, "that is what mom left. We are taking Duke home!"  Nate asked the kids if it would be okay if we took Duke. They all screamed and were very excited.  We drove home that night, Wednesday, January 7th,as new dog owners.....Oh my!!!  Have a great weekend!!!

Love Chris

Bahama Cruise May 10-18, 2013

Our Bahama Cruise was awesome!  Some highlights:  Austin and Mariluz; Gloria and her dogs; Allie's 1st airplane ride; endless pizza and icecream cones; swimming with stingrays; snorkeling as a family; waterslides on the ship; our tiny room where you could play "Samuel the Lamanite" and "Zombies";  Diana our waitress from Romania; sugar-free desserts for Maggie; Didja menu items that included: Alligator, shark, escargot, oysters, frog legs, caviar, sushi; soft, soft sand at Half Moon Cay (Key); Naussau and Grand Turk.  So much family time!  We loved being together!!!

Happy Easter 2013

Our kids are growing up!  I can't believe they are so big and cute!  They got Easter clothes along with the traditional hard-boiled egg hunt and candy--sugar free for Mags.  We went to Grandma and Grandpa Hislop's house first and then after church we went to Grandma and Grandpa Davidson's house for her egg hunt and dinner.  Good day.

Dinosaurland

We went to Vernal, Utah for Spring Break this year.  We left Friday morning and then went to the National Park that afternoon.  It was awesome to see the wall of bones and hang out with the kids.  We went to a restaurant called the Quarry for dinner.  Later that night, Chris and I went to the Vernal Temple.  It was so not crowded.  We were in and out in 45 minutes to do initiatories.  Maggie and Chris went and did baptisms the next morning.  It was an awesome little trip.

Buddy Burner

Today at Cub Scouts, Cooper made a buddy burner. He was so excited and said they cooked nachos on it. He so wanted to cook dinner on it, so we went and bought polish sausages for dinner. The kids were thrilled about cooking it on a can. They turned out great and Coop had a big grin on his face.

Legacy Duathalon

 Chris ran and biked in the Legacy Duathalon.  Maggie went with him to cheer him on while Cooper and Allie had soccer games.  He had fun doing it and Mags had fun watching him.

HAPPY EASTER

Dying Easter Eggs

Tonight we decorated the Easter Eggs. Grace and Miles joined us and fun was had by all...there were a few disagreements as to whose egg was in which cup, but overall, it was "egg-celent!" My counter even looked like a dyed Easter egg at the end. (Cooper gave up on the spoon and went straight for the hands. Notice his hand in the cup in the above picture.

Saturday Morning Egg Hunt

JamesI asked Maggie to smile for me and this is what she gave me.Cooper and Dayson--a friend of Miles'Maggie and James (Aunt Linda's grandson)Allie and Cole exchanging Candy.Tate, Maggie, Cole, Allie, and CooperLance and Teresa always host an Easter Hunt--but it is the opposite of regular ones. The kids put the candy in others' baskets. It is a fun way to do it and makes the kids find others to reward and serve. We helped put all of the candy out in the pasture, because they needed some help. They even had some new chicks that the kids thought were great. Maggie is still sugar-free, so she was really into helping James and Cole. It was a fun morning.