Fathers Day

To write about how excellent David is as a husband and father is both a wonderful opportunity and a difficult challenge. The only challenge being that it's basically impossible to contain with words (and even words+pictures) how great he really is. Especially without getting too long-winded and sappy. So this Father's Day I thought that I'd just write about a few things that we love about David and why he is such a great husband/father.

In no particular order (other than the order that the photos were uploaded):

#1- Our kids adore him. They think he's the best dad in the world because he makes them feel like a million bucks. They each have inherited so many of his wonderful qualities and I hope that they grow up to emulate him in their own lives and to find those same qualities in the spouses they marry. They have also inherited his sun-sensitive eyes, which makes for some pretty squinty Father'sDayPhotos, but David is always willing to take (and allow me to take) photos like this that document our lives together. 

#2 - David makes time for us. It's important to him to be there to support and celebrate as often as possible. We are so grateful for his flexible job that allows him to leave work early to attend baseball games or occasional mid-day events. I'm grateful that he makes the effort toshow up even when he really doesn't have to. 

#3-He spends his time serving us and working side by side. I got it into my head that I wanted to use the leftover carnival supplies to turn our basement into a carnival tent. We laughed for a minute then David said "That's a great idea, let's do it." And we did - together. Our backyard is a disaster of home-owner nightmares, but I'm grateful to work as a team with David to mitigate the situation. 

#4-We love spending time with him and he loves spending time with us, too. 

#5 - He is the best part of our whole family. The kids beg him to stay home as he leaves for work in the morning. They cheer when he comes home. We love to adventure with him and would spend all of our minutes with him if we could. . 

He had to travel to Minnesota earlier this month and the kids stood on the porch to wave goodbye to him. They missed him while he was gone but he send home marco polo videos of the airplane and his hotel room and pictures of all the things he got to do (like this photo from a baseball game he got to go to after work). Even when he's away for work, he still manages to make us feel like he's thinking of us and that we are important to him. 


#6 - He makes fatherhood look easy, but he puts 110% into it and is determined to do all he can to be successful. We talk about how these are the years that we have to put in a LOT of effort, but that we wouldn't trade these years for anything




I came across this post on social media and it resonated with me:

"In a ‘girl power’ culture, I am a woman and a mother that has not forgotten about the boys. Our world needs good boys. We need boys to become hard working, intelligent, valiant men who love God with their whole souls and seek to love their wives and children with everything they got. My work is to prepare them to stand with woman, as equal partners, and save the family 🌱 .
My boys are lucky, they have their dad to mimic, he is a good, good man. 🌱"

“It is a wonderful aspiration for a boy to become a man--strong and capable; someone who can build and create things, run things; someone who makes a difference in the world. It is a wonderful aspiration for those of us who are older to make the vision of true manhood a reality in our lives and be models for those who look to us for an example.” - D. Todd Christofferson

I always knew that he would be an amazing father and I am grateful to again celebrate this day by his side. We love you David. 

Anniversary 2022

Shantel and I celebrated our 13th anniversary this year. I am so grateful for her and love to be with her and it really does not matter what we are doing if we are doing it together. 

We had a date on the 4th (the 5th was a Sunday). 

We decided to go and try to do the Stewart Falls hike. It would tight to get there and do the hike in three hours, but we decided to try. However, we pulled up the wrong start point for the hike on accident. You can access it from Sundace if you are staying there, but the normal trail head is further up the road. We did not realize this until we had been looking around and could not find the trail. So instead of doing the hike we walked around Sundance and it was really nice. 

On the way back home the undercarriage of my car came loose (again). It has some screws that came out so we had been holding it with zip ties, but those came undone. So we stopped at home depot for more zip ties to tie it back. Fortunately a few weeks later I got it fixed for good at the dealer. 

A few weeks later we were able to do a date weekend while Jenna watched our kids. It was such an awesome date weekend and I loved it. We packed it pretty full, but with a lot of different things. We got up early and went to the temple. 

We got tickets to parade of homes this year which is always really fun. Shantel and I decided to take one picture at every house of our favorite thing in the house. We love talking about the houses and looking at everything. One of our main things we were talking about was having a good home school room because we would really like that in our next house.

Below: An awesome would be home school room. Then a beautiful deck - I would love a covered deck with a table below it to be able to eat outside. 

A cute room under the stairs and nice basement counter area. 

Another homeschool room and a pool that raises up and turns into a splash pad (they have a private lake behind the house).

This might have been the very best thing we saw. This looked like a closet and was made to look exactly like the closet in the chronicles on Narnia. Behind it was a kids area (bunk beds, climbing wall etc.). It was so well done. 

A really fun nook area. The other was a nice pantry area. That is one of my favorite things is a really great pantry, I decided that I want two things in my next pantry. Room for a separate fridge in the pantry (we have a second freezer already, but it sits in the garage, so we might as well put it in the house) and a door straight from the garage into the pantry. 

A light and a mirror we liked. 

Two other very important things to me in a house. One, an awesome closet with drawers built in the closet (otherwise you need a dresser in your room and then you have some clothes in the closet and some in the room). Plus a tech center is also really important and we did not see many houses that had this in the main living area.

That night we went to a play (The Drowsy Chaperone) at the Hale Center Theater and had so much fun. 

We got up early in the morning and went to hike Stewart Falls (this time we knew where to start). It was really really enjoyable being outside and hiking just Shantel and I. 

After the hike we hit up some more houses. A fun nook area and a basement (yes - that means there was not really anything else memorable at that house and we thought this would make a good picture.) 

This house was very extravagant and this was a beautiful courtyard with the house wrapping around it. Then the other picture is my favorite, they had an indoor basketball court and then one of the panels opened up into a secret passageway that led to another part of the house. 

A ladder to a secret room above the room. This other house was built where there were a lot of trees and they were able to save a lot of the trees and build around it, so the backyard was beautiful. 

An indoor hot tub off of the master bathroom and then a breathtaking view of the valley from the master bedroom. 

This one had a beautiful deck on top of the house and then the last one we took a picture just outside of the house. 

It was such an amazing combination of things and I had so much time to talk to Shantel and spend time together, at the temple, parade of homes, Hale Center Theater and a hike in the mountains. I am so grateful to be married to Shantel and love getting to spend time with her.