Other Pics

Some Random Pics...ya know, for the kids someday

Mommy and Daddy just married!

Driving through Zions
Rafting the Colorada with some friends

Gettin a good readin in of the Daily Herald with your dad's friend, Kyle.

Hikin through Arches
On the bridge between Omaha and CB.

Engaged a year ago

I'm trying to do better about blogging at least once a week. There's a lot to talk about- how our summer is going, rafting, vacations, etc. I'll get to that soon I hope, but a year ago last Tuesday June 30th was when we got engaged...holy cow! It's been an awesome year, we hope to re-enact the same engagement date we had. We didn't play basketball, but we did take the convertible (thanks Bishop Dad!) up the Alpine Loop and then went to our spot. We couldn't exactly remember how we the pictures were last year so we tried to do it somewhat similar to our memory. We only had a camera phone so we both couldn't be in some of the pictures.
It's been a great year and things just keep getting better.

We've gone on lots of evening/night drives up Provo Canyon lately with Em's fam...and the convertible. It's been really cool and it always gets me into deep contemplation. I can't quite put my finger on what I feel as we come down the canyon with smells of the mountain air, looking up at the majestic mountains with the wind in the face, and the sounds of the falls coming down the mountain. It's so hard to describe- it's definitely appreciation of the beauty around me, but it's more than that. I think about memories, how things are going presently, and just loving what the future will bring. It's nostalgic, but more...can't find the words to describe my feelings (I never can and fail miserably in trying to). Awe might describe it, maybe spritual renewal...whatever it is I love it and crave it. Sometimes it's the smell that does me in- just the smell of the trees takes me back to old family reunions or hikes I've been on. It's a great feeling, makes me love being alive and love all the blessings around me, including Heavenly Father sending me Emily, someone I'll be with forever and experience life with together.

Maybe I'll say a little about our vacation or just some of the highlights or thoughts.

-Had an amazing time at Trevor and Meghan's wedding. It was fun being with high school friends. The dance was really fun- me, Emmy, Skyler, and Rebekah got our groove on in the middle of the dance floor. I loved the old stake dances we went to cause I just let go and dance til I drop. I sweat so much at that dance, but it was really fun.

-Nauvoo was cool...really hot, but it's always cool to be there and feel like we're in Utah out in the Midwest. At each location we went to they always asked where we're from. We kept saying Provo...yep, that's right I'm starting to say I'm from Provo now. I'll always really be from CB, but once you buy a house I think you're home has shifted.

-Springfield, IL was really cool. Abraham Lincoln was just a good guy. America really needed him. It's interesting how he was a one-term Congressman, then a nobody for awhile, and then President. It was cool seeing the sites and just appreciating that man.

-St. Louis, MO- Steak and Shake was good, so was Jack in the Box. Six Flags was a lot of fun- the water park was especially cool. It was SOOOO stinkin hot- one of my favorite parts about the park was just standing under the outside showers they had- the water was freezing but gosh it felt good. We also went to the Cahokia Indian Mounds site- that was interesting.

-Kansas City, MO. More like Independence, Liberty Jail, and Adam Ondi Ahman. There was a huge storm that we drove through- it's always cool seeing signs that say entering Jackson County or something like that. So weird and fascinating to think all that has happened there and all that will happen. I've been to all these sites before, but it was fun taking Emily to them.

-JET SKIING for three days! For the love...I can't explain how much fun I have on it. Whenever I think about jet skiing in general I have to hum a hymn or do something to think different thoughts because I long after it so much and I just...(I gotta stop thinking about it)

-Being with family, late night talks, eating lotsa pizza and other good foods, being home, etc. It was a mini-reunion with a lot of family- it was just fun and relaxing.

Anyway, this blog ended up being a lot longer than I thought. I'll stop here and try to do better to put up an entry every week. Me and Emmy are working on something big that we'll hopefully roll out online by September, stay tuned

Welcome to my Blogging Community!

Hey all. I'm adding two people to my link list: Emily C and Jenni Lee. Emily is from our ward here and she thought everyone was calling me County Bluffs. She's funny and she needs some encouragement to blog. Jenni is a friend from back home. Her and her sisters were kind of our enemies as far as the tp war went. We got them last, so all is good...forever! So yeah, they're cool people, and I hope they don't mind being on my link list.

...but still use Becca's blog as the hub :)

Snow Miser (He looks a lot like Pete Carroll)

The other day I realized that all my BYU friends were going home for Christmas...and that when they go back, I'll be going back too. It hadn't really registered until then that I'm actually going back, I really haven't thought about it that much. I prayed for my friends last week, with finals and everything. Gosh I hate finals. Only one finals week left for me...but it'll be a doozy, the worst one.

I've been making TONS of phone calls for the campaign. They give me a Verizon phone to make the phone calls with, but we odn't have reception out here so I make most of my phone calls in the K-Mart parking in my car. It gets so cold doing it and I always want to end a little early and just do more the next day. But here's the thing...it's the same with running, exercising, or other things where you want to end a little early. It's so easy to end a little early or to make excuses for not doing something, but that's what's interesting about discipline...it's tough! But it feels really good going to the end, toughening it out, and accomplishing your goals.

Next Sunday is my last Sunday in the singles ward here. I'm going to miss it. A lot of fun people and it's been kind of like being a missionary again. Last week I gave a talk and taught 2 lessons, takes me back to my good ole missionary days.

Peter Jackson is doing the Hobbit! He's actually doing 2 movies, which will come out in 2010 and 2011. He hasn't said if he wants to direct it, but he is an executive producer. Gosh I'm excited for those movies! Christmas time! I love it! Coolness in the air, the smell of firewood, snow, and pine trees. Christmas cookies, Christmas movies like Claymation Christmas, A Christmas Carol, A Year without a Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, Jack Frost, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, A Very Brady Christmas, Miracle on 34th street, Disney Christmas videos, etc. And then Christmas songs in Church. My favorites are the First Noel, Away in a Manger, Silent Night, Do You Hear What I Hear, and Angels We have Heard on High. It's Christmas! It's Christ, it's family, it's tradititions, it's everything.

My friend Honorable Moses died in Uganda. Captain Frank emailed me and said he was killed in an accident. It hurts to hear that. He was a fun kid to be around and ambitious to become a politician, that's why I called him Honorable Moses. When I'd go to the Crane School in Mukono, I would sit by Moses and we'd chat and joke around. Even though he was only 12, he knew a lot about Ugandan politics and quite a bit about American politics, we would talk a lot about politics and such. Once, when I was teaching a class about geography, I asked lots of questions about what language the people spoke in the different countries and he was able to answer many of the questions. I noticed that these kids liked talking about the world. They liked feeling a part of the bigger world. The whole time I was there he'd costantly say that he wanted me to try out the sugar cane because it was the best. One day I didn't see him at school and learned that the students who didn't have the required school materials had to leave and couldn't come back until they had them. I ran into him on the way home, he took me his home and gave me sugar cane. His home was very small and it was just obvious that his family was very poor. But Moses was always smiling and optimistic. Good kid.


He's on my right side, in the blue sweater.


That's him in the front in the blue sweater.



In the center in red.

Honorable Moses

Vigilante, Defender of Justice, Lawbreakers worst nightmare..and I can drive fast

Real quick- So I was making phone calls in the Papa Murphy's parking lot for the campaign and two kids run by with two packs of beer each. There was a Budweiser truck delivering beer, so I figured they stole the beer. I was wondering what to do and then I thought, "come on Kasey, don't be a wimp, they are stealing, plus it'll make the day more interesting." So they jumped in a jeep and drove off. I decided to go after them. I was going pretty fast to catch up with them, followed them up near the high school, they must have seen me following them cause they were going fast as well. I got close enough and got their license plate number. I went back told the beer guy and the police showed up so I told them too. I should have been a real vigilante and taken em out myself...but I had to get my calls done so I didn't.

Umm, I should get like a key to the city or something.

Somewhat of a Journal Entry

Well, I'm done with my marathon. My legs have been wobbly, but they're getting better. I'm really glad I did it. It really is up there for one of the hardest things I've ever done, especially cause my right knee just gave out and I had to run on it for so long. It was so painful to run or walk because of the pain in my knee was so sharp. Ben thinks it probably happened cause of worn out shoes. I've had these shoes since my junior year in high school, but they look fine, and they never gave me problems during training. It would be awesome to run in another marathon, but it just takes so much time and effort to train. Plus I'm not sure I could afford to train for another one, I mean I have eaten SO much food because of all the calories I run off. So doing a marathon takes a lot of time...a lot of effort...a lot of food, water, money...is really hard on the body...but the feeling of crossing the finish line is incredibl. I wish I could do a better job describing that feeling because it just brings this feeling of, "(deep breath) yes, I did it, it's done...accomplished." I think I'll run in a half-marathon in the spring.

Last Thursday our team at TD Ameritrade went to a bar/restaurant for an afternoon meeting with the head guy in our department. It was fun chilling with everyone and feeling like I was professionally hanging out with co-workers. Afterwards I made a ton of phone calls at our campaing phone back. We get a ton of dials every week and last week we got probably twice as many to do. So it was tough doing all of them, but we got them done. Friday the Governor came to Southwest Iowa, so I drove out to Shenandoah, a small town about an hour away, and helped out put that event on, and then back to Council Bluffs for another event with him at the library. It was really cool to be a part of the event and have him here. I'll probably write about this in another entry, but everyday I think his chances get better and better. I really think he'll get the Republican nomination and then beat Hillary. Friday evening Jamie decided to come with me to Sioux City, so we had to cancel plans to sleep at the Bishop's house in Sioux City because we would get there really late cause she had to cheer at the football game. So we left at 4 Saturday morning, went up to Sioux City, took a 45 minute nap, then we took the shuttle to the starting line. On the ride home both of us were really tired, but we made it back and I hung around all day, rested and watched college football. Man, I need to do an entry about this season cause it has been awesome! So many teams have been upset, all the conferences are messed up, it's just good college football. Sunday I spoke in a branch in our stake. Driving around SW Iowa has been really neat cause all the trees are different colors. I'm pretty sure Fall is my favorite season- the smell, the colors, the coolness in the air, etc. After church we had a ward blitz where a lot of were put into companionships and we visited people our age who aren't coming to our branch for whatever reason. There are a lot of people our age who fall through the cracks and didn't go to the singles' ward because it was so far away and didn't go to their family ward because they felt out of place. I really think it's important that this singles branch gets established and grows. I think others are starting to feel this way too. This past week a good friend decided to go on a mission. He told me that in the temple and it made me so happy and excited for him. He'll be a good missionary. A mission really is the greatest thing ever. I hope we can get a lot of the other guys in our branch to also go.

The other day I pulled out a CD I haven't listened to since high school. I really like the lyrics to my favorite song on the CD:

You're a hero in the making--your miracle's out there waiting,
when your heart says go-that's all you need to know,
when your heart says move-that's all you need to do,
when your heart says yes-don't wait and second guess,
when your heart says go-that's all you need to know

It's better to music.

Then and Now

A couple weeks ago Colby and the AL football team beat our city rivals- TJ 20-6. It was going there sitting on the away side. I went to the other side to talk to a couple old coaches- Mr. Beyenhof and Coach Olsen. While I was over there I remembered how much I despised TJ in high school. I feel the same way about U of Utah now. I really hope we slaughter them. Jamie was out there cheering and I thought of something cool that I hadn't thought of before. When we were all really little we would play on our football team, the BYU Becks. Our basement was our stadium. I remember how it looked too with the ugly yellow carpet and underneath the stairs was our locker room. We used tape as the yard lines, and we made uniforms for ourselves. Carrie and Jamie were cheerleaders, I was the quarterback, Dallas was the center, Colby was the running back, and Skyler was the receiver. Kayla, unfortunetely, wasn't around, we probably would have put her on the field. Now that I think about it, I think Carrie was the center and Dallas was the running back sometimes, probably before we let Colby and Jamie hang out with the "older kids"...and Dallas. So yeah, I thought it was cool seeing Jamie cheer for Colby. I can't believe I didn't think of how cool it was when Carrie would cheer for me, and then later Dallas.

At the game I ran into a couple of old friends from my class that I played football with. It was cool catching up with them but it was different. You can really see what drinking in college has done to them. We talked about our last game our senior year, which was against TJ. We were the away team, it was really cold, but the stadium was packed. It was an amazing game. I was so nervous the whole week before because it was my last football game. Football was a big part of my life in high school, so it was hard to see it end. But we won it in the final seconds with a field goal...it was a magical finish. It was the best game of my life and my last carry was for a touchdown. I was really grateful to go out like that. It's funny running into old coaches who like to inflate my stats. They'll see me and say, "Kasey Beck, TJ game, what'd ya have 200 yards or something?" "Ha, yep," I always reply.

Haha, I can't believe I forgot to write about this a month and a half ago when it happened. So I was looking for another job (who knows why). Actually I saw this ad for an international business looking for people who were hard workers and liked making money (I know I know I should have seen the signs). Anyway, so I made an appointment with them. I went in, talked with the receptionist and then talked with a guy in a room where lots of people were talking one on one with other biz reps. We talked and then gave a presentation. This was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. It just seemed that everything was fake, for one it was an herbal supplement company, kinda like Herbal Life, but not so well known. Whenever the speaker asked a question everybody around me would simultaneously say yes, knodding their heads, and be all excited about the answers saying things like "yes" or "sure." It was really funny seeing all these people act in unison. It was pretty obvious that the other people around me weren't really perspective employees but reps sitting in so I wouldn't be the only one in there. Once when these people were doing this I was looking around the room at the people and then I saw another guy who wasn't responding either; he looked at me and we communicated the same thing to each other with our expressions, "haha, this is hilarious."

Marathon this Saturday. Race starts at 7:00 AM. 26 miles. Yikes.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Speaker of House and other House Democrats are doing the most idiotic thing of the decade. They have decided that because they don't have the guts to cut funding for the war or end it through the proper means, they are going to fight dirty. They have decided to vote on declaring that the Ottoman Empire committed genocide against the Armenians back in the early 1900's. Yes, there is no question that it was genocide, but why say that now? There is no logical reason. The timing is extremely bad and intentional. They are clearly trying to hurt our troops. Turkey is our ally in Iraq and allows us to use their air space and facilities to transport water and supplies to our troops. Turkey is furious about this vote and are saying that irreversible damage would be done if Congress voted in favor of this. This is sparking talks in Turkey of invading Northern Iraq to deal with a rebel Kurdish group that hides there. And this has caused oil prices to go up and the whole stock market has extremely suffered the past couple days. So all these severe problems are happening because Nancy Pelosi and other high-up Democrats in the House are spineless, selfish, desperate, idiots who are endangering our troops, deteriorating our relations with a key ally, causing a domino effect harming the global economy. Idiots.

The Roaring Twenties

Frequently I get really excited about life...about being alive, being healthy, being involved with many things, having a good family, good friends...and ya know what, the Gospel's true!! It's great being young. I hope I'm not wrong in thinking that being young is really a state of mind, cause I hear others who are younger than me complain about being old or not being married or whatever. Life is awesome man...and full of opportunities...suck it dry!

I'm giving up on the mustache contest at work. I really only tried for 3 days, but then I remembered Skyler went the whole 6 weeks in Europe without shaving and had no mustache, so yeah, that's that.

Yesterday I watched 2 stocks go up 400% and 70%. It kills me to see them go up like that and not have any money in them. Hopefully by the end of the semester I'll have some money to throw around and play with. I'm tracking like 200 stocks, so maybe I'll get lucky.

I ran into Sonya the other day at one of my dad's stores. Sonya was our football trainer back in the day. I had bad ankles my junior and senior years so she would wrap them everyday. We had some good conversations, so it was good catching up with her. I asked her about recommendations for shoes to train with and she remember my "feet type"- arched. Thought that was funny.

Ya know that feeling of "life is just good"? I had that the other day while I was running on the hill behind our house. The sun was setting on one side of the sky, and on the other some clouds around the moon and some stars were out. I felt a nice cool breeze and just thought, "life is good." Those good times help me get through the bad times cause you know you'll get through them, you know the world isn't out to get you like ya sometimes think, of course everything will work out if ya just trust in God. It seems like that as I get older the hard times get harder...but the good times get...gooder.
I'm reading these really interesting books my grandparents have. It's this series about the war between good and evil. I've only read the first book, but I'll be starting the second tonight probably. Here's what's happened so far: Lucifer and Jehovah presented their plans and spirits are quickly allying themselves with each side. Michael is the commander on God's side and is very anxiously recruiting, holding meetings and strengthening God's army. The story focuses on 3 brothers and a sister and their struggles. One of the brothers left home and went over to Lucifer's side. The others are shocked and devastated. They really struggle with this. One of the brothers tries to go find him and runs into Lucifer, who tries convincing him to join his side. One of the tools Lucifer uses is showing him what life will actually be like. He shows him poverty, murder, war, theft...all things that Lucifer himself would cause, but not telling him that. The author is very good at making Lucifer really convincing. You read it and you can almost see why he got so many people to follow him. Later on in the story people are on earth in families, in different situations. It's so interesting to me to think about that. We lived through and experienced so much before coming here. We made decisions, we had really good friends...we were existent, thinking individuals. I can't help but wonder if I had really close friends or maybe even people who would have been family of mine who were deceived and didn't come to earth. It kind of bites not remembering all the experiences and things that happened, because we went through a lot. It's weird and cool thinking about the pre-earth life and how real it is and how different things are here. Just look at the person next to you and think, "they went through the same things, they also supported Christ, do they realize what this whole life thing is about? did I ever meet them before this life?" So many fun things to think about, so many important things we went through, and most of us don't even realize these things...crazy.

On my mission I met people who appeared to love dogs more than kids. They would give so much attention to their dogs, spoil them, and have lots of fun with them. I hope I'm not slowly turning into one of those people. It's just so fascinating and fun watching Rusty and playing with him. We're both easily entertained, he likes being chased around the house, and I like chasing him around the house. Sometimes he gets really hyper and runs around the house, or in circles. Sometimes he runs around, picks something up, throws it in the air, and picks it up again while being really restless. I could really watch him for hours at times, he does a lot of funny things. Whenever someone is eating something he'll keep jumping to try to look at it. It's really funny sitting on the other end of the table and seeing his head pop up and down. The other day he had water in his ears, it was really funny watching him try to get the water out. He's such a funny dog, I'm glad we have him, he adds a lot to the family. Last night, around midnight, he was on the stairs barking. I picked him up and put him on the chair and he just looked at me like he didn't want me to go. It reminded me a lot of when I'd hold Colby, Jamie, or Kayla when they were little. They would cry a lot in the middle of the night and didn't want me to go...good memories.

Marathon training is on schedule, I ran 13 miles Saturday. My knees hurt a little afterwards. I'm getting nervous/scared to run the whole 26 miles on Oct. 20th. I'm really glad I'm finally doing it. On that run on Saturday I figured out a couple things about myself and why I'm doing it. There have been a couple times in my life when I felt a sort inferior, scared feeling. In football I felt inferior to guys that were much bigger, stronger, faster, in addition to feeling inferior to bigger schools. On my mission I felt inferior to the Dutch people. The Dutch are really tall, the tallest people in the world, they speak Dutch perfectly, and are very assertive in letting you know that religion isn't for them, and that it's often just for the simple-minded. The thought of running a marathon brings back those same daunting, challenging, overpowering, inferior feelings where I feel very timid, worthless and shrink to the task. Two things happened my senior year that helped me get over those feelings. I was in the backfield, all ready for the play in our team scrimmage. I was to kick the Defensive End outside. I remember thinking, "you know what, I don't care how much bigger he is, I'm going to run through him and knock him back." I was able to knock him back a foot, doing my job by keeping him outside and out of the play. It was something small, but gave me mental confidence. The second thing was also pretty small, but we played West Des Moines Valley in Des Moines the Saturday after September 11th. Valley has the best program in the state. They are big, rich, and good at everything. Anyway, it was really small, but I just had a good game against them, I think I had a touchdown or something, but it helped me get over the whole inferior to other schools thing. One day on my mission on a single day something had happened to all four of our baptismal committments and they dropped out of our baptism pool. It really hurt...and I snapped. Disney had a little video of Lambert the sheepish lion where Lambert, a lion who is raised by sheep, one day snaps out of it and realizes he's a lion. I snapped that day and everything I felt of being inferior or timid was gone. This was the true Gospel, everyone needs it, I was determined to be a lion in declaring it, I'd be like Enoch who was described as a wild man after he overcame his speech problems. That day was the turning point in my mission. So anyway, running a marathon brings back those same feelings which is why I'm trying to overcome my fears and inferior feelings. It's really not fun having those feelings. God gives us weaknesses, yes, but also opportunities to overcome them and grow. This marathon is probably the hardest thing I've ever done because it requires so much mental discipline and physical endurance. For me it's really been about goal setting and telling myself I am going to run 6 miles...13, or whatever I'm running that day. Playing football in high school really helped me with this cause football makes you find the energy somewhere when you don't think there is any left. Running a marathon is about checking something off my life to-do list- yes, but it's becoming more about accomplishment, bettering myself, and overcoming these inferior feelings and realized inadequacies that come up from time to time.

Me, Kayla, Chris Kaiser, and Mark Smith made the trek out to Utah a week and a half ago. It was a lot of fun. I had really bad allergies going out there. It's funny cause the last couple years I'd always get sick coming back home from Utah and on the trip I got sick going back to Utah from home. It was great being out there! We got tickets to the Air Force game, which was pretty sweet. I tell ya, we are unstoppable playing at home, it's those away games that hurt us. Max Hall has really impressed me, though he didn't play that great against New Mexico. I'm a little disappointed in our defense. Our defense was supposed to be better than last year but we've been giving up way too many points. It was a ton of fun playing werewolves for hours and just see people again and catching up with them. It's gorgeous in Utah right now. The trees in the mountains are all turning awesome Autumn colors. I'm really excited to go back to Park Place in the winter semester, it's such a fun place. While I was there and on the ride back I was really missing BYU, wishing I was there, but that was short-lived, cause honestly I'm not reall missing it. I miss different parts of it of course, like Park Place and my roommates, but I am really enjoying being home and doing all the things I'm doing right now.

The main reason I went back out to Utah for the weekend is because we had a reunion for all the Uganda volunteers. I was sad that not everybody came but it was still really nice to see these really good friends that I made while I was there. My friend, April, explained coming back really well. She said that it was a lot like coming home from a mission, "nobody will understand your experience." That's really true. I wish I could just let people experience the feelings I had or somehow communicate to them how much it's affected me, but unfortunately I am stuck to have to be limited by words only. In telling people about my mission and Uganda experience, it's impossible to really tell them how I feel about those places and the people and what I did. Both were so incredible and have left a special feeling that can come back everytime I think about those experiences. I hope to go back to Uganda or some other developing country and experience the "real world." Two-third of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day. It's so different in other parts of the world than here in the U.s., yet we are the exception, we have so much here. I hope my desire to help people and change the world doesn't die. It's really easy to get distracted and not think about the experiences I had there. There's so much I want to do, I wish I had the money to improve people's situations or the time to figure out how to best help people.

Looking for a great online game to waste time? Google, then snake game. Man it's fun.

My journal is really suffering from my busy schedule and blog. I should probably try to write shorter, more frequent entries instead of these novels everyone once in awhile.

Why the world needs Council Bluffs, Iowa!

First of all, a word about the title. I have a handful of people I'm trying to convince that Council Bluffs is the best place in the world. I love it here. I learned to love Council Bluffs while being away to Holland or Utah or Uganda, but I'm loving it even more being here right now with so much happening, enjoying the fall weather, being with the family and such. I don't want to come across as one of those people who are so terribly obsessed with their home or anything like that...to the point of where they'd only pick cards that have something to do with Iowa in a game of apples to apples (see Kasey or Alan for citation). So below are some reasons why CB is such a sweet place:


People are always so happy to be in CB

CB has some really sweet storms, this picture is with the flash on, it makes the rain drops really cool.

Without the flash

CB has some fine, upstanding members

Also some thugs

One really cool thing about CB is being in the mission field and meeting amazing people. This is Terrance, he grew up in the hood in Chicago and then redshirted for Fresno St. He came here, was looking for God and then the missionaries knocked on his door. He has turned his life around and is a really good example. He is so excited to be going to the singles ward and then on a mission. Last week he got the Priesthood during Elders Quorum. Haha, he came back from the circle and sat down and said, "I thought it'd be different being surrounded by white guys." Haha, one of the funniest things I've ever heard.

Lots of marryin going on around here in CB. That's always good.

Go Iowa Hawkeyes. We have manners here, notice there is no pick.

There are some really funny dawgs in CB

We explore creativity in CB, awesome hats, huh?

Most people don't know about the jungle we have here

And there's a temple!

And Papa Murphy's!!!! Ahh yeah...

We take great pride in our chairs which is why we brand every chair

Two words: Dream Playground

Four words: Mall of the Bluffs

And we have a desert here

No monkeyin around here

See, in CB even big kids never grow too old of being held by their older brother, who used to hold them like this when they were little babies, when they used to cry all through the night...and the older brother couldn't stand it so he would walk around with them like this, sing them songs until they fell asleep, then he'd put them down and they would start crying again.

...I rest my case

Always a beautiful sunset here in the religious Heartland

CB is disneyland for poli sci people. Good ole Fred Thompson

We even let Democrats come to CB

We foster old traditions here, in the ole Midwest

AL football baby!!!

Life lessons I've learned recently:

--sunrises and sunsets are really similar. As I was driving to work today and then later at night when I was driving to work I saw the sunrise and sunset and they looked pretty much the same.

--the laundry doesn't get done if you put it on your to-do list and set it out where you won't forget it if you keep on telling yourself you'll do it later.

--apparently I need to start saying 'bro' a lot more. Everybody at work calls each other 'bro.' I also need to work on my ping pong skills. I'm pretty sure I'll play at least 20 mins of ping pong everyday for the next 4 months.

--if you run by a dead skunk, you'll stink for the next 10 minutes. So you should probably be smart and run a different way home, cause if you run by the dead skunk again, you'll worse, for even longer

--it's pretty funny when dogs get brain freeze. Whenever Rusty hears us turn on the ice machine, he runs toward it and jumps until you give him ice. It was so funny when he got brain freeze cause he kept shaking his head, lost balance, and fell over.

--never accept a challenge to a mustache contest when you know you can't win. We're having one at work starting in October for a couple weeks. There's like 12 of us doing it, and the contest is more about how creative you can get with your mustache. I have to grow out a beard for our Aicha music video that we're going to do...the problem is that I really can't grow out a mustache or a beard.

--School stress is so much worse than work stress. I'm kinda working 4 jobs/internships at the moment. I'm working at TD Ameritrade, which is the second largest stock trading company in the US. It is incredible! I am learning so much about stocks, options, investing, everything. There is a whole other world I had no idea about. I traded stocks a couple years ago and did pretty good, stocks are easy, but options are so complicated. There's so much you can do with them, so many creative things. I'm glad I have a couple of months to learn the biz and then plan on doing lots of trading with what I have. I really would like to come back here after graduation, there are so many benefits and growth potential. Mitt's campaign is going well. Next week we'll be really getting into the phone bank stuff. I'm volunteering for Matt Schultz, who's running for reelection for the city council, and then I'm doing the district manager duties for all my dad's stores. So all of that, along with family stuff and the single's ward stuff is keeping me really busy...but it's all stress free really. At least nothing like school stress.

--I've slept on the trampoline a couple more times...I really just can't get over sleeping under the stars, enjoying the cool Autumn wind, and just loving life.

--Buying random stuff online is good. I bough a 50% hotel discount card almost two years ago but have never used it. We were in San Diego, checking into a Holiday Inn and I remembered I had the card, so we tried to use it. Bam! My parents and my grandparents both saved $60 each. The card cost $40 and is good for a lifetime. So I bought this sleep package that explains how to get a better sleep and even reduce the number of hours you need to sleep by 1-3 hours. So far so good.

--There's nothing like a Papa Murphy's rush to get the adrenalin going. Last weekend was a pretty crazy with the reception, some really big football games, and the grand opening of one of the stores. So I got called in and started making pizzas...just like the glory days with the old Dream Team staff.

--I grew up with some really awesome, good, and funny friends. Pretty much all my close friends are doing really well. Me and Trevor have resumed our traditional pool matches where we play for a prize and we're doing a lot of planning for life and a life in politics. The other night we had a little get together with some high school friends. I forgot how funny Mark Jurgens is. Ya know how you always had one of those friends who would get you into trouble? Well, Mark came really close, but never quite got me into trouble. He reminded me of so many funny stories that I forgot about. Probably the best story that describes Mark, is he and another guy took a bunch of gnomes from people's lawns and put them out on the baseball field in each position and a gnome on his side sliding into home plate. HAHAHA. Such a funny kid. We had some great times. It's cool being grown up and seeing him married and doing well with his investments.

Wow, this blog was a novel. I'm going to Utah right now.