Sunday, September 21, 2008

Don't want to be last

Good Sunday Morning Family
It was great to see some blogs. Thanks for the updates favorite mother-in-law, favorite middle child and favorite mortal. Here is my humble little list of my top ten things going on.
10. Tomorrow night I get to have Spencer and Abby over. The ladies in the family are going to play and I can hardly wait! If any of the male family members want to come over, we'll try to have more fun than the ladies.
9. Troy brought a nice young lady over last night. She get points for a) being a Wildcat, b) coming from a CES family c) being good looking and d) being fun. Her ping pong skills need a little work.
8. It was fun last Sunday having Brynley and Dean over. Dean gets high marks also for; a) being a big time Ute, b) having a GREAT laugh, c) letting me beat him at Fink
7. I am loving my Wednesdays at the temple. If any of you can attend the 4 or 6 or 8 pm sessions this week, it is my last week to get to be the bad guy.
6. Work is going well. I need to schedule my life so I am working closer to 40 hours a week than 60.
5. I have been missing Carson this week. I hope we can connect better this week, starting today.
4. I get to? speak at the Institute at WSU next Sunday evening at 6 PM. Sunday dinner doesn't look like it is going to happen with Mom and I. We get out of church at 4 PM and have to be at the Institue at 5:40.
3. I enjoyed watching some football with Ryan yesterday. The Utes and Cougars are so much fun to watch. Utah was lucky yesterday. I'll need to talk to the coach about those turn-overs. It will be hard to cheer for a team other than WSU next Saturday. I don't think I have ever done that before.
2. I loved getting Kyle's update! I miss you a whole bunch.
1. This week Mom and I celebrate our 33rd anniversary. My wife gets more wonderful every year. Thanks for making my family = my life.
DAD

Celebrate- (Jill-Mom)


Kyle Kid, That was a great update even though we have talked a bit, most of this was brand new to me. I think that would be way cool to live so close to Grand Central park. Brynley and I had a blast riding through there on bikes and I love just seeing the zillions of things that people do in their leisure time. So please keep the cards and letters coming from IHEARTNY.


We loved seeing Abby perform at Northridge's halftime on Friday night. Spencer was fun too, especially after G'pa bought him a root beer. I had a good week with school and work is going well too. I have a great boss who give me lots of freedom to choose my work/projects. It's a good place to be in. Still horseback riding and loving that like none other.

Hope to see most of you at dinner today...gotta run and for VT.

Love you all!!
mom/daughter etc

New York, New Yoooooorrrrrrrkk!!! (KP)

Okay Folks, it’s time for a real update. I know you’ve all been anxiously awaiting a few words from your long lost middle-child brother, so, here it comes!

First of all, I want to thank all of you who had a part in my surprise birthday/going away party. It was so much fun seeing some of those people that mean so much to me. I love you all so much. I’ve talked to most of you since I’ve been out here, but I’ll give a recap of what’s been going on this month for those who I haven’t updated.

I HEART NY. I do, and I even own the shirt to prove it. Okay, I don’t own the shirt, but I used to have one that I got from Savers and I tie dyed it. I’m not sure what ever happened to that shirt. Anyway, back to business. I’ve been here in the city for three weeks now. So far I’ve really enjoyed it. I’m starting to get busy and sink my teeth in at work so that’s kind of exciting. There’s so much to do and so much to learn that it’s kind of overwhelming sometimes.

For those of you who don’t know or who might be wondering, I work for American Express. Okay, really though, you might not know what I’m doing. I work for a small finance group that supports our Global Advertising and Brand Management (GABM) division. So basically all of the American Express ads that you see on TV, newspapers, magazines, online, etc., and all of the sponsorship stuff like the PGA, the US Open, Fashion Shows, and other stuff like that, that’s what this GABM group does. So as exciting as this might sound, you might think that I get to go to these PGA and US Open events, and hang with the celebrities that you see on the commercials like Jerry Seinfeld, Beyonce, Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, and the rest of those folks. Well…….you’re right, Jerry is always hanging out in my cube trying to be funny and I’m like, “I’m Working here!”

Okay, really, obviously that’s not the case. What our group does is to do exciting stuff like making sure they’re paying their invoices correctly and on time, calculating the bonuses we give to the Advertising Agencies, checking up on compliance issues, reading contracts to make sure that people are using money correctly, helping decide policies for how we distribute tickets to all of the events that we have tickets for, moving money around from department to department, and more exciting things like that. I know, you’re all jealous.

Okay, enough about work, let’s talk about the rest of my life. My roommates are great guys. I was a little worried at first because I didn’t really know them and we are all very different, but as it turns out, they’re all great. Kyle Baughan works for Amex too, Preston Thomas worked for Lehman Bros. and now works for Barclay’s (who just bought parts of Lehman) for the time being, and Nathan, my actual roommate is a law student at Columbia. We get along great and our house is pretty nice. Along those lines, we actually have a really big living space with two fold out beds, if anyone ever wants to visit, there’s room in the inn.

As far as my everyday here, I usually get up around 6am. I take the subway down to work and usually get there a little before 7. There’s a gym at our building, so I just workout in the morning and shower there. It’s great. I usually start work at 8 or 8:30. I usually take off around 6 pm and get home around 7 pm. I brought my bike and I’m so glad I did. It’s been so helpful and convenient. Plus, it’s really cool seeing the city from on top of the streets, instead of under them on the subway. On the first two Saturdays I went to the church to play basketball in the morning. Yesterday I went to these awesome soccer fields and played soccer. It’s great living right next to Central Park. They’re renovating the chapel on the west side so we all have to go to the chapel on the east side. I walk through the park and stop on the way for some great Sunday reading. We’ve had the sisters over several times for discussions with an investigator. His name is Michael and I think he’ll get baptized in October. We’re doing another discussion on Tuesday with a guy named Kentor, he’s great too. I love being a part of the missionary work. It’s so refreshing being out here where there’s so many opportunities to serve.

Okay, so you might want to know what’s going on with Emily. I’ll be brief. I know this has been a long post, and I’m guessing some have not made it this far. Anyway, things are good. We had a lot of fun on our “across the country” trip and we’ve decided that we’re just gonna date each other for the time being. We talk on the phone every day and there’s even talk of her moving out here which is encouraging, but by no means a sure thing. We’ll just play it day by day and see what happens.

Well, this may be the longest post this little pollswww has ever seen so I’ll cut it off right now. I’m very excited to see all of you and I miss you and love you so much!

Love,

KP

Friday, September 19, 2008

gma marler

Hy Brynley & Kyle,
You're the only ones who have blogged since I did. I've received e-mail from Jill, Jodi, and Ryan.
Well, lots has happened since then. I won't take them in any particular order. GPA is feeling better on some days. He's had 2 epidurals which helped somewhat. He figures he's got to build up the muscles arund his hips. He doesn't want the spinal surgery so we'll just have to wait and see. The stock market is scary. Yesterday up. The presidential elections are scary. Which way will it go? I really like the choice of Sarah Palin for V. Pres. The Diamondbacks won 3 against San Francisco, here. They play Colorado today over there. Our boys started out pretty good. But 3 major players hace been out. Upton came back and has had 3 or 4 homeruns. I went to the temple Wed. with Lanae Brimley Peck and am going to try it every 2 weeks. Shaylee will be home on the 22nd and will start immediately at Weber. She's going to be living at home with her parents. Ben has filed for divorce. She will need a lot of TLC. Brecklyn is doing OK. She is having a hard time with the prosthesis and she and Mike have set their wedding for the Spring.
Got to close now. We love you all much, much, much. GMA

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

More to come! (It's me, Kyle)

Sorry I've been such a blogging slacker. I've got a lot to talk about, so I keep on waiting for a big block of time to open up and it just isn't happening. Anyway, I've had some requests for travel plans so I'll throw them out and blog about my life later:

I'm coming back for my eye appointment on November 14th:
November 13: Arrive in SLC 11:59 pm
November 16: Depart to NYC 11:15 pm

I'm going to AZ for Thanksgiving!!!
November 26: Arrive in PHX 11:26 pm
December 2: Depart to NYC 11:45 pm

I'll be home for Christmas!!!
December 19: Arrive in SLC 9:26 pm
December 25: Depart to NYC 11:15 pm


Love you all and I'll talk to you soon!!

-KP

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

So it's been a while for everyone

Brynley
Okay family,
It appears that the summer is coming to a close as it is no longer scorching hot outside. So no more excuses that the "summer is just too busy to post" excuse. I miss hearing what everyone is up to, and I will assume that you would all love to hear about me, so ready or not, here ya go.

August was wonderful! I can't thank all of you enough for coming to Bear Lake for my birthday, that'll go down in the memory books.





Kyle's party was fun on his birthday, and it's wierd that he won't be back for this Sunday dinner...I miss you Kyle, and would love an update on your trip and your job...how are you?
I went camping a couple weekends ago in Maple Canyon, then we climbed all day Saturday, it was a good group, and the whole "mixing groups" thing worked out great, everyone got along.


I went to the Jack Johnson concert when he came into town a couple weeks ago, and really loved it, but I'll be honest, I'd prefer to spend my money on other fun things. But it was a memorable night with Mikey Mose.

Our hiking group continues to go well. I was counting the hikes tonight and we're up to 15 this summer, I guess you can say it's been a successful summer if hiking = success.



Oh, and if you happen to still be reading this, I have some great news!!! We just got word at work that we were accepted to receive the grant from REI that we were working on almost 6 months ago. They are bringing us a check for $5,000 tomorrow. That means that we'll get to start 3 new programs, and it'll all be paid for. I'm so happy!!!!

Well lastly, I did have a great Labor Day weekend, I sure didn't labor much though. I did get to spend a lot of time with Rachel and her family, and after having more than a dozen people commit to hiking the narrows this weekend and then fall through, I was still able to make it on the hike, with one other person. We had all kinds of fun all weekend long. We went climbing, sunset watching, eating, Ute watching, sleeping, driving, rock throwing, site seeing and most importantly narrow hiking.


Well there's an update on my life, I'm sure it's more than any of you wanted, but that was an invitation to give a small insite on your life. Let us all know what's going on. I love you all!!!