First Things First

First things first

I am in a rut. I have a little streak going of people use my last name as my first. It happened today when I bought a map at the store, the lady asked for ID and I showed it to her and she said, “thanks, Ross.” It has happened numerous times at work with email, despite my replies stating my first name, “Brandon” I will get emails that start, “Ross”. Not Mr. Ross, not Hey Ross, or Bro. Ross, just Ross. Like from “Friends”.

The final straw came today when I received an email from my sister-in-law in Boston. Now, granted, she’s in Boston, and pregnant. Maybe they do things differently back there, but she started her email like this:

"Ross,

I can’t stand it……"

I love her, even if she doesn’t remember my first name.

I have been absent for a while. In fact, that’s what Becky in Boston was writing about. Where have I been? I will tell you it’s due to one reason only, I have been searching for the lost phone.

Just kidding. Nothing more than neglect. There has been a lot going on lately, like – oh, did we mention we are moving? That’s right, selling our home and moving. We had not even planned on it, but it’s happening. Our house is on the market, and we are moving a whole 4 houses away. A bigger house, a bigger yard with tall trees, a creek and a whole lot of yard work. We couldn’t be happier. We are going to do a little remodeling, we’ll be sure to post the before and after pictures. It’s going to be great.

So there has been packing and cleaning, showing the house and cleaning, cleaning and packing and moving. Jodi has been incredible and the house has just been immaculate. The amazing thing is that despite the intense cleaning – we have yet to find the runaway phone. The kids have been so excited, even the dog is so excited he has been peeing on everyone he meets. That’s right, the dog is getting bigger and is at the stage, for those of you who are familiar, where he pees when he meets someone. Two classic examples of this can been seen in the following excerpts from our recent history:

Our neighbor comes to see our house because he is remodeling his kitchen. The dog comes out to see him and he picks up the dog to greet him (the dog was still smaller at the time). The dog proceeds to pee on him as he is picking him up.

The other incident, though more recent and much more entertaining, is a little less dramatic. The dog runs out the front door, which is opened by Allie, and runs to greet two teenage girls walking down the street. Both wearing flip flops, undoubtedly on their way to text some boys, they bend down to greet the dog. The dog then pees on both of their naked feet, causing an awkward greeting by the dog’s owner upon retrieving him, and as they “eeeeeeuuuuuuu”-ed their way down the street I had to stifle my bursts of laughter.

So there’s that. Otherwise, what else has been going on? Oh, yes – that Crazy Golf Tournament.

Actually, this year’s event went off soooooo much smoother than last year from an organizational standpoint. I think Matt will agree that by tackling it head-on, designating Friday’s of every week preceding the event to work on it really reduced the amount of stress and job loss from the tournament. It was a perfect day. I plan on blogging more about that as soon as I get some pictures, but the Cliff Notes version is this: Amazing Miracles surround this event, it has just been incredible to see the generosity of people, people like Chad Lewis and his wonderful friends. I will post a big old blog with pictures when we get back from camping.

But for now, enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. I will be in the wilderness of central Utah, looking for a toilet.