Eric and Lisa's Reception

Friday we went to the wedding reception for Eric and Lisa. I think that everyone that follows this blog already knows that Eric is the widower of my late sister Sheri. I also think almost everyone knew that he was getting married. But, what you might not all know is that the wedding was this past week and that his new wife is named Lisa. She lives in Farmington and teaches at Davis High School.

She and Eric seem like a good fit to me. I still don't know her very well, but her personality seems similar to his: quiet, conservative, goodhearted, and genuinely nice. Like Eric, she lost her spouse not many years ago and has been a single parent ever since.

We all got together before the reception for family pictures. Most of Eric and Lisa's families were there. I hadn't met any of Lisa's family and hadn't seen some of Eric's family in years, so the event was a great way to establish or renew many relationships. Having my siblings there made it entertaining. I really wish my parents could have been there, but they were delayed on their way back from Fiji and couldn't make it.

I can't explain how friendly to us the families of Lisa and her late husband were. These are people that we aren't going to see very often, so a close relationship isn't exactly mandatory. But, we seemed to make an instant connection to them. They gave me every reason to think that all families involved will get along very well.

One special part of the reception was a display of photographs of Eric and also some of Lisa with their respective late spouses, along with their children. One set of pictures had the caption "Because someone we love is heaven, there's a little bit of heaven in our home." The saying was originally written in reference to Eric's loss, but I thought how the sentiment applies to Lisa also, and doubly so to the new home that they will have.

The reception was a special occasion and I hope that we are all able to get together again in the future. I couldn't be happier for Eric and Lisa and look forward to seeing them often since they will be living just up the road in Farmington.

19th Anniversary Celebration

On Sunday, Rita and I completed 19 years of marriage. That's right: 19 years! It's hard to believe it was that long ago that we tied the knot. I must have been like 8 years old.

I was in charge of planning some sort of celebration. It was particularly challenging this year for a couple of reasons. First of all, we didn't want to spend much money. Yes, we are trying to be disciplined with our money, but more importantly this year is an off year. We will spend the big bucks for our 20th anniversary. The second difficulty is that we have both temporarily sworn off of junk food. (I will probably explain more about our new diet in a future post, but basically our whole family is trying to not eat junk food except on specific occasions during the first 100 days of 2012.) Going out to dinner or a treat has been a common date activity since we first met, but without eating junk food our options would be limited to basically a sandwich from Subway--not exactly the most romantic restaurant. I knew I'd have to use my imagination just a bit.

The fun started on Saturday. The first activity I planned was for the two of us to go to a discount movie. We went and saw Tower Heist at the Kaysville theater. Neither of us knew much about the movie, other than it got a decent score on Rotten Tomatoes. We were pleasantly surprised. It has some funny parts, and the plot is pretty good for a comedy. I wouldn't recommend it for young children, but it's definitely worth seeing.

On Sunday we exchanged gifts with each other. Rita got me a trunk-mounted bike rack for my car, which I will use a lot this summer. I got her a set of Conair Xtreme Instant Heat Hot Rollers. These are not exactly the most romantic gifts we've ever gotten each other, but I think we got all the romantic gifts we could think of back during anniversaries 1 through 10. I guess you could say that the romance has dwindled a bit, but did I really want some cologne?

On Monday, we decided to include the kids in our celebration. We all went to the Ogden Ice Sheet and participated in the Layton City Family Skate Night. The skating was only a dollar! We have varying skill levels at the sport. Rita is a good skater, coming from Canada and all. I am just good enough to make it fun. Todd is decent, and Kenna and Alec had never been. Everyone sure had fun.

After some early hesitations everyone was cruising around the rink pretty well.

It was a fun celebration for me. But, it wasn't as fun as what I was celebrating...19 wonderful years of being married to Rita!

New Year's Resolutions

When it comes to New Year's resolutions, I (Brent) normally set one or two, if any. Also, I normally forget about them some time around January 2nd or 3rd. This year I have several goals and resolution and I'm committed to working on them throughout the year. Some of them are pretty aggressive, so I've got my work cut out for me. Here is the list:

• Qualify for the Boston Marathon. This isn't a new goal. I've had it since August of 2010. The qualifying times are more strict this year, so I realize it's a bit of a long shot. It is going to take a ton of work and a lot of luck to even come close. I'm excited that my brother Steve has the same goal. He and I are both signed up to run the Utah Valley Marathon. Wouldn't it be fun if we both qualified together?
• Create and follow a set of value statements. This might be one of the cheesiest goals I've ever set. It seems too much like one of those hokey company mission statements. But, this won't be imposed from above like it is in a company. These will be personal to me and I can customize them to my beliefs and needs. I actually got the idea during Elders' Quorom instruction on New Year's Day. The lesson explained how George Albert Smith had written what he called his "personal creed." The statements were so specific, profound and well-written that I thought it'd be a good idea to try to come up with something similar for myself. Unlike a company mission statement, I won't show my value statements on a PowerPoint slide at a company meeting or anything like that. I'll read them from time-to-time as a reminder of my own personal creed.
• Keep a daily tracker. If you're forgetful and unorganized like I am, you need this. My tracker is just a sheet of paper that lists all the items I should do each day. It's got things like weighing myself, feeding my fish, flossing, and getting to bed on time. You'd think I would have mastered that level of simple organization back when I was a teenager, but I still struggle with it.
• Read 12 books. I like to read. Or, at least I wish I liked to read. I don't do it nearly as much as I think I should. I only read two books in all of 2011, so I'll need to put in a lot more time than I have been.
• Post to my blog 26 times in the year. I blogged a lot more last year than I ever have and enjoyed it. I did it every day for a month, so every other week shouldn't be too hard. The difficulty will be remembering. The posts will be spaced far enough apart that I could easily forget.
• Be more patient with my kids. Of the times I've lost my temper in the last five years, about 99% of them have been directed at my children. It's so obvious that yelling and screaming is counter-productive, but in the heat of the moment it seems so logical. I'm committed to not letting myself get to that point this year.
• Pay off our home equity loan. Last year was a difficult year financially for Rita and me. This year promises to be much better. If things continue to go well and we are disciplined, we can pay back the money we've borrowed recently. I have a lofty goal to never borrow money again. I'm not sure that is a possibility, but paying this off would go a long way to making it a reality.
• Earn a promotion at work. I'm not ambitious at work and have no desire to be a manager, but seeing multiple coworker friends receive multiple advancements has spurred me to try a bit of self-promotion. I'm trying to toot my own horn more often and be more assertive. At my last performance review I announced my intention to complete the steps necessary for advancement on the technical track, so now I'm officially bucking for a promotion.

What are some of your resolutions and goals for the new year? Please post a comment if you have one or two that you are willing to share.