Father-Son Outing

One random day after work, Trent got home and said, "Come on, Cam. Let's go downtown and scalp tickets to the Rockies game."  (He is such a cool dad!) So, off they went!

Waiting for the train.

Not bad seats for 20 bucks.

Apparently, we demolished the Marlins that night. What a fun memory for those two!

The soaping continues...

Trent took a "day off" from work a couple weeks ago. This is what he did with his time: 4 batches of soap. He's working on his color-swirling skills, and I think they look so cool!

Purple: gardenia shave soap

Blue/Green: tea tree & peppermint

Yellow: lemongrass

Small White: super gentle baby soap

Our etsy store is going great, and T is gearing up for Christmas orders. He is such a man of many talents! As the bars of soap cure, he's been staging and photographing them for sale, and I am continually impressed with his artistry -- and ingenuity! Most of the elements are from our garden/yard or around the house. He also made a corian bee stamp to imprint the soaps! Love it!

Peppermint & Lavender Hand Balm (peppermint and lavender from our yard, honeypot from our kitchen)

Lavender Soap, my favorite!

Anise & Tea Tree Soap (star anise from a local spice shop)

Mmmmm ... Our house smells sooooo yummy!

The honey harvest this year went okay. Not as much honey as last year. But at least now we have some fun stuff to do with all the wax!

Etsy store

So, remember how we've been making soap and stuff? Check out Trent's Etsy store. (He has some woodworking stuff up there, too.) So cool!

June Randomness

Playtime on the blanket wore him out!

Cute brothers.

Cowboy picnic on the front lawn with Mommy "because that's where cowboys eat: outside!"

Little stinker ... literally! Ewwww.

Got to sit in a Tesla Roadster electric supercar on date night. There's a store inside Park Meadows mall.

T worked an event at Red Rocks -- a family movie night. Pretty cool. Maybe next year, we'll all go.

Liam's new favorite game is beating/drumming on/patting everything. Maybe he'll be a drummer, like his uncle Jared. :)

Angels walk among us. Don't believe me? Meet my friend, Emily.

KeyBank Grand Opening

Trent was recently hired to open a brand new KeyBank location five minutes from our house. We are thrilled. The grand opening was very family-centered and a lot of fun.

The branch.

 KeyToon, the KeyBank mascot, hanging out with the radio station guys.

Bernie, the Avalance mascot, came too. The kids loved him! 

Coloring with Bernie.

The boss man. Isn't he handsome?

After the event, Cam swiped the balloons from all over the building.

Employed!

Trent just wrapped up his first week as a branch manager with KeyBank. Yippee! Hooray! Go hunny! We feel so blessed that he was only unemployed for a little over a month, especially in this economy -- and in the banking industry, no less. It was wonderful to have some real time together, even though it was a little stressful. And we definitely learned lessons we couldn't have learned any other way. In the end, we're just happy. And in all honesty, conditions are even better now than they were before Trent lost his job. Mostly, we are grateful that he doesn't have to travel for the next two years after all. Plus, the new bank is much closer (no more 45 min. commute), closes at 5 p.m. rather than 6 p.m., and doesn't have any Saturday hours. Bonus! It's nice to have Daddy around again. 

Thanks a million to all of you who have reached out in love and service and support to our family in our time of need. We feel blessed to know you and to have you in our lives. Whew! We made it through! We're (all) a good team. :) We know the Lord is truly aware of us, and our testimonies and our family are even stronger now because of what we have been through together. Life is good. 

Really?

Trent lost his job unexpectedly Friday morning. Corporate politics. Who knew that Wells Fargo post a couple weeks ago would end up being basically an "Ode to His Time There"? Ah, the irony.

Even though it's a hard transition, a feeling of peace has settled on our family and on our home. I know we will make it through this together. We are a great team, and at least at the end of the day, we still have each other. In the long-run, that's what's most important anyway. My boys. I love them. Also, peace comes from knowing we can still put food on the table, literally. Thanks to following our wise bishop's counsel, we have at least 6 months worth of food preserved from our garden, filling our pantry, and dry-packed, as well as a year's worth of laundry detergent, plenty of TP and toiletries, etc. Here's to emergency preparedness, even when you don't know what you're preparing for! Turns out a blizzard, earthquake, or other natural disaster isn't the only emergency that can come a-knockin'.

My Trent is talented in so many ways and so extremely hardworking, and I know he'll find something. (Maybe even something he enjoys a little more!) In the mean time, we are just so happy to be together. Even before he got his traveling position, for the past 8 months he's been working 12- to 13-hour days and 6-day weeks. We've all been putting on brave faces for a long time. But the truth is: We've missed him. And for now, we don't have to. And I've decided ... I'll take it.

Really, it's kind of an adventure in so many ways. I mean, don't we all get kind of tired of the mundane daily grind once in a while? Not us! Not now! We're partying on powdered milk and hunting for a mysterious unknown future together. And me? I'm trying not to hobble around like an old lady 5 weeks after major abdominal surgery, and mostly it's working. :) Life is most d e f i n i t e l y not boring. Mundane? Nope. Not a bit.

We are going to be okay. I know it. The Lord will watch over us. He always does.

So Proud of My Man

It's a big day. Trent is starting in a whole new kind of position with Wells Fargo. He is now a National Corporate Trainer and will be helping facilitate the Wachovia/Wells merger in the East over the next two years. He is one of only 25 in the first wave hired in the entire country. I am so proud of him.

We put him on a plane yesterday for a week-long training in Sacramento, and I miss him already. Facing the reality that he is going to be gone 85% of the time for the next couple years has really made me reflect on what an amazing man he is and how blessed I am to have him in my life. I'm not going to pretend I'm unafraid to face pseudo-single-motherhood, because I am, but we'll make it work. We always do. In the meantime, I'm just so tickled for him that he is back into what he loves to do: coaching. He is so phenomenal at it, and I know he's going to excel in his new position.

Sending you lots of love from home. We miss you, Daddy, but we know you'll be great! And we'll see you soon ...

3D Dino

In case you haven't noticed, Trent and Camden have been going to town with father-son outings and projects lately (partly because I've been feeling so crummy). They are so cute and funny together.

Here's one of the latest projects: a 3D T-rex. They designed it together on the computer, then went out and bought the wood, and after Trent cut out the pieces on his new fancy-schmancy router in his wood shop, they put it together. Pretty cool, eh?

Our little man loves to show it off to anyone who comes by.

Caution:

Trent had to dig a trench to bury some cable for our lamp post. We were all out there together, and suddenly Camden disappeared. A few minutes later he came around the house dragging his little tools, to "help Daddy." He's such a sweet, thoughtful little boy.

Trent's Astronomy Blog

NEWSFLASH! Trent has started a blog to display his fabulous astro-photography. Click here to check it out. (I'll be adding the link to my sidebar as well, for future reference, under "Family.")

My Mountain Man

Trent took a trip up to the mountains with the scouts this past weekend.

After drilling through 3 feet of ice, they caught 12 fish in 45 minutes!

My amazing hunter/gatherer brought home 4 beautiful rainbow trout and smoked 'em up for Sunday dinner. They were sooooo gooood!

He loves me

The other day, I heard Trent using the pressure washer on the patio after changing the oil in the Vespa. When I went outside, this is what I found.

Wells Fargo

At times people have asked why I work for Wells Fargo and have chosen to stay with them over the years. Today is a prime example of why. I was in a Colorado Senior Leadership Conference and we started off the day by hearing from our Colorado Regional President about how things were going across the state so far this year. His report was all positive and he talked about how we stand out among the financial institutions of the nation as a company that is doing things the right way. Shortly after his opening comments we received news that our stock had risen $5 or over 20%. The crowd was so energized. The rest of the day was spent talking about how we can make the customer experience in our branches better and how we can continue to be one of America's great companies. By the end of the day we had received news that Wells Fargo had lead the financial stocks to one of the strongest gains in decades and that our stock had risen 33%. It is these experiences today that inspired me to write this post and the quotes from various articles were published today as a result of Wells Fargo's performance.
In an industry that has been hit hard by the credit crisis, today, Wells Fargo stood above the rest and took it's place as one of America's greatest companies. I have long been impressed by the ethics of the company I work for. I learned early on in my career that we would not lend when others would and at times I would have customers walk out my doors because I worked for a company that chose a higher standard of how to do business. As you can see from the quotes below the analysts, columnists and others recognized today what those of us that work for Wells Fargo have known all along.
I am grateful to call myself an employee of this great company. I have had offers from other banks including Wachovia and today I am thankful yet again that the Lord has blessed me and my family with the insight that staying with Wells Fargo was going to lead us in the direction we needed to go. In a time of uncertainty I am thankful that we have the ability to be led and guided in matters such as where we live, who we work for, and what influences we will allow into our home. Money is not always the answer. As I had entertained offers from other institutions that may have resulted in more money then, I would not have had the security that I have today. I don't write on our blog often and this is not the typical entry that we have on our family blog but I felt strongly that I needed to share what Wells Fargo truly represents.

"Wells Fargo results were commendable when contrasted against the deteriorating macroeconomic and credit conditions," wrote David Hendler, an analyst at CreditSights Inc.

Andrew Marquardt, a senior vice president and analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochran Caronia Waller, echoed Tororian's comments, believing that Wells Fargo is likely to be an exception this quarter. "We believe [the] results reflect ability to manage through [the] tough environment, flight to quality status among customers, and balance sheet strength," he writes in a note. "In [an] environment where capital is king, we believe [Wells Fargo] stands out in terms of level and generation capacity."

"Not all banks are on the verge of bankruptcy. This is a major victory for the banking business, and these guys need to be held up as the 'poster child' of present and future banking activities," said Kevin Giddis, managing director at Morgan Keegan & Co., about Wells Fargo.

Building a Telescope

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Trent and I both love astronomy. And, as anyone who has seen my bedroom set knows, Trent has an amazing talent with woodworking. So, we decided it would be fun to build a telescope together.

The tube is made out of mahogany. Trent started out with planks like he has in his left hand.

Beginnings of the bearings.

Trent's done most of the work so far, but I've helped a little, too. Here's me sanding down the tube.

The bottom-left part of the pic shows sections that have been sanded. Power tools rock.

Trent in the carport/workshop.

To be continued...

Who's duh man?

TRENT IS THE MAN! He just put a swamp cooler--which he found on craigslist for $100 and fixed up himself--on my roof! And the only help he had was a push of a button from me for about 5 minutes. Sound like a miracle? Nope, just my brilliant, handy husband at work.

So, in case anyone ever needs to do this, here's how (all these pics were taken after the fact, but work with me here; use your imagination):

Step #1: Attach a length of rope to your handy-dandy winch. (Doesn't everyone have one of those? Great for four-wheeling, camping, pulling out tree stumps, and other miscellaneous household chores. )

Step #2: Extend the rope over the top of the roof and tie it to the swamp cooler.

Step #3: Place the swamp cooler on a "ramp" created from a ladder and bath towels.


Step #4: Call your wife on her cell phone. Use the cell phones as walkie-talkies while she operates the winch in front of the house and you guide the swamp cooler up the ramp on the other side.


Tada! Swamp cooler on the roof."Well, it's up here!"

I love my husband. As he put it, "Work smarter, not harder."

Of course, our little man wandered around keeping himself busy while we worked and saying "help Daddy, help Daddy."

He was so good, Daddy even let him have a little ride on the "beep-beep" (scooter). Well, not really, but he did like sitting on it.