Project Kristian

Life has a funny way.

2018-01-26T15:50:00.000-07:00

I recently got an email about some changes that Google made to this blog. I clicked on the link and it was like going back in time to look at all of my old blog posts. It made me start contemplating why I don't write anymore. There are so many things that have happened in my life that I didn't write about. Well why didn't I? Is it because I am lazy? Did I lose interest? Did I think that people didn't care? Well, that last one can't be true, because my blogs were mostly for me. A type of journal to record my life and remind me of my mindset at those very important times in my life. Since then, I have had even more things happen in my life. The birth of my son after my Vasectomy reversal, Trips all over the world, and all of the happy and beautiful things that have happened in between.

The only reason I can think of that I didn't write, is that I have been busy living. As I look back on the last few un-blogged years. I wish that I could read about what I went through. Little reminders of the happiness that I could re-live by reading it. I think that I have been so busy living this life that I am so lucky to have, that I have never thought to stop and record it. Until now.... To catch up, here is the last family picture that we did. It is missing my newest Grandson Axton, but it will have to do until we take another.

the little boy on the left is our little miracle baby Cohen. He just turned 4 years old two weeks ago. He is an amazing, cute, and smart little boy and I am so glad that we did everything that we did to bring him into this world. Everything in my life is perfect. We own a house, everyone is healthy, and the love is strong. Jamie and I have been together for 8 years now, and it is even better than it ever has been. We have spent those years building a marriage, friendship, and parental unity that is definitely something to be proud of.

I hope that in the future, I can stop to smell the roses (or to write it all down here). Or maybe I will even go back to some of the highlights and write about them before the memory gets too faded. Being January of 2018, maybe I should have added this to my list of resolutions.

A Real Boy!!

2013-07-26T14:20:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was our 15 week doctor appointment. Going into this appointment, we knew that the doctor was going to be able to tell the gender of our baby. Time went by pretty fast leading up to this day, that is, until yesterday morning. The day seemed to drag because we were both pretty focused on this appointment because it was going to show us so much. Not only would we be able to tell the gender and finally be able to start shopping and picking things out, we were going to be able to see our little babies growth. A baby develops a lot in a month and I was excited to see more of a baby with hands, feet, face, and be able to check and make sure that the baby was growing normal and doing well.

We got to the doctors office early, and luckily got straight back there. It wasn't as busy as it normally was, but that is probably just because of how late our appointment was. We go to this doctor because on Thursdays he works late and does some evening appointments. I can't really take much time off work, and there is no way I am missing out on anything so it works out really well for us. We had Jerzie with us, and when the doctor started the ultrasound she started to tell him about how she wants a sister. The doctor told her "Well lets take a look between the legs and see what we can see". He got some pretty good shots and we could see pretty clear as day what this baby was, but the doctor wasn't saying anything. After a few minutes, and with how obvious it was to us, Jamie said "So its a boy?" Still looking at the screen to be sure the doctor said "I didn't want to blurt it out too soon since your daughter wants a sister, but yes it is a boy!"

As soon as we left the doctors office, we called both of our parents to tell them. We had already guessed that it was most likely going to be a boy from the last appointment and from looking over the ultrasound so nobody was really all that surprised, including us, but they all were excited of course. We had spent the last month kind of getting used to the idea that we were probably going to have a boy. As we were driving home, I started thinking about it. I had a big grin on my face. Not because it was going to be a boy. I am happy about that, but I would have been happy either way. I was grinning because our baby has taken a small step to becoming a person. I don't really like saying "it", so most of the time when talking, I would say "the baby". Now "he" is growing. We can talk about "him" and "his" future and what kind of life we want to make for "him". That is such an exciting thought. To now be able to project my mind into what is to come and know that in a few months I am going to be holding a baby boy makes it that much more real. What an amazing thing it is to create life.

My two older sons were really hoping for a brother, so they will be happy. Because of the summer schedule, I won't be able to see them to tell them for another 2 weeks, but I can't wait to let them know. In the meantime, it looks like we will finally be able to do some shopping. Blue it is!!

As it should be....

2013-06-21T13:45:00.001-06:00

Do you believe in fate? That things happen for a reason? karma? Soul mates? I have often pondered these kind of things. Although I may be a skeptic, I can't help but see what happens right in front of my eyes and in my heart. When Jamie and I decided that we do want a child together, it was before my grandson was born. My daughter was in high school, my boys lived with their Mom and only came for 2 weekends a month. All we had in the house was Jamie's daughter and my daughter. Of course being a teenager, my daughter would either be out somewhere or locked in her room, so the house seemed pretty empty most of the time. Jamie and I have always felt that we were perfect for each other. We have the same interests, and even the same thought process most of the time. We make the same decisions and it seems that we know what each other are thinking. Most of the time, one of us will start a conversation that is based on what the other was thinking about at that moment. I know it sounds cliche and maybe exaggerated, but we are connected on a level that neither of us has ever known, or even believed could be possible. We always thought that it was such a shame that we couldn't produce a life out of such an amazing bond. We did the research, found out it was possible, and decided that we did want that. The house was empty and we wanted to have another child around. Then we found out that my daughter was pregnant... At first I locked up and said "that's it, its over. We can't have a baby now." But, when the dust settled. I still wanted a baby with Jamie. So we went through with the surgery (see my previous post) and started on the journey to conceive.

The first weekend in May was our first real 2 week wait from trying to conceive to taking a pregnancy test. Jamie and I went camping and four-wheeling by ourselves that weekend because we didn't have any of the kids. We camped Friday night and came back on Saturday because we had plans to take Jerzie to Lagoon on Sunday morning. We had talked about when we were going to take a pregnancy test, we both felt pretty confident that this could be the month that it happened. We were tempted to test Saturday night, but everyone knows that it is best to test first thing in the morning, so we waited. On Sunday morning, I woke up to Jamie saying "babe, wake up, I think there is a line" I jumped out of bed like a kid who just realized it was Christmas morning. I ran into the bathroom, and sure enough, there were 2 lines on that test "THAT IS A POSITIVE, WE ARE PREGNANT!!!"

Not in my wildest dreams did I really think it would happen this fast, and never closed my mind to the fact that it may not happen at all. It is amazing to know that our entire journey to this point was all worth it. That we will actually be able to have a baby together. Over the next couple of days, we did about a hundred of those tests just to "be sure" and that second line kept getting darker. We didn't really want to tell anyone until we had been to the doctor and confirmed, but there was no doubt these tests were positive. It was just before Mother's Day, so we had to think of a good way to tell our parents. We took a picture of a positive test, added some words, and put it in a frame for each of our Mothers. They of course were so excited for us, and for having a new grandbaby!

As I said in the title of the post, everything feels like it is as it should be. Our lives constantly just fit into place like it is just supposed to be that way. Everything feels natural and although we work hard and try to create the best life possible for our family, it still all just seems to fall into place when we put our mind to something that we want. What an amazing family we have, I can't wait for this new little one to join us. My anticipation is driving me crazy. Will it be a boy or girl? What will this baby look like? What kind of personality will this child have? When will we get to meet him/her? I can't wait for all of these questions to be answered, but for now we are enjoying the thoughts of what will be. We have since been to the doctors, and here is the first picture of our little bean! Due on January 16th (my Moms birthday), and it can't come soon enough.

Undo what has been done. To Oklahoma and back!

2013-06-17T17:43:00.002-06:00

When Jamie and I first became a couple, we had to overcome a lot of obstacles. There was our mixed families, our children, our age difference, the fact that our friends knew both of our ex's. But one of the biggest obstacles that we had to face was the fact that I had chose to have a vasectomy in the past and could no longer have any children. Jamie only has one child and wanted more of her own. We often would talk about it, and it was somewhat of an issue in the beginning of our relationship. Luckily Jamie decided that she loved me enough that she was willing to marry me despite the fact that we would not be able to have any children together. After settling into marriage we had some talks about how we would like to have a child together so we did a little research into vasectomy reversal surgery. In searching we found out that there are only a handful of doctors in the U.S that specialize in this surgery. There are a lot that claim to be able to perform it, but very few that have a large success rate. After a lot of research, we found a doctor in Oklahoma that not only does 16 surgeries a week and has one of the highest success rates, he also had really good prices. We could fly to Oklahoma, get a hotel and rental car, and get the surgery for less than a surgeon here in Utah would charge. After a lot of conversations, we decided we were going to do it! We started saving money and got on a waiting list for an appointment. I did some weekends of back to back tattoos to help raise the money for the flight, and some amazing people even donated to the cause. One day we got an email that we had an appointment booked with the doctor. It was on Feb 22nd 2013. We were so excited to actually have a shot at having a baby together.

As it got closer to the day, I started to feel a little nervous. When I first got the vasectomy done, there was a complication with the local anesthetics, and they hadn't numbed me properly. I ended up in a lot of pain and had a terrible and somewhat traumatic experience. You can't help but feel a little nervous after something like that. We flew out of Salt Lake City the day before the surgery, and got into Tulsa, Oklahoma fairly late. We got our rental car and had about an hour drive from the airport to the hotel. I was tired, so I fell asleep easy in the hotel, but then nerves kicked in. I was awake at the crack of dawn and couldn't go back to sleep even though my surgery wasn't scheduled until 1 pm. We had some breakfast and made our way to the appointment. It was so surreal to actually be at the appointment talking to the doctor, I couldn't get over the thought of "This is happening" "We are actually doing this". Once I got on the operating table and he successfully numbed the area, I was fine (it also could have something to do with the Xanax he gave me to keep me calm ha ha). After getting most of the prep work done, he even let Jamie in the room while he finished up. Everything went great, we had some good conversation with the doctor during the procedure. He made me feel comfortable and relaxed and although I am not religious, he said one of the most impressive prayers I have ever heard, gotta love that bible belt . He felt good about the end result of the surgery, we felt good about it, and he gave us an 85% chance of getting a return of sperm. Pregnancy chances of course are lower than that, but we felt good that the surgery went well, I wasn't in any pain, and we were excited that there really was a chance that we could get pregnant in the future.

The day after the surgery we just hung out in the hotel room trying to let me heal. I actually felt pretty good, the pain was manageable and it was nice to just hang out in a hotel room with my wife. The feeling pretty good all came to a bitter end though when it came to the flight home. The drive to the airport wasn't too bad, but sitting up for too long would start to make me sore. We got to Tulsa and had quite a while to wait for our flight. We got a wheelchair from the airport and hung out in one of the restaurants in the terminal until it was time to go. We flew from Tulsa to Denver and then had a 2 hour layover in the Denver airport. They had a wheelchair waiting for us in Denver and they took us to our gate. I told the guy pushing the wheelchair that we had a 2 hour layover and wanted to get something to eat and asked if Jamie could push me around until our flight left. "No" he said " I am responsible for this wheelchair, it is not allowed to leave my sight". Wow, you're kidding me.. So we got dropped off at the gate and I started bitching about our experience to the gate attendant. When we got our tickets printed off, the airline had put Jamie and I in different seats. I needed help getting around, and had to sit with an ice pack down my pants. I did not want anyone but Jamie next to me on the flight. The person at the gate called a motorized cart to get us and take us to one of the restaurants, and assured us that he would handle the seating arrangements. To get food we had to travel to the other end of the terminal, there was nothing by our gate. Since we had about an hour until our flight left, the woman driving the cart dropped us off and told us she would return at a certain time to pick us up again. From sitting in the car, the airport, the plane, and now the hard restaurant stools, I was starting to get uncomfortable and really starting to feel the pain of the surgery that I had avoided until now. While we were waiting for the woman to come and get us, I decided to take one of the"just in case" painkillers that the doctor had prescribed hoping that would make me feel a little better. We sat waiting for the woman in the cart to return, but there was no one coming. We called down to the gate and told them that we needed a ride back, and still nobody came. It was starting to get very close to the time our flight would leave and my discomfort was not getting any better. Still, nobody came to get us. It was too far for me to walk, so we went behind the counter at one of the gates, took one of the wheelchairs, and started heading back to the gate. When we got about half way back to the gate we saw the woman that had dropped us off at the restaurant running down the terminal pushing an empty wheelchair. She came running over to us apologizing that she had forgotten about us, and in a rush because the plane was getting ready to board.

Thankfully, when we got back to the gate, the attendant had done what he had promised and we were handed our new tickets with our seats right next to each other. We made it onto the plane just in time for us to sit on the runway for 45 minutes while they deiced the wings. By now I was completely miserable and couldn't wait to get home and lay down and not have to sit in these uncomfortable seats anymore. Finally the plane took off into the air. About 30 minutes into the flight, I started to feel sick. I started to shake and sweat. This had happened once before, so I immediately knew what was happening. I was having a reaction to the pain medication that I had taken in the Denver airport. I pulled out the little doggy bag that they put in the back of every seat, opened it up knowing that I just may have to use it. There was no way I was in any condition to make it to the bathroom. Even if I was, we were going through a bad patch of weather and the plane was bouncing everywhere and the "fasten seat belt" signs were lit up. The flight attendant noticed my condition and brought me some bags of ice to put on my neck and a bigger bag for me to throw up in. By this point I was sweating so bad that my shirt was drenched. I looked like I had just taken a shower in my clothes. I did not want the embarrassment of throwing up on a plane, I was already getting an embarrassing amount of attention from the people around us. I was in the window seat, so I tried to sink into the side of the plane with my plastic bag and as quiet as possible, I threw up in the plastic bag. What did I do so terrible that I deserved this kind of misery. Fortunately, just like last time I had had this kind of reaction, it completely passed and I went right back to normal for the rest of the flight. Please just get me home and in my bed!! I sure hope our future baby understands what I went through for him/her to get here...

A little early and a little late.

2013-06-17T12:03:00.002-06:00

I just logged into my blog and noticed that it has been exactly a year since I last posted. There has been way too many new developments in our lives for me to have waited this long. I'm not really sure why I haven't created any blogs about any of this, but I plan on catching up on all of the highlights in the next few posts. One of the biggest things that happened at the end of the year, is I became a Grandparent. Yes, that's right. at age 34 my first Grandchild was born on November 10th. His name is Rayden Kace, and he is adorable. Because I am late writing this, he is now 7 months old, is a little chunk and is nothing but smiles all the time.

Becoming a Grandparent at such a young age is a hard thing to deal with. My daughter was born when I was only 17, I struggled for a lot of years trying to raise her because I was still trying to establish my own life and find a career path to support a family. I always hoped that my daughter wouldn't go down the same path that I did. When she first told us that she was pregnant, as you can imagine, I freaked out. I was so angry, disappointed, and sad. I am sure that if you asked my daughter about that point in time she would probably say that I didn't care about what was going on with her, and that all I cared about was money. Which yes, just like any parent, when something big like this happens. Both medically and support of a new child, you look at those dollar signs and lose your mind for a while. But, the truth of the matter, is I was angry at the fact that my daughter has to go down the same hard road that I went down. Sure, now that she is older, I have my life together and everything is fine, but my daughter doesn't know the hard road that I shielded her from growing up. I wish that I could take the memories of the hard times and things that I had to do, the worries, the financial burdens, dealing with an emotional child because the other parent was absent, and project them for my daughter to see so that she will understand why I was so angry at her being pregnant. Then I stop and look at the situation, and I realize that in 10 or 15 years, she WILL know. She will have lived it and will understand why I never wanted that for her.

Then came the amazing day that he was born. I love babies, I love children, I love the miracle of new life, and just like with any child born, we welcomed him with open arms. It was a little odd getting used to the grandparent roll. It is an interesting situation to have a child come into the world that is your blood, that you love and will do anything to protect, but it is not your child. You don't get to choose the name, or the style of clothes, or the way that they are raised. It is a new experience to love from arms length. And it has turned out to be such a great feeling. Now that he has been here for 7 months, we have adjusted to life with him around and of course, wouldn't have it any other way. We love him like any grandparent loves their grandkids and we are looking forward to watching him grow and learn.

Being called a Grandad..... That is still going to take some getting used to.

Vacation to real life - a tough transition

2012-06-14T14:42:00.000-06:00

Once again I have been lacking the desire to write over the past few months, but I have been reflecting on some recent events and was struck with the urge to write down how I am feeling right now to see if it helps to get it out there and off my chest. I will try to come back to this blog in a couple of days because there have been a lot of new things in our life that I really need to write about. But, for now...

Our family just recently returned from an awesome trip to Disneyland/California Adventures/Venice Beach. We had such a good time. My oldest son Sabien hugged me pretty much every hour saying "Disneyland is AWESOME! Thank you for bringing us". The boys got to see the ocean and play in the waves for the first time in their life (which they couldn't get enough of). Every one of the kids had so many happy moments through the week, even the hotel room was exciting for the kids. It feels so good to be able to do that for my kids and create some good experiences and memories. I owe a huge "Thank You" to my wife Jamie for always planning these kind of things for our family, she has made all of our lives so much better over the last couple of years and the happiness just keeps pouring out of us all.

I have to explain to you the feelings that I said I needed to get off my chest. I am the happiest I have ever been in my life. Finding someone as perfect for me as my wife has helped me raise our quality of life. We compliment each other and work together as a team to make our hopes and dreams a reality. Because of this I have been able to expand my experiences more than I ever thought I could before our family was formed, those experiences are on a whole new level now because of how happy I am. The issue that I have come across in my own mind, is finding it hard not to cling to these moments. Every time we plan a vacation or outing, we have an amazing time. I come home and look at the pictures and reflect on the fun times that we had and I find that my heart aches to have it back. I never want it to be over! I have never been this kind of person, so I have no idea where it comes from. Is it because I spent so many years unhappy making me fear that this feeling wont last or come again? Is it because I am getting older and appreciate the good times more than I did when I was younger? I never have been the kind of person that spends a lot of time looking in the rear view mirror, but I think that may be because what has always been behind me is worse than what lies ahead. I think that maybe for the first time in my life both the road ahead and the road behind are bright and happy and I haven't quite figured out how to deal with that. Like I said before, I am just trying to get this out there to see if it relieves some of the ache that I feel. I know that I just need to look forward and more good times will be coming in the future, but I wanted to record and share the fact that I am having these feelings right now. I am so excited for my life ahead with my family. I finally feel what it is like to truly LOVE LIFE and I can't wait until I have fully accepted that this is my life now, that I have arrived to true happiness!

P.S. Today is Jamie's 25th Birthday. Happy Birthday Love. Thank You for all that you do, I Love You!!

Goodbye 2011, bring on the dreaded 2012

2011-12-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

Well, it is almost the New Year. Time to reflect on the last year of events as we say goodbye to 2011 and welcome 2012. This year has been an incredible year for me. I think I will even go as far as saying it is the best year I have ever had.

I started out the year with some resolutions to get back into a healthy lifestyle and perspective. I started dieting hard right at the beginning of January, and I am happy to say that over all, with a few ups and downs, I am ending the year about 30 pounds lighter than I started it (it would have been less, but I couldn't help but gain a few back over the holidays).

In February, I took my very first tropical vacation to Hawaii with Jamie's family. It was breathtaking, and an experience that I will never forget and forever want to repeat. I am so upset with myself that it has taken me as long as it did to go on a beautiful vacation like that. I am so thankful for Jamie's family for setting everything up and inviting us to join them. I am so grateful that I was able to have that experience. While in Hawaii, Jamie and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary of when we first became an official couple.

In April, after being out of work for about 5 months, I finally got a job in Centerville at a place called Masco. I am doing the same kind of work that I have been doing for years, and they are even paying me a little bit more than I made when I got laid off. It was so nice to get back to having a steady paycheck coming in again, and it was such a relief to be able to start looking forward again instead of just trying to deal with right now.

In July came the best and biggest event of the year. Jamie and I GOT MARRIED! She really is the love of my life, and we are so perfect for each other. The wedding was beautiful, everything went as planned and everyone had a good time. We were so happy, and if you look through the pictures it is hard to find one where we both don't have a smile on our face. Because of the visitation schedule with the kids, we didn't go on our honeymoon straight away. About two weeks after we got married we headed to Las Vegas. My parents had paid for a hotel for us for the entire time we were there and we loved it. This was our first time ever going away together where it was just the two of us. We had so much fun. I really should have done a blog just for that because there was a lot going on.

During the summer of 2011, we sold my Jetski and bought 2 four wheelers. We took a lot of trips camping and day trips of riding the four wheelers. The kids love riding on them, and we got to see a lot of trails in the mountains that we normally wouldn't have been able to see. I loved having the jetski, but I am glad that we made the decision to change it for four wheelers because it has become a lot more of a family activity and there are a lot more trails in these mountains than there are lakes! We also changed our vehicle situation during the year this year. We sold the vehicles we had, and now we have a 2002 Ford Expedition and a 1997 Honda Civic.

In the end of the year, we added to our family by getting our German Short Hair puppy that we named "Radar". He has an amazing story, and if you haven't already, you need to read the post before this one to get the whole story.

With all of this good that has happened, there have also been a few, but very big down sides to this year. The day after my birthday in January, my Grandad passed away. He was such an inspiration to me and I will miss my talks with him and the visits every summer, nobody will ever be as excited to hear me play the guitar and sing as he was. I also watched three of my brothers get put away in prison for 5 years to life. Two of them will be deported back to England after they serve their time. If you know anything about me and my family, then you know that my Brothers are my best friends as well as my family, and life will just never be the same without them.

And so, as we move into what some people believe to be the last year of civilization. I hope that I can have just as many good experiences and none of the bad. Of course, I do not believe that the world will all end on December 21st of 2012, but I plan on living this year as if it WAS going to end!

A 3 pound Miracle with a Broken Heart!

2011-12-19T16:58:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since I have written a blog, I really wish I was better at keeping up on this. I really need this outlet to get my thoughts and experiences on paper. Today I want to write about a little puppy that we got and his amazing story.

When we first got Radar, he was 6 weeks old, the runt of the litter, and not in very good shape. He only weighed 3 pounds. We were struggling to find a name for him, and we were trying to think of things to do with love because he had an upside down heart on the markings on his side. We couldn't think of anything that would work for love, or even maybe anti-love because it was upside down so we settled on Radar because he is a hunting breed of dog. He did not get the regular puppy care before he came to live with us. He was skinny and obviously suffering from malnutrition, but he had a big swollen abdomen which of course usually means one thing, worms. We took him into the vet, they told us how dehydrated and under nourished he was because of the infestation of worms. We gave him two treatments of dewormer, switched him to an expensive type of dog food to give him those extra nutrients so that he could get back to a normal weight. He finally started to come around, he was no longer lethargic and shaking. He was running around like a normal puppy and starting to put a little weight on his bones. We took him back to the vet to get his shots and he had gained a whole pound. We were so happy for him to be getting back to being a regular little puppy.

We took him with us to visit our families on Thanksgiving, and he was running around playing with the kids and just being a fun little puppy, everyone loved him.

The next day we were just hanging out at home relaxing for the day after thanksgiving and out of nowhere he just started throwing up in the living room. We checked him out, he seemed ok, so we just thought that maybe he got into some Thanksgiving food that the kids dropped on the floor and probably upset his stomach. The next day, we noticed that all he wanted to do was sleep. He ate a little bit of his food in the morning but mostly just slept all day. We noticed this change but thought that maybe he was just going through a growth spurt or something and that was the reason he was sleeping. We kind of just left him alone and let him rest. We woke up that Sunday, and he was still lethargic, and he wouldn't eat or drink anything. We put one of his favorite milkbone treats in front of him and he wouldn't touch it. That is when we knew that something was seriously wrong. We have known people that had been through Parvovirus with puppies before, and we were worried that he may have somehow contracted it. We did some searches online to see if there was any kind of treatments that we could do to help him. Everything online told us that the biggest threat of the virus is dehydration from what the virus does to the intestines. We immediately drove to the store for pedialyte and baby food, we were determined to nurse him better and we would force it if we had to. We started to feed him the baby food and pedialyte through a medicine syringe into the back of his mouth so that he had to swallow it.

That night we put the baby gate on the door in our master bathroom so that we could keep an eye on him all night. That night was horrible, he was throwing up the pedialyte all night. We woke up about every hour to give him more to make sure that he didn't get too far into dehydration, but it was definitely not looking good for the poor little guy, especially knowing how high the death rate of Parvo is in puppies. We took him to the vet clinic the next day and got him some outpatient treatment. It took a lot of care and cuddling but eventually he started to eat on his own again.Of course, by the time he started to come around, because he wasn't in the best condition when he got sick, he was just a skeleton with skin and fur. It was so sad to see him so skinny and sick. I am happy to say that he has now made a full recovery and is once again gaining weight, he is now just over 8 pounds and is a normal healthy puppy. Although he has completely recovered, there is one difference that we noticed in him from his experience. His once solid heart now has a break right through the middle!!! I have heard of people wearing their heart on their sleeve, but who would have thought that you could actually watch it break. Here are some before and after Parvo pictures just in case you don't believe me. Can you see the broken heart?

25 years and counting!

2011-09-08T13:56:00.000-06:00

25 years ago today, my parents, along with 6 young kids, made the journey from England in search for a better life in the United States. my parents were only a few years older than I am right now, and I couldn't imagine leaving my family and moving to another country. It was such a brave thing to do. I will tell you a little bit of the story of us moving here and the hardships and blessings that came to follow.

      When my parents first decided to move here, they contacted an immigration lawyer in Chicago that said he could get everything taken care of and told us to come on over and as soon as we arrive he will get all of the paperwork done and we can start our new life. Sounds easy right? Well as most people know, immigration is never that easy, but that is not something my parents realized yet. We sold most of what we had, and put anything important that we wanted to keep in a crate and shipped it to the U.S. We got on a plane and came over. When we got here, my parents ended up finding out that the lawyer that they had been talking to was a crook. Everything that he promised us was not true, and the way that he was going about things was illegal. They fired that lawyer and hired an awesome lawyer in Salt Lake City. The only problem is this new lawyer told us the truth of how immigration really works. He told us that we just needed to lay low for 7 years to get established in the community and then we would be able to apply for residency. Of course, we were already here, and couldn't afford to make the journey back and so we stayed and decided to stick it out. It was not easy. My Dad couldn't find a good job because of his immigration status and my Mom couldn't work at all. I am not sure what the exact numbers were because I was only a kid, but I think that my dad only made about $14,000 his first year here and he had 6 kids to feed. Luckily because my parents are such great people, we had a great supporting group of people that helped us out through the years.

     There were a lot of things that effected me through all of this. We ended up getting our legal status when I was 17 years old. Although I had completed drivers education, I wasn't able to get my license when I was 16 because I didn't have a social security number. I used to get called down to the office at school because the school wanted my social security number for the school records, and I had to work crappy jobs with Mexican immigrants as a teenager just to name a few. When I was 19, I went back to England to visit. I always felt like an outcast because of being a foreigner, and so I was excited to go back. When I got there, they commented about how American I was! So much for that! When I got back, I wrote a song about how i felt. My parents have always told me that the song makes them feel bad for the emotion caused by the move here, but the truth of the matter is that no matter what I went through to get here, I now have the better life that they wanted to give us all. I have 4 healthy children, I have a beautiful amazing wife, a great job, a nice house, awesome supportive friends, and a hundred other things that I might not have been able to have if we would have stayed in England. I couldn't wish for more, so Thank You Mom and Dad for being so brave and giving me a chance at the life that I have!

I LOVE MY LIFE, but I can't help but wonder sometimes... What would have become of my life if we would have stayed?

Bells will Ring, and fireworks in the sky!

2011-06-25T12:00:00.105-06:00

Exactly one week from today, I am going be lucky enough to marry the Girl of my Dreams, the Love of my Life, The beautiful Jamie Ann.

Time has really flown by, and I can't believe the day is only a week away. Jamie has stuck by my side through some very rough times and I can't wait to officially become one, as a team to take on this crazy world together! I want you all to know that I have never been more in love or as happy as I am right now, and I really believe that we have a recipe that can endure any hardships through the rest of our lives.

Because of it being 4th of July weekend, I am sure that a lot of the state will be celebrating with fireworks on the night of our wedding. I think that will be a perfect end to a perfect night to have fireworks in the sky. Of course, there is one wish that I have that could make this day even more perfect, and that would be to have my best friends, my brothers, Jacob, Andrew, and Matthew, and my sister Kathryn there to share the moment. A wedding is about family and the merging of two families, and I am so sad that so much of my family will be missing for such a happy union.

I want to use this blog to say a few words to all of our family members.
To my Mum and Dad: Thank you for always being supportive of me for everything in my life, I could never have asked for better, more understanding parents than you. You have already accepted Jamie as part of the family and I look forward to the years to come when you get to see over and over how great she is for me and how happy she makes me. As I don't say enough, I Love You.
To my future In-Laws: Thank you so much for accepting me as a Husband for Jamie. You have done such a great job in raising a great woman, and I will always be in your debt for that. I want you to know that I will always strive to be the man that she deserves. I will take care of her and love her from your example and will always do whatever it takes to not let her, or any of you down. I love you all as if you were my own family.
To Our Children: I promise you all that as we come together as a family that I will always make sure that you are part of a loving home and that you will always have an abundance of love and all of the things you need to be happy and grow into healthy adults. I love you all so much!
To Jamie: I love you, I love you, I love you! I am so happy that I found you, you fill a hole in me that I never knew was missing until I had you. You are my One True Love, my beautiful lover, my best friend, and my reason to be a better man. I am so happy that I am going to spend the rest of my life with a woman as incredible as you, and I am so proud to be yours and I can't wait to call you my Wife. I promise you that I will always work as hard as I can to keep our relationship as happy and loving as it is today. I love you more than I can express and I hope that I can always deserve the same love in return.

A Working Class hero is something to be.....

2011-04-18T13:30:00.000-06:00

Sorry that it has been a while since I have blogged, you would think that with all of the time on my hands from being unemployed I would have had more time to write, but it seems that I was always finding other things to do with my time, between painting and keeping up on the day to day needs of the house, I just never seemed to get online to write. I have some great news since I last wrote a blog, I have finally found a job. Ever since I got laid off back in November, I had been talking a lot with the company that I used to work for, Harris Rebar. They were looking to expand and were interested in hiring me. The Manager there had told me that he just needed to get approval from the corporate office to hire someone. Since I already had a vacation planned to go to Hawaii for a week, I figured I wouldn't give them too much pressure until I got back from that trip. When I got back, I started to call them and really put the pressure on. They led me on for about a month until I finally got a solid answer from them. They could not hire me! I was completely floored by the news, and started to get pretty worried about whether I was going to find a job. Now I had to find something else. I wrote up a resume of all of my experience in the rebar business, printed them on some nice cardstock and went out to drop them off. I dropped off resumes to the two rebar fabricators in the Ogden area and I got a call from one of them to come in for an interview. It was the closest one to my house, so I was really excited about it. I went in for an interview, and I really felt like it went well. I called them the next day, and they told me they decided that they were not ready to expand. Once again, my hopes are shattered. The next week, I decided that I needed to take a resume to every single rebar company in the valley. Even if I had a long commute, I needed to get working. A few days later, I got a call from Masco in Centerville to come in for an interview. I didn't want to get my hopes up because I had already been let down twice, but it really seemed like they were interested. I went to the interview on a Thursday afternoon and was surprised when they asked me if I could start on Monday. FINALLY!!! I GOT A JOB!! I could not get out of there fast enough to tell Jamie and start spreading the news. It was such a relief to finally have something go my way.

I really enjoyed having the time home that I did. I had a chance to get back aligned with myself. I got back into painting, got the t-shirt printing back up and running and learned to appreciate being employed. Although I was enjoying the free time, and still was able to pay bills with extra money that I made on the side, I really felt like I was in limbo. Every plan that I tried to make, or looking into the future seemed to start with the phrase "when I start working again". It seemed that the last five months of my life, I was just on pause waiting for my life to start again. Now I am on my second week of work and my life already feels to be back on track. I can once again start making plans without reservation. When I was working before, I hated going to work every day, I was burned out and jaded. Now I have a whole new outlook on everything. I am doing the exact same job, in the exact same industry, but now I am happy to be here instead of wishing for a different job. Having that time without a job helped me hit the reset button in my mind and appreciate the things that I have. I hope that this feeling lasts a long time. I hope that my time without a job and my desire to find one so bad has given me a new perspective that I can keep with me as I move forward. So here I go, back to work and better than ever!

Life after death or coincidence?

2011-02-04T08:44:00.001-07:00

I have a touching story that I would like to share with you. I know a lot of people have different beliefs, but even with my beliefs, this was a touching story.

When my Grandparents were younger, I think it was even before my Mom was born, they had a daughter that died at birth. Back in those days, because of lack of space, and I guess just how things were, when a baby was still born they put them in a grave with other still born babies and marked the tombstone with the records of who their parents were and when they died. My grandparents never knew where there daughter was buried. They had tried to find out years ago but never found the grave.

When my Grandad past away, my Mom's friend here in the U.S. decided that she needed to do something for my family. She knew about this story of their lost daughter and thought that with the Internet now, she might be able to find some record of the baby. She did her research and actually found the grave where the little girl was buried. She was excited to be successful, but at the same time she was worried that she was over stepping her bounds. She went back and forth about whether or not to tell them. Finally she just decided that she would email my Mom and give her all of the information.

My Mom got the email and was excited. She knew that this would be a good thing for my Nana and gave her a call. She told My Nana the whole story and that they had found where her daughter was buried. My Nana was through the roof over this. She told my Mom her side of this story. She told my Mom that when my Grandad was in his final stages of life and wasn't responding to anything, she knew that he needed to go but was holding on. She said that she walked over to him and whispered in his ear "Norman, its time.. You need to go." She said "Go and find our daughter, and if you can, find a way to let me know where she is"

Now my Nana is at peace, because to her this means that my Grandad heard her, did what she asked, and is still watching over her. Coincidence or not, I am so glad that she has that kind of peace.

A Final Goodbye!

2011-01-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

If you have been reading my blogs, then you know all about the story of me and my grandfather, if you haven't read them then you should scroll through my blog to get a little of the history. My Grandad has been pretty ill for the last few months, he had once fought the battle against prostate cancer, but recently the cancer returned and spread to the rest of his body. There was absolutely no fighting it this time. A couple of weeks ago we received the news that he only had a week or two left to live. I gave him a call, and even though he was tired and on a lot of pain medication he took the time to talk to me. It was of course a very depressing phone call. He told me all about how he knew that the end was near, about how my Nana took such great care of him. He told me that he needs to go soon so that he can give my Nana a break. Not something I wanted to hear him say. On a good note, he told me how proud he is of me for everything that I do, especially the music. He said, "You are a good kid Kris, I have always thought that". He told me that he has a hard time keeping long conversations and that he was too tired to talk. We said our goodbyes which I knew would be our final words, told each other "I Love You" and he hung up the phone.

At 9 p.m. on Monday, the day after my Birthday, I got a call from my Mom. She was calling to tell me that he had passed away. At first I just thought "ok, we were all expecting this" but then my emotions took over. It seems that no matter how much time you have to prepare yourself for this kind of thing, it never gets any easier. One of the really hard things about my situation that I have learned when I have lost other family members in England, is that it is a very hard thing to come to terms with. Because they live so far away and I don't get to see them very often, I am used to them not being around. I can't go to his house and see that he is not there. I can't go to his funeral and face the acceptance of his death. All that I have is the knowledge that he is gone. I can't really explain it too much, but for some reason it is just a harder pill to swallow when you don't get to go through the stages of mourning that most people go through when they lose a loved one.

At the top of this blog is a picture that my sister took when I invited him on stage the last time they visited. I had him sign it. He put his initials on the front and on the back he wrote "We Starred Together". I am so grateful to have had that experience and also to give him that experience. It is a memory that I wouldn't trade for anything. He is definitely a star!

With my Grandad living so far away and coming to visit, it seems that I have always been saying goodbye and wondering if it will be the last. So, after a lifetime of goodbyes, here is my last goodbye to my Idol, my Inspiration, my Motivation, my Muse, and my Wonderful Grandad. Thank you for everything that you gave me. I hope that you will find peace in that meadow of bluebells.

GOODBYE GRANDAD, I LOVE YOU!

The painter reborn

2011-01-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

Jamie and I have been trying to find decor and pictures to decorate our house. We have been wanting some kind of picture for the Tattoo room because it is the first room that you see when you walk into our house. We have looked all over and looked online, and anything that we thought would be cool enough, was also really expensive. Nothing just seemed to fit the room right. After a lot of thinking, I decided that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself.

When I was in school, all I cared about was art. I took all kinds of art classes and liked to consider myself an artist and painter. I did a lot of both acrylic and oil paintings when I was younger, but that all went by the way side when I started doing tattoos. I figured that right now, with the time that I have on my hands would be a great time to pick it all up again.

I wanted a picture that was to do with tattoos since it is for the tattoo room, so I took a picture of my hand holding the tattoo machine and used that as a reference to do the painting. We went and bought a canvas. We decided to try and find the biggest canvas that we could so that it would really fill up the wall. We ended up finding a 36" x 48" canvas and I got to work on it.

First I drew the design on the canvas in pencil so that I could get the basic layout of how the painting needed to be. Then I did a background. I wanted it to be a choppy kind of black and white design fading from black on the edges to white on the inside as it gets closer to the main focus of the painting. Oil paint takes about a week to dry, so I did the background and left it for two days so that it would be surface dry and wouldn't mix too much when I started the rest of the painting. When I carefully touched the painting two days later to check how it was coming along, to my surprise, the painting was completely dry! I knew it had been a while since I painted and I couldn't remember how it should really be at this stage, but I was sure that it shouldn't be this dry. When I did a little investigating, I discovered that I had accidentally bought acrylic paint instead of oil. Well some painter I am, I can't even tell the difference! ha ha. I bought some new tubes of black and white OIL paint and started working again. At least the background was fully dry now.

Next I started working on the glove. Now I am getting to the part where I will find out if I can still do this or not. I got a little bit of practice with the manipulation of paint with a brush when I did the background, but I was really nervous to find out if I still have the ability. I know that I have been doing tattoos for years, so I am well practiced in art, but this was a whole new world to me and I couldn't help but doubt if I could pull it off.

I got the glove about halfway done, and it was actually turning out the way I wanted it to. Yay! I can do this. At this point I was getting pretty excited and all of my nerves and doubts started to go away. I just hoped that I could keep it up through the whole process and finish the painting without hating it. Especially since where it will be hanging, I will see it every day. It would drive me crazy if I was looking at all of the flaws and things I want to change every time I walked into that room.

I started work on the tube and grip next. Now was the real test because this is where the detail really came in. So here come the nerves again. Fortunately my excitement to see the finished product overpowered my nerves and so I continued to paint. I had forgotten how this feels. When I was younger, I was always happiest when I was doing a painting. It is almost a type of meditation or zen feeling. I can't really explain what it is or where it comes from, but I can definitely tell you that even though I enjoy doing tattoos, I don't get the same kind of satisfaction out of it as I do painting on canvas. I made a lot of jokes about how it was nice to have a canvas that doesn't flinch or complain or bleed! I was free to do my own thing without any outside opinions of how it needs to be. Well, that isn't entirely true. I may not have had a person concerned with what was going on their body, but Jamie was still a little concerned about whether it was going to look good enough to be in the front room of our house. So, she voiced a few opinions here and there and I had to reassure her that I will make sure that it all looks right and that I will white out the canvas and start over if it didn't. Luckily, I didn't have to do that. I am really happy with how the painting turned out, and now I am ready to do more. I have some plans for some other rooms in the house and I will be sure to post some pictures and tell you a little about them when I get to that. Meanwhile, here is the finished painting as it hangs on the wall!

The Layoff!

2010-12-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

This week I was working as usual, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. About 3 hours into my Tuesday morning, my boss asked to meet with me and another guy that works there. I stopped work to talk to him and to my surprise he said that our branch was shutting down. He said "as of right now, you are both laid off". WHAT?!? Where the hell did this come from?

Apparently our branch and the branch in Boise, Idaho were not making enough money and so the corporate office decided to shut us down. I packed up all of my personal things, said my goodbye's and left. I am pretty floored by this, this is the first time in years that I have left a job without another one already lined up.

The very same day, I filed for unemployment, and looks like I am going to have to schedule some extra tattoo appointments here in the next couple of weeks. Luckily, the line of work that I am in only has a handful of people that do it in this area. There are about 4 major companies that can use people like me in this valley. I have already talked to two of them and I have set up a meeting with the biggest of the two next week. So now I get to play Mr. Mom. I have been doing laundry and cleaning the house the last 2 days. It is definitely weird to not have a job to go to.

Even though I am not a very religious person, I am a big believer in fate and that things happen for reasons. I have not been very happy at the job that I had. I didn't like some of the people and the work was getting pretty stressful. I had talked with Jamie before about maybe switching to a different employer, but I was the only guy that they had to do the work that I do and I didn't want to just leave them hanging. Shows what I get for being so nice because they didn't have the same kind of respect for me.

I can't help but think that maybe this is the fates pushing and forcing me to make the much needed change. I will keep you all posted about how things go. I am pretty confident that this will end up being a change for the better and I will be able to be happy at my job once again. Until then, I am going to enjoy some much needed time off, clear my head of all of the B.S. that I had to deal with at my old job, and focus on moving forward. Wish me luck!

The Holidays are here...

2010-11-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

This was mine and Jamie's first Thanksgiving together. We decided that we would go to Jamie's families house for the actual Thanksgiving dinner, and then go to my families house for the rest of the day. I was pretty interested how it would be going to Jamie's family dinner because I have never really enjoyed the family get togethers of my ex and this would be my first Thanksgiving with them. I really enjoyed myself and enjoyed the dinner, the food was really good and so was all of the company. I am grateful to have a fiance with such a good family that I can actually enjoy spending time with. It was my year to have the boys for Thanksgiving and they really enjoyed it too. Later on that night we went to my parents house. There has been a long running tradition in my family that all of the women go out shopping after dinner to hit the early black Friday sales and do some Christmas shopping. This of course was Jamie's first time doing this with my family and I think that she really enjoyed it.

The next morning, we got up early to try and hit some of the sales. For one of the things on the Christmas list, we found an ad for at R.C. Willeys. The sale started at 8 a.m., so we got up and got there at about 7:30. The line of people was around the building! We sat in the parking lot for a while contemplating if it would even be worth it and if we would even get a chance to get the item that we wanted. We got out of the car and walked to the back of the line. It was freezing outside and more people just kept showing up so we finally just decided that it wasn't worth it.

Through out the rest of the day we ran around doing a bunch of shopping. Both me and Jamie didn't really have any Christmas decorations, so we bought ourselves a tree, some stockings for everyone, and some other decorations. While we were out shopping, we decided to buy one tree ornament that we picked out together. We are going to pick out a new one every year from this year on to signify our time together. I hope that years down the road, we will be able to look at a tree full of ornaments and think back on all of our years together!

When we got the stockings, we also decided that we would write everyone's names on their stockings. We bought some glitter glue and Jamie wrote the names on each stocking. She did a really good job as you can see and we hung them all on the mantel. I am so excited for our first Christmas together!

When we were looking at the sales on Friday, we found a 50" plasma on sale for an amazing deal. We hurried to my sisters house to get our trailer so that we could buy it. It feels good to be buying a T.V. that is big enough that I need a trailer to transport it! This is the biggest T.V. that I have ever owned, and believe it or not, it is my first flat screen. We had to get a new entertainment center that would actually fit the new T.V. which of course we found on ksl classified. We have watched a few movies since, and I love it!

Last night we were watching a movie, and Jamie fell asleep on the couch. When the movie was over, I went upstairs to set the coffee maker for the morning. I looked back at the living room with our new T.V., our Christmas tree, the mantel full of stockings, our new family picture on the wall, and my beautiful fiance sleeping on the couch. I stopped and just looked and took it all in and thought to myself "I LOVE MY LIFE!!"

Tattoo Roadtrip!

2010-11-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a pretty lengthy blog because so much happened and there is so much to talk about and show you. I will start with how this came about: One of my friends and tattoo clients is originally from Sioux City, Iowa. He moved to Utah when he was still in school. I have given him most of his tattoos, and he has a lot of tattoos. A couple of years ago his dad came down here to visit and I gave him a tattoo. Ever since then the both of them have been talking me up to all of the people in Iowa. A few months ago, Cody's Dad Todd got an idea to get a bunch of people together that want tattoos and get me to travel out there for a couple of days of tattooing. At first I was a little reluctant, but after working it all out I agreed to go down there. If anything I figured I would make a little money and have an interesting experience that I could talk about.

We set it up for the only weekend that we could really do it, I took Thursday and Friday off work and headed out at about 5 am on Thursday November 18th. I figured that I would start out the drive. It was me, My beautiful fiance Jamie, Cody, and his half brother Skyler. We made really good time and I actually ended up Driving the whole way. Through the boring parts of Nebraska, we set up a DVD player on the dash so that we all could watch some Movies. When we first set it up and tried to watch a movie, the volume would not go loud enough for us to hear the movie, so on our next stop for gas and food, we pulled the computer speakers out of the back of the car, plugged them into a power converter and put one speaker in the front of the car and one speaker in the back.. Ghetto Surround sound! ha ha.

We had a few drinks and relaxed when we got there and then went to bed to get some rest for the 2 days of tattooing that I had ahead of me. The next day I got up, we all went out to breakfast and then I got working on all of the tattoos. Here are all of the tattoos that I did while I was there.

Everyone that got a tattoo from me was really happy with the end result, and it all went pretty well. As you can see, I got 11 tattoos done in the 2 days that I had to do it and I was definitely worn out by the time I got finished. The big question that I kept getting from everyone was if I was ever going to come out again because there was a big list of people that didn't get in that would still love to get a tattoo from me. Because we traveled so far, to make it worth it. I charged almost double what I would normally charge here. Everyone was still happy with that because apparently it was still cheaper than what the tattoo shops charge for tattoos out there.

On Friday night when I got finished for the night, we all got ready and hit the bars. There is a street in Sioux City that has about 7 bars on it. The first bar was awesome because up until 10 pm, all drinks were two for one. I ordered a beer each for me and Jamie and it came up to $3. I was thinking great, now I am going to get really drunk. Of course everyone there decided they were going to help out with that and kept buying me drinks. We ended up at a bar called the Firehouse, obviously with the name and the building, it used to be the old firehouse for the town. I ended up being drunk enough that the whole time we were there, I was out on the dance floor. I even got up on the stage dancing with Jamie. For those of you that know me, you know that this is a very rare thing for me to do. I normally DO NOT DANCE! I don't know if it was because I was just having a good time, or if it was because of the drinks I had, or maybe just because I was in a strange town, in a strange bar and just didn't care what people thought. Whatever the reason, I had a really good time. There are a lot of pictures floating around on facebook containing that night, but I don't think that I will post any of them on here.

When it came time to leave, we said our goodbyes and hit the road. Cody started out the drive this time and we were making pretty good time. We got some messages from back home from people checking the weather for us that the road to Evanston was closed, but we figured we would make it as far as we could and just hope that the road would open by the time we got there. We stopped for something to eat in Pines Bluff, Wyoming. When we got off the road, it was raining and kind of freezing on the car, but the roads weren't bad, just wet. Little did we know, that while we were stopped eating and filling up the tank, the roads were starting to turn to ice. We switched off and I started to drive. We got on the freeway and started to get up to speed when we hit a patch of fresh ice. The back end of the car started to wobble and while I was trying to stabilize it, we slid off into the median. As soon as we hit the dirt, the car started to turn sideways. I cranked the wheel into the turn to try and keep the car from rolling, but I just braced myself for it to roll. We slid to a stop on the other side of the freeway. I hurried and put it in reverse and backed down into the median to get out of the way of oncoming traffic. We all jumped out of the car just happy to be alive and checked all of the tires. The back tire was completely blown, I still have no idea if the tire blew first or if it was the result of us sliding sideways down the center of the ditch. We changed the tire, put it in 4 wheel drive and got back on the road. There were wrecks everywhere as we were headed down the freeway, so we decided we were going to call it a day and get a hotel room in Cheyenne and hope that the weather gets better by morning.

To kill the time in Cheyenne, we went out to the movies and watched "Paranormal Activity 2". We stayed the night at the hotel, I think we were all pretty worn out from having such frazzled nerves.

We got up at 7 and then hit the road by 8. The roads were horrible. It had become just packed snow that had been worn smooth by all of the tires driving over it. There were trucks and trailers off the road everywhere and in some spots traffic was just stopped. It took us all day but we finally got into Utah. Because of having to drive so long in 4 wheel drive, it put a lot of strain on the car. Just as we were coming into town, the four wheel drive just blew up and started leaking oil. We had to put it back into two wheel drive and made it the rest of the way. So now we have both the tire and the gears to fix, but over all it was a really good experience!

The big question!

2010-10-25T13:16:00.002-06:00

Well, this is one of my proudest blogs to date. I am so happy to be able to share this with you all.

Jamie and I have had a few conversations about the possibility of getting married, we both agreed that it is something that we would want, but neither of us really knew when we would get engaged or when we would get married. Just like anything else, it is something that just seemed like it would be out there in the future some time. I have slowly been looking at rings and questioning her on what kind of ring and what kind of stone she likes so that I can get her something that she loves. She told me recently that she would wear a 25 cent ring as long as it came from me and meant that we could get married.

On my last paycheck, I had a little bit of money left over after paying all of my bills and thought that I would maybe try and find a ring to get her. On Friday I ran to the mall on my lunch break just to check out the jewelers and see what they had. I went to the first one and didn't really see anything I liked, a couple of maybes, so I thanked the jeweler who helped me and headed to the next. The next one had an even worse selection, and tried to talk me into a fake ring.. blah, blah, yeah right... my girl is much better than that. I am on a budget, but I would rather get a small simple ring than a fake one!! So of course I walked out of that place pretty discouraged and thinking that I would have to do a lot more looking around to find the right ring. As I was leaving, I was going to leave the mall because I was running out of time and I saw that there was another jewelery store right across from the one I was walking out of so I thought I would check it out.
I walked in, told the sales person my price range and she started to show me some rings. This was a lot better selection than the other places, but still nothing jumped out at me. Again I had a few maybes and was about to leave when I thought I would just see what else they had. I told the woman to show me just their regular solitaire rings. We walked over to the counter and she started to pull out some rings to show me.. She pulled out THE ring, once again just to show me and I thought to myself, this ring would be perfect. Of course not as big as I would like, but I thought would be exactly what Jamie would want. As I was looking at it, the woman said "actually, that ring is on sale and is right there in your price range". I stood there staring at the ring, thinking, when I finally decided. I just can't fight fate. This is meant to be, this is the one! I bought the ring and headed back to work.

Now I was faced with having to decide how to ask, I hadn't really had time to think about it, but I wanted it to be something very personal to us. I was racking my brain. I had a few ideas but really couldn't figure it out. I decided after a while of thinking that I wanted it to be very intimate, so I didn't want to go to a public place or a park or any of those things that people usually do. I decided that I wanted to do it laying in bed so that it is just me and her where we sleep every night. Now that I got that out of the way, how do I ask? What do I say? I was going over all kinds of different ways to ask when, just as fate would have it, our song came on my ipod. At first I thought, how cool is that? While I am thinking about how to ask Jamie to marry me that our song would come on randomly out of the almost 3,000 songs on my ipod. Then it hit me.. I will tie it into our song.

The chorus of the song says "Did I say that I need you? Did I say that I want you? oh if I didn't I'm a fool you see, no one knows this more than me" So I went home after work on Friday and Jamie was in bed napping. I of course didn't have the patience to wait until we went to bed at night, so I massaged her back and talked to her for a little while and tried to sneak the ring out of my pocket. When I finally did, I lay down next to her and said "I heard our song at work today, it came on my ipod" She said "What a coincidence, I listened to that song today" I thought YES!! This is perfect. I started to quote the lyrics. I said "Did I say that I need you? Did I say that I want you?" and then I slipped the ring on her finger and said "Did I say that I want to marry you?" She gasped and said "What?" She turned around and I said "Will you marry me?" She said yes and finally looked at the ring.. She loved it!!! I am so happy!

If you want to check out the song, here is a video on youtube that has the lyrics.

The Day Job Defined..

2010-10-04T16:38:00.002-06:00

I realized recently that I have never really blogged about my day job even though I list it on the top of my blog as something that I may potentially blog about. I get a lot of people ask me what I do during the day for a living because some people only know of the extra things that I do. It is always a hard thing to explain because it is a specialized kind of field. Mostly I just tell people I do a kind of Drafting, but it is actually a little more involved than just drawing some plans up like a draftsman does so I will give a shot at trying to explain it to all the people that want to understand more about what occupies my days.

The first thing I usually have to do when explaining my job is ask people if they know what rebar is. For those of you that don't know, it is a ribbed steel bar that is used to reinforce concrete. I work for a rebar supplier, and for the last 6 years I have been working as, what in this business is called a Rebar Detailer. So I will walk you through a quick version of the start to finish duties of a Detailer.

The first thing I receive to start working is a set of plans for the building. The structural Engineer sets some guidelines for the type of rebar needed. The plans tell me things like what bar size to use and if the structure is longer than a piece of bar, they tell me how much I have to overlap 2 pieces. It first starts out with just your typical drafting. Looking at the plans and dimensions, I have to redraw the structure that is going to be built. Then when that is finished, I have to design the shapes and lengths of all of the rebar that they are going to need to build the building. When that is finished, I have to send my drawings to the engineer for approval. The next step is fabrication, and this is where the stress of the job starts to come into play. I am given a schedule from the builders of when they need the rebar on site to meet the schedule that they have been given to build it. I make a list of all of the bar that I need for the structure, schedule a delivery date, and give my list to the fabrication shop so that they can cut and bend all of the rebar. This always turns into more of an ordeal than it needs to be, because 9 out of 10 times, the people building the building want their rebar faster than the shop can fabricate it. When we can't meet their schedule, I am the one who gets the angry phone calls. So I spend just as much of my day on the phone as I do drawing in the C.A.D. program (Computer Aided Drafting).

After the bar gets fabricated, my next step is the billing. Everything is set up as a lump sum price for us to supply the rebar for the project. One of the big juggling acts for me is to make sure that everything bills out right at the end. I break the project down into truck loads and I have to constantly adjust the pricing of what is shipped to make it all add up right in the end.

So that is the basics of what I do. As you can imagine, there are all kinds of different things that can arise and all kinds of problems and metaphorical fires that constantly need to be extinguished. I have worked on all kinds of buildings from some of the bridges in this valley that you drive on everyday to stores that you might shop in and the list keeps growing every day.

Unshackled and Free

2010-09-10T14:02:00.000-06:00

On my way home from my Labor Day weekend, I got a call from my Divorce lawyer. I answered the phone wondering what he would need on a Holiday. Here is how the phone call went:

Larry the Lawyer: Hey Kristian, did I tell you that we have mediation set up some time this week?
Me: uhhh No.
Larry the Lawyer: Oh, well we do and I think it is tomorrow. I will call you and let you know in the morning!

Oh great! thanks a lot.. so much for any time to prepare. He called me the next morning and said "yeah I was right, it is today at 1:30" so I had to talk to my boss and arrange being able to leave at that time.

I got to the Law Office where the mediation was to take place and had just enough time to give my lawyer the rundown of what I want and a little bit of back story. We headed up to a conference room and waited for the mediator to come. For those of you who don't know how this works, the 2 people getting divorced and their lawyers have to hash all the small stuff out with a mediator before it ever gets to court. a mediator is usually a judge or lawyer that has no interest in either side. They put you in a room and try to get an agreement. If you can't agree on things, then you have to go to court and battle it out in front of a judge.

First off, Amiee wouldn't agree to meeting in the same room, so we were put in separate rooms with the mediator going back and forth. First he was in my room and made notes of what I want. He then took that to Amiee for her to counter. At first, Amiee wouldn't agree to anything that I wanted, she of course wanted as much money as possible. The one thing that I was really surprised about, was that she wanted the van! I said, she doesn't even have a license! The mediator said "well, she says she has a learners permit and wants the van" At first I fought it, but after some thinking I realized that this was a good way for me to get out from under that van and work on getting a new vehicle like I want to anyway. I ended up getting her to agree to everything that I wanted in trade for her getting the van. Well, not exactly what I wanted because I wanted custody. But, this is Utah and it is damn near impossible to get custody if the mother doesn't agree to it. So now I have more visitation, I pay less a month and I worked out everything else I wanted. We all agreed and signed it, so now all they have to do is file it with the court and we will be officially divorced!!! I am so happy that we were able to work it out nice and fast like this. Now I will be free to move on with the rest of my life..... Wish me luck!

A good weekend with family..

2010-09-07T08:43:00.002-06:00

This weekend, we planned a trip to go to my brother-in-laws property in Duchesne. The property is about 10 minutes from Starvation Reservoir, so we took the Jetski with us.

The best part of it all is that I finally got to pick up my 2 sons for a visitation. Because of some fighting over custody, their mom hasn't let me see them in over a month. It was really nice to spend the weekend with them and the rest of the family, they really missed us, and all of us missed them. We had some really good laughs around the camp.

The days at the beach were really fun, the weather was nice and the water was a good temperature. The first day that we were at the beach, we saw some kids jumping off a cliff just across the lake from us. So on the second day, me and Jamie decided that we would love to do the same. We hiked around the lake to the spot where you can jump. It ended up being a pretty good climb to get to where you need to jump, but we got there and jumped off a couple of times while Sabien watched us.

When we got back from jumping the cliffs we had lunch and then me and Jamie walked up to the bathrooms on the beach. While we were up there, Jamie found some little pots that someone had made out of clay. She brought them back to the beach to show everyone, and this of course inspired us all to make our own pots. We started digging in the sand to find the clay and we all made different things. There were round pots, square pots, heart shaped pots, I even made a guitar out of clay.. We brought them back to camp, and I decided that I wanted to try and cure the clay in the fire. I tried it out with one of my pots. After about 2 minutes in the fire, the pot exploded.. Apparently you cant just throw clay in a fire, so the rest of the pots are just sun dried and will stay that way. We brought them all home with us, hopefully they don't get ruined any time soon.

Monday morning we got everything loaded up and headed back. We got just a few miles out of Duchesne and the van overheated. I had to pull over and check things out. The fluid overflow was boiling and spilling onto the road. I filled it back up and started to try and drive again. We kept having to stop and let it cool until I remembered something that I learned in Drivers Ed when I was a teenager. When a car is overheating, turn on the heat. I tried that, and it worked!!! It lowered the engine temperature enough to keep driving. It was pretty miserable driving in a hot car in the middle of the day with the heater on, but we made it home safe!!

Help me share

2010-09-02T14:18:00.000-06:00

Just a quick note to let you know about the new "Share Tabs"

If you look at the bottom of my posts, now there is a share tab!!! You can share on facebook or a few other sites with the click of a button. So please, if you like a post, share it. I promise if you do that I will write more blogs!!

To lay my head...

2010-09-02T14:10:00.002-06:00

Sorry to everyone that reads my blog. I have had so many things going on that I haven't had time to get on here and write a post. Of course I have a lot of updates in my life to talk about. Me and Jamie have finally moved into the house that I posted about earlier, we are all settled and loving it! We got all of our furniture set up, and now we just need to decorate our naked walls.. Hopefully we can start doing that soon, we have talked about what we want, and luckily Jamie and I have very similar taste so we will be able to set up the house in a way that we both will be happy with.

I have been doing tattoos like crazy lately to help with the expenses of the new place, hopefully eventually the dust will settle and I will be able to slow down just a little and focus on some other things in my life. Icarus ink has been sitting on the backburner because of me being so busy, but I hope to be pushing that venture a little more very soon, I plan on making some new t-shirts for KHP in the next week or so. I would love to have another t-shirt design for people to buy at our upcoming shows. Speaking of KHP, last weekend we finally stepped back into the studio and recorded another song. Right now it is in the production stage, we hope to be able to release that soon and get it to the public through all of our various websites. I can't wait for you all to hear it, I think it is my favorite out of all the songs we have.

For those of you who read my blog, or know me personally know that I have made a lot of changes in my life in the last couple of years. I was doing a lot of thinking about things yesterday, and I would like to share my thoughts.

A few years ago, I started to look at my life and the direction that it was going, and I realized that I was not happy at all with how things were and I didn't like who I had let myself become. I decided that I had to make a change! The changes started internally and slowly started to move up front and effect different aspects of my life. I had realized that I was slowly letting myself slip into a meaningless "American Dream" life, and that just does not fit me. Just like with any change, people tend to not respond very well. They assume that the change means that you are steering away from who you truly are. In my case, I was already becoming something that was not true to myself and so the change was desperately needed to preserve who I really am.

Most of these changes have been made now, and I feel like I am on a path that is a lot more true to me. I am a lot happier and I, for the first time in years, recognize the person in the mirror. However, I have ran into one little speedbump in all of my changes. Even though it is something that I want and need and did on my own, one thing that I didn't take into account is my perception of my new life. There are certain things that I don't yet know how to handle or how to deal with. I have been doing some deep reflecting lately and realized that although I have changed everything in my life, what I didn't change is my old way of thinking. I found myself perceiving things as I would have in my old life, and that just does not work. So now my next big task is undoing the last 10 years of emotional abuse I have done to myself and try and start with a clean slate. I am working on changing my initial reactions to life situations because even though my conscious mind is up to speed, my subconscious mind is reacting how it would have before. It has become quite a problem for me, so I am deeply hoping that I can change it, that it isn't too far ingrained into my personality.

Well there it is, so I have to say to all the people that say I have changed... This is me, I hope you can accept that because I am going to continue my life this way. Never again will I let myself slip into a life that I don't want.

It is never too late to make your dreams come true......

2010-06-29T16:27:00.002-06:00

Back in May I blogged about my Grandad coming to visit and about the plans for him to get up on stage and sing with KHP. Well that day has come and gone, It was about a 3 and a half minute block of time in our set, but it was an experience that I will never forget!

In the past few years, since I started getting back into music, I talk to my Grandad on a regular basis on the phone to keep him updated on what is going on with the band. He confessed to me that he has always dreamed to be an entertainer. If you know my Grandad, then it is no secret that he loves to sing. He used to sing to my Mom when she was a kid, and she sang those same songs to me when I was a kid. But what he often asked me, is what it feels like to be on stage and have a group of people cheer for you. Well I have told him how that felt to me, but I really wanted him to experience that for himself. Not just so that he can understand what things are like for me, but because I wanted him to have that experience for himself. After playing the song, I really feel like he got to have that experience.

I told the story about the song, the meaning behind it, and invited him up on stage. Everyone cheered as he was approaching the stage and when I introduced him, but the best part was when it came time for his part, he started to sing and I was watching him. As soon as he sang the first line, the crowd started cheering like crazy. I don't think he was expecting it because as soon as they did that, it completely threw him off. He had a big grin on his face and couldn't remember the words. It made me smile to watch him knowing how it feels to have people cheer like that. It took me back to a time when I was nervous to get on stage and every crowd response would send me into the jitters.

He picked it up for the second chorus and sang it just as we had practiced. After the song was finished, I took the microphone from him and thanked him. He gave me a hug, told me he loved me, and walked off stage. He was beaming as he walked down the isle and the crowd cheered for him.

At the time I was so wrapped up in how fun and exciting it was, but in hind sight I am so touched. It was such an honor to be able to realize a dream that my Grandad has always had, and I can not put into words what an amazing experience it was for me to share the stage with my grandfather.

Thank you Grandad for giving me this experience. Thank you for all of your support, I love how much you love what I do, and I will never forget and will always appreciate how you have guided me into everything I do as a musician. If pride is a sin, then send me to hell because I could not be any more proud than I am now!

Before I end this blog, I want to share with you the message that the owner of the venue sent me after the show:

"That was Epic Kristian, Very Special. Will post pictures soon to share. Honored to have that memorable moment happen on Mojos stage. And the song was awesome, even provoked a tear" - Ron, owner of Mojos.

Bueller.......? Anyone........? Anyone.............?

2010-06-24T14:07:00.001-06:00

I have been writing this blog for quite a while now, sometimes I let it slip and don't write for a while, and sometimes I write a handful of posts in a month. My big question is if anyone is even reading it. is this a blog or just a journal? If there are people that actually read it, then I will make more of an effort to keep things up to date....

So please do me a favor.... If you read this blog, leave a comment on this blog post so that I know you are there and that you are following along. If nobody comments, then maybe I won't try so hard to keep up on it. I believe that you can even leave an anonymous post if you don't sign in. I am fine with that, just as long as I know that someone is there!