January 23, 2014 ~ Golf Expo

January 23, 2014 ~ Golf Expo

Here are some thoughts about the Golf Expo in Orlando Florida from Lucas.

"Sam, Dad and I all went to the Orlando Expo in Florida. It was one of the best trips I have taken with my dad and brother. Money was tight for all of us so we stayed at a Days Inn that was close to the convention center. 

The hotel was a little dirty and my dad found a couple of roaches in the bathtub. Being in the hospitality business, I told him that if he complains about it, he would probably get a free night stay out of it. So, my dad being dad, went to the managers and complained. And what do you know….we got a free night stay out of it.

Every morning the shuttle bus would stop by our hotel and take us to the convention center for the big golf expo. We had a pretty good located booth in the expo. We had a pretty good flow of people that would walk by our booth. Sam and I had brochures that we would actively be passing out to people as they were walking by. We found that when people would see our booth, they wouldn’t really know what it was about, so they would keep walking by. Sam and I took the initiative to tell them about our company and passed out our free decal as a gift. 

There was a booth real close by that would pass out these mini pizzas and another booth that would pass out these mini corndog type stuff. Of course we brought like a sandwich for lunch but these booths were our lifesavers throughout the day. 

Occasionally when things were slow, we would walk around the expo ourselves and take a look at all the things that different companies are doing.

After each expo we would all go out to eat together. We found a great Mexican restaurant that had endless chips, so we definitely took advantage of that. 

Overall I had an absolute blast. After all was said and done, we had a few leads to try to start something. But what I learned most from my dad is taking risks. My father is a risk taker. Sometimes they pay out, sometimes they don’t. But you can’t just live your life wondering “what if” and never do anything. When my dad believes in something, he does everything in his power to make it be successful. He has “reached out” (dad hates that phrase) to so many people that I thought would be impossible to get a hold of, and he would somehow talk with them or get a meeting with them. My dad is a complete success and has taught me to go for things, even if people doubt you."             -Lucas

January 14, 2014 ~ Lucas' Helicopter Ride!

January 14, 2014 ~ Lucas' Helicopter Ride!

I wasn't on the Helicopter ride unfortunately and so Lucas will write this post.

As a concierge, I have a lot of perks. One of those perks is you get to try out all the tours you want, so that you can properly sell them to guests. I was able to take the grand canyon helicopter ride to the West Rim. It was the first time I have ever been in a helicopter and it was a blast. It was me, Divina Villavicencia and Serena Garrett. We had a great time! I only knew them 2 and the other 4 people were strangers. We got to wear these headphones in the helicopter that allowed us to talk to each other. The only catch was, if I say something, EVERYONE can hear it. You can’t pick and choose who you want to hear you.

The first part of the trip I was in the back. We flew over the Hoover Dam and headed over to the West Rim Grand Canyon. It was about a 45 minute flight just to get there.

We landed at the bottom of the canyon and spent about 30 minutes there. We had a light snack and some drinks. It was really calm and peaceful there at the bottom and very enjoyable. Most of the people hung around each other talking, eating and drinking, but I was able to kind of hike down like 5 minutes and just enjoy being at the bottom. It was a very calm and serene experience. It is so nice to just sit and enjoy nature sometimes. Plus, it isn’t everyday that you get to be at the bottom of one of the 7 wonders of the world. Granted, I have been to the grand canyon like 50 times because of my Japanese tour job, but this was the first time being at the bottom of the canyon. Although it was nice being at the bottom, the South rim is hands down the best place to visit the Grand Canyon. It is so much larger and grander than the West rim.

On the way back to Vegas, I was able to sit up in the front. That was a blast! Taking off is the best because helicopters tip their nose down as the accelerate up into the air. As we were flying, I asked the pilot to nose dive because I heard that is really fun to experience. Obviously, it would be a controlled nose drive but as soon I said that, everyone started freaking out. (remember, everyone hears what you say). They got way extremely nervous and everyone was saying No! Don’t do it!- the pilot said, for safety, we cant do that. Pretty lame if you ask me.

As we were getting close to Vegas, we did a mini strip helicopter tour over Vegas. It was nice, flying in air, right next to all of the hotels. I really enjoyed that part.

Overall, it was a great time and once in a life-time experience. The best part, this $540 per person tour, was FREE!

January 12, 2014~ Anna's Mission Farewell

January 12, 2014 ~ Anna's Mission Farewell 

The sisters at Anna's mission farewell part after her mission farewell talk.

The ward had a farewell dinner for Anna for FHE on the Monday night before she left. 

 Anna is going to be such a cute missionary! She had a mini photo-shoot before she left. We went to sushi before my parents took Anna up to the MTC. Anna entered the MTC January 29th 2014. Bryant entered the MTC January 29th also! I don't know why I remembered that from so long ago but I did.

My parents were able to take Anna to the MTC. Anna got a whole new wardrobe for being a sister missionary and new luggage. Anna is so fashionable and will be so fashionable on her mission too! Anna is going to do great things in the Colorado Spring mission!

Here is a little bit of Anna's first blog post as a sister missionary!!

            I still can't believe I AM A MISSIONARY!!!!
 The MTC is great. The first day and a half we had so much information thrown at us. 
They shoved this information down our throats almost as fast as Luc and Jacob
 shove bagel bites down their throats. But I feel like I kinda have the hang of things now.
 P day is saturday and thank goodness for that! It's nice to have some time to breathe today. 
So  on our first night, I was feeling rather grubby so I went to take a shower. 
First off...it was like the Motab was in the shower room. A whole medley of 
hymns sung by sisters in the showers. It was cracking me up! Especially 
when two sisters next to eachother would start singing the same song and 
then start harmonizing! Like what?! I have never had such a spiritually 
uplifting shower. So everything is going great, and then one of the sisters 
in my room comes in calling for me..."Sister Hoer! Sister Hoer! Did you 
bring your room key??" Yeah. We were all locked out of our room on the 
first night. We all went to shower and get ready for bed, but none of us 
brought our keys! Go figure. But I laughed so hard. Seriously EVERYTHING 
becomes funny when you're a missionary. The silliest little things will be 
hilarious to me! The other day our teacher said we would have about 30 
minutes left as he looked at his wrist..but he wasn't wearing a watch. I 
was laughing SO hard! He had to ask me if I was okay. I was a little 
embarrassed. But it was great. The littlest things will make us all laugh so hard.

January 2014 ~ Kitchen Re-due

January 2014 ~ Kitchen Re-due 

We had the tile done in July 2013, about a month after we bought the house but I wanted to put everything in one post so you could see the transformation!

With some paint, new hardware and a lot, I mean A LOT of elbow grease we upgraded our cabinets!! We took all of the cabinet doors off and spray painted the hinges silver. We got knobs and handles for the cabinets and added a corner shelf to our cabinet by the fridge. We also added crown molding to the top of the cabinets so they would go up to the ceiling. The crown molding for the corner shelf and cabinet too forever to figure out! It took forever because of figuring out the angle of the corners. The crown-molding took a while but it was well worth it!! I will probably never want to re-due cabinets again though...