Man, I am on a roll!  I thought I missed a week because so much happened this week that it seemed like it was 2 weeks worth of time!  So I was pleasantly surprised to see that I didn’t miss a week afterall! 

We were soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo busy this week!  Ryan quit because he had to take an internship for his major in school so we were one man down this week.  Monday was especially hard because Ryan was gone, Logan’s graduation was that day, and Stephen’s brother (who is also Logan’s friend) was also graduating, so all three of them were gone for the better part of the day.  Now factor in that Mondays are always Bill’s busiest day and you’ll see that it was chaos!  Because we knew in advance that it was going to be so hectic, I went in for half a day to help out.  In order to do that, we needed to find a somewhat sanitary place for our kids to play that would keep them out of the way of all the workers.  At the new building that won’t be a problem because like I mentioned previously, we have a play room set aside for them!  However, at our current location, its pretty grimy and extremely small (1200 sq. ft).  So what did I come up with?  A portable sand box!  There is a place I drive by everytime we go to Bill’s new office that sells washed sand for play by the scoop of a bobcat construction vehicle.  So I put our old hard plastic pool (5 ft diameter) that we had in storage and put it in the bed of our truck, drove it to that store, bought a scoop of sand, put all our beach toys and Kai’s construction vehicle toys in it and put a tarp over it so when we drive it doesn’t fly everywhere!  Kai loves it!  Koa is a hit and miss.  Sometimes he loves it and others he doesn’t want to play at all.  It might have something to do with the fact that this week he has been really onery because he is teething a molar.  Anywho, I’ll have to post some of the pictures of the sand box.  This worked so well, I went to help out 3 days this week.  It was really crazy because after the work day was over, we would then head to new building and keep working on that too!  We were never home before 10 pm this week.  I even vacuumed for 4 hours one day trying to get all the tracked in dirt, drywall and drywall mud off of the carpet. Yes its true, mom!  Don’t have a heart attack!  Yesterday we were at the new office all day with Bill’s littlest sister Courtney’s boyfriend Zach’s football buddies  (did y’all follow that?) building shelves and moving stuff out of storage and his existing building.  Next week wednesday is the day we are switching.  Should be interesting! 

On Friday, I received the treadmill I bought online!  Thank goodness for Costco.com!  I got it on sale for $179!  I was so excited, I rearranged our loft so I could watch tv up there while working out!  But to rearrange the loft, I had to rearrange the master bedroom to fit the entertainment center I was taking out of the loft!  Now I just have to figure out where to put the table that used to be where the entertainment center is now.  Oh well.  Anywho, I was exhausted after that but I was determined to set up my treadmill!  So yes, I somehow managed to carry the 175 lb treadmill from on our porch outside to the landing half way up our stairs by myself!  At this point, I really, really was fatigued.  Luckily, by this time, it was time to teach piano.  So I took a break.  One of my students, Sam is such a sweetheart.  He helped me lift the treadmill the rest of the way to the loft.  Then I spent the rest of the day after teaching setting it up!  Who knew putting a treadmill together would be so difficult!  In the end, I have been so exhausted with helping Bill and with moving the loft and bedroom around and with moving the treadmill upstairs that I haven’t even used it yet!  But I figure I burned enough calories doing all of that so it doesn’t matter all that much, right? 

On a different note, the weather has gone cold and windy again!  I promise you, I will not make it a habit of talking about our weather unless it pertains to subject matter that may be blog-worthy!  So what makes it blog-worthy this week?  Remember that pool I bought last week I wrote about?  Yeah, its dead.  It has joined about 4 other pools taken from us by the harsh Utahn weather!  Well, let me tell you what led to the demise of this one.  It was a cold and rainy day.  The wind was whistling and blowing so violently that the power lines behind our house were humming an unfamiliar yet soothing tune.  And thats the end of the story.  The wind blew our empty pool (yes I know- I forgot it was empty!) into the barbed wire fence along the nature preserve behind our house and yes, you guessed it!  The barbs punctured multiple bullet holes into the once glorious plastic body that was filled with air expelled from the depths of my own soul and the sweat off of my forehead worked up by using a small hand pump.  Ahh, the poor thing didn’t stand a chance!  All that effort and money down the drain in one storm (don’t get that confused with the storm drain)!  Ce la vie…

Today was a fun day.  Kai goes through phases of favorite shows to watch.  When he was about 8 months old, he was inconsolable so we turned on Nick Jr and Dora happened to be on.  He was hooked.  He watched that for months almost around the clock never losng interest.  The next show was Blue’s Clues and Price is Right.  After that was Go Diego Go and the Backyardigans.  Then it was Cars, the movie.  Then Sushi Pack and Super Why.  Then it was Zula Patrol and now?  Now it is currently (thats a little redundant!) Thomas the Train.  And guess who just happened to be in town today at the Heber City Railroad?  Yup, Thomas the train and Sir Topham Hat!  So Dave, Karen, Grandma Shirley, Bill, me, Kai, Koa, Tarra, Paige, Hunter and Courtney went and rode on Thomas the train!  Kai & Paige were so cute!  They sat next together and were staring out the window during the ride, then held hands on the way out!  They got temporary tattoos, played with legos, listened to music, watched a magic show, pet a couple of ponies, and ate a combination of hot dogs, chips, rice krispy treats, cotton candy and Capri Suns!  Whew!  It was a blast.  And Grandpa was the hero at the end of the day for buying all the kids mylar balloons that said “I spent a day out with Thomas…  And Thomas spent a day out with me!”  The kids loved it. 

Man, I may have to start blogging twice a week so that I don’t have so much to catch up on every Sunday!  Well, I am tuckered after blogging so long and having such a busy week, so until next week, adieu! 

P.S.  Please excuse my attempt to wax eloquent!

P.S.S. Congrats David Cook!  He is a great singer, but David Archuleta should have won… 

Hello all again!  I know!  We’re blogging 2 weeks in a row!  We are going to attempt to update our blog every Sunday!  Wish us luck!

This week has been HECTIC!!!!!!  Bill has had a busy week with the new building.  The financials takes 6 weeks for approval, but Bill is bursting at the seams at his current location.  So he worked out a deal with the current owners to lease from them until the financials come through.  Our goal is to be fully switched over to the new building by a week from this coming Wednesday.  To make that happen, Bill has been meeting with insurance agents, IT guys, construction guys and everyone else and their mothers!  The result so far?  The building is almost unrecognizable!  We cleaned it THOROUGHLY with a super high powered pressure washer, had the carpets cleaned, all the bathrooms gutted and replaced with brand new everything, painted everything, and had furniture and wiring put in enough to house 15 or so employees in just the sales office!  We also spent 2 whole days moving stuff from storage into the new building.  Thank goodness Bill had bought a powered forklift to go with the manual one we had!  It would have taken twice as long to do what we did!  In just time saved, that forklift has paid for itself already!  And believe it or not, we still have tons more in storage and at our current building.  But look at all the progress from just one week!  The kids love it.  We take movies and toys and Bill has a 4-wheeler at the new building so they stay entertained.  There is a pretty sizable yard area at the back of the lot so we take the 4-wheeler and go off-roading back there.  It hasn’t been maintained in a while, so it really is off-roading- bumpy and everything!  Both Kai and Koa love it.  Koa will ride in front of whoever is driving – Lorinda, Bill, Aaron, Kevin, or Stephen – and Kai will ride in back of the driver while holding their stomach tightly.  Its a little hapa-haole kid sandwich (Our kids are hapa-haole- it literally means half – white person)!

On a slightly different note, because we were so busy getting the new building ready, we were unable to make it to Bill’s cousin’s wedding.  J.I’s wedding was on Friday.  He was married in the Ogden temple in the morning, had a ring ceremony in the afternoon followed by his reception at the Chantilly Mansion in Layton.  For the record, Lorinda was ready for all three, but because kids aren’t allowed in the temple, we didn’t go to that; Bill needed her help with moving in the afternoon, so he called her and she had to get changed out of wedding/ wedding reception attire to grubby moving clothes.  Oh well, we sent them a gift. 

The weather has been amazing this week!  Today was actually hot!  It was kind of nice after such a LONG winter!  We actually bought a blow-up pool for the kids.  It has a slide with arches that go over the slide that has little rods sticking out of it to play ring toss with and it also has a small basketball hoop on it too with a little blow up basketball to toss into it.  Also, the arches can connect to a hose and will spray water on you as you slide down the slide!  It is way fun.  We had Kai’s friend from down the street Hailey come over and swim with us.  It was so fun.  Kai and Hailey will be taking swimming lessons this summer together so that should be fun! 

As for Lorinda, who am I kidding.  Everyone knows its me writing this.  As if Bill were really this eloquent !  Anywho, its been really hectic for me too because I’ve been helping Bill out as much as I can.  We usually leave every evening around 5 to meet Bill after work and head to his new building and stay there til 10 ish.  I’ve also been trying to organize little by little.  I reorganized all my pampered chef stuff in my kitchen since I’ve been cooking so much lately.  Anyone who knew me a year or more ago would pass out if they saw how much I cook now!  Not only how much I cook but what I cook too!  In fact, I just saw a meal I cooked for Ben and Melissa when they were here in April at a restaurant!  Which was funny because when they ate it and I asked for feedback (since it was the first time I made it) Ben said “It tastes like something from a restaurant!”  I didn’t know whether or not that was a good thing, but when I asked he assured me it was a compliment!  I know, silly me.  Its amazing how much I enjoy cooking!  The cleaning part – not so much.  But cooking?  Absolutely!  And its unbelievable how much easier it is when you have all the right cooking tools with good quality!  Can you smell a plug coming on?  If you have any need for good quality cookware for a good price, contact me at pamperedchef@littlelorinda.com!  There, did that suffice?  To help with my cooking, I received a GREAT gift for mother’s day from Dave & Karen!  I almost fell over when I opened it.  I know you want to know what they gave me, but let me set it up for you first. 

For mother’s day, Dave and Karen had a small get together.  I asked if they wanted me to bring anything but they said they were pretty set.  I insisted and told them I wanted to try a deviled eggs with bacon recipe I had seen on Rachael Ray.  They told me I could if I wanted to but that I wasn’t obligated.  So I made them!  For the first time making it, it wasn’t too bad.  It tasted great, but the eggshells kinda stuck to them when I was trying to take them off so they didn’t look perfect once I finished deshelling them… Oh well, I did the best I could.  Anywho, so when we got there I put my pampered chef chilled platter with the deviled eggs in them on the counter and soon, they were gone!  They were really good.  Everyone was asking where I got the recipe from so I told them about Rachael Ray.  Then they’d ask me what else I’m cooking from Rachael.  So we talked about that too!  The only downside to cooking so much though is that we are eating so much now- I tell them.  But thank goodness that Rachael Ray tries to promote healthy eating!  Anyway, and so went the night.  We ate dinner and enjoyed each others company and relaxed.  Then we pulled out the gifts.  When I opened mine, we all started laughing!  As you may have already figured out, my gift was a Rachael Ray cookbook!  Karen said that when she saw that book, she knew that was the perfect gift for me!  Its always nice receiving gifts that are thoughtful and practical! 

Anyways, Koa needs my attention at the moment, so I’m going to have to end here.  However, I will try to upload more pictures soon!  This week will probably be as hectic as last week so I may not have time, but I haven’t forgotten yet!  Until next time, a hui hou!

P.S.  This was my first page made with digital scrapbooking with my friend Sarah helping me(yes the same one from the Amazing Race application video!)

P.S.S.   GO DAVID ARCHULETA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow!  I can’t believe we haven’t blogged in almost 3 years!  Well, hopefully we’re back on track now.  Lots has happened in the last 3 years so we’ll catch up little by little.  First of all, Happy Mother’s Day to all our friends and family! 

Now, for the main things that have happened:

As most of you know, we had another son, Koa (short for Micah Kealiionakoa Xiao-Long Griffiths) on January 9, 2007.  Kai and Koa have become great friends and love playing together.  Koa is such a great addition to our family.  He is so different from Kai in so many ways, yet at the same time, they are so much alike!  Koa is a fun, happy kid who loves to play the drums on Rock Band and also loves to play the piano.  When Lorinda teaches piano, Koa loves to come right next to her students and play along with!  Its really cute and her students love both Koa and Kai.  Kai loves having a younger brother and believe it or not, for the most part enjoys sharing toys and food with him.  They also love to play out in our dirt mound we have in our front yard with their construction toys!  They also love waiting and watching the garbage man come every week and own several different toy garbage trucks, some of which have power levers to lift their miniature trash cans.  They are both such a joy to have!

In February 2006, Bill started a company called Oil DNA, LLC which has fathered an online store: www.fatbobsgarage.com and a couple of ebay stores as well.  Fat Bob’s Garage is a 4×4 accessory store- specializing in lift and leveling kits for trucks and SUV’s.  He can get anything you want to add to any 4×4 vehicle.  He went full time with Fat Bobs in Oct. 2006 running out of our house and garage.  We quickly outgrew it and moved to a building in Ogden that had a bay with a lift in it and hired Aaron Hawes to be our mechanic and install our products that we started selling locally since now they had a retail location as well.  From there, we have been growing exponentially and exceeding expectations!  We just bought a 14,000 square foot building with 9 bays and a huge showroom!  It’s in Ogden right off of Washington Blvd at a great location!  Lorinda may even get an office to make into a playroom for the kids so she can help out too.  We also have 10 employees- Bill’s brother Ben (who works from Arizona and will move here after they have their first son in June) who runs one of the ebay stores – Leveling Solutions; aforementioned Aaron who runs the installation shop and is Bill’s right hand man; Justin (our neighbor and friend) who does the accounting – he just joined us full time in January – he helped from the startup as well, but only part time; Danny, runs the machinist shop- he manufactures some of the lift and leveling kits that we sell  Barbara, who does the data entry and shipping labels; Ryan who helps with orders, sales, tech support and the installation shop, Stephen who also does orders, sales and tech support; Kevin who packages, ships and is a runner; Logan who does the same thing as Kevin; and Clay who also does the same thing.  Clay just got his mission call and is leaving in June, so technically he doesn’t work for us anymore, but he does still help out if we ask.  

You may be wondering where “Fat Bob’s” came from.  We didn’t think Skinny Bill’s sounded as good!  I guess when Bill was younger, his brother Bob had t-shirts made that said “Fat Bob” on them and that has always stuck in Bill’s mind.  It sounded good and we’ve gotten lots of positive response regarding that name!  It also helps with telemarketers and people trying to get a good deal because they know the boss “Bob”.  We joke about how if Bob ever decided to come work for Bill that then he could take the many calls they get for him daily!

Another big thing that has happened is that Lorinda took and passed her state licensing exam to get her Life license to sell life insurance.  She now works part time from home for her dad.

Some of the places we have been to are: A carribean cruise that went to Puerto Rico, St. Bart’s, Tortuga, and St. John’s/ Antigua, Hawaii (Oahu and Maui), Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, Wyoming, and Idaho.  We also like going to Moab (Southern Utah) to go rock climbing in our jeeps!  Which takes us to another big thing that has happened:

We traded in our Nissan Titan for a Toyota Tundra.  The Titan was a great truck!  Lorinda actually cried when we handed over the keys.  The only problem is that it didn’t have enough power to be able to tow our jeeps to Moab as often as we are planning on going this summer.  The Tundra doesn’t have some of the great extras we loved in the Titan, but does have some extras that we love that the Titan didn’t have!  If we could have morphed the 2 trucks with the extras they both have we would have our ultimate truck!  For example, the Tundra has a navigation system and bluetooth phone system built in which has been fun & great!  However, it does not have seat memory capabilities like the Titan and when you have two different positions for the drivers like Bill and Lorinda (one low and back and the other high and close) it can be irksome!  It takes a good minute to change from one position to the other!  In any case, we love it.  We’re just waiting for the vanity plates to come in (it will say “Fat Bobs”).  In the mean time, we are tricking it out so Bill can use it to make sales as well as for advertising.  I’m sure Bill doesn’t mind having a bad a$$ truck either! 

Well, for now, that update will have to do.  I will get our photos together and start adding them soon!  Thanks for reading!  Until next time!