May 11, 2008

• Long overdue update!

  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 4x4 accessory store- specializing in lift and leveling kits for trucks and SUV's.  He can get anything you want to add to any 4x4 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!

  • 3:19 pm
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