On the Road Again

As I have been going through my internship at National Pool Tile this summer, I have had a number of opportunities to drive to different places in one of the company vehicles to either pick up or drop off product.  I have driven three different vehicles including two different trucks and a 4-door Jeep kind of car.  Work took me as far North as Surprise and as far South as Casa Grande on some days, but nothing could have prepared me for what came next...

 The BIG ONE

I got to go out with Paul, the in-house truck driver, to go deliver product on a couple of different days.  I had never been in a semi-truck before so it was exciting.  

 For the few days while the Sales manager was gone on vacation last week, I was in charge of Paul's deliveries (with the Branch Manager's help, of course).  

I had to make sure the deliveries were pulled, checked, wrapped and loaded onto the truck everyday as well as help divide them up geographically so that he wasn't driving all over town on each load. 

Paul is really fast with the "Donkey" (forklift made for delivery trucks) but still very careful.

 

We went to a truck stop to fill up so I got to see what a "Truck Stop" was like--did you know they have showers?

I also learned a little bit about driving the truck itself, that "Lot Lizards" are bad and that the truck's 160 gallon capacity for gas costs the company almost $500/week!  I couldn't believe how much the gas bill was when he paid it at the truck stop. 

 

This is not a truck.  It's a dog that was on one of the job sites and took quite a liking to me actually.  So, in short, it was fun to actually see the delivery end as opposed to just the prep work.

The Wedding Singer

Alexis recently made her premiere on the Wedding Singer's circuit at a church up in Scottsdale.  Ironically, she sang at a funeral in that same church a few months ago.

We even got to go to the dress rehearsal the night before--neither one of us had ever been to a dress rehearsal but I can see why they have them because there is a lot to remember.  I'm kind of glad that our wedding wasn't so complicated or I probably would have fumbled around a bit.

The groom did a great job.

Alexis did a great job singing "The Lord's Prayer" and "For the Beauty of the Earth".  It was kind of interesting though because they had her sing the latter during Communion--so there was quite a bit going on at the time with people standing up and coming to the front.  She told me that after a while, she just gave up trying to sing to them and just focused on singing.

Overall, it was a really good experience and there was a good spirit there.  The bride's family flew in all the way from Korea and the groom's from New York so it was quite a gathering.

Watching What We Eat

This is just a look at our breakfast table--the cocoa puffs are mine and the Lite Yogurt with boiled egg and a piece of toast belong to Alexis.

 I just can't figure why I've gained so much weight with such a healthy diet.  :)

Family History, They are Doing It

We got together a few weeks ago with the extended Long family and after eating and the FHE lesson, we got into the family photo albums.  Her mom is a big Genealogy buff and has done a lot of work with their family history.  

This trunk is literally like 90+ years old

It was fun to see pictures of Dad and his brothers when they were teenagers or newly married.  I should really do more work on my family history--well, Mom (Mom Bates) has already done a lot of it but I could at least read some personal histories.

All the cousins having fun looking at their parents as "young, hip teenagers"

I think that Alexis was holding a picture of Uncle Jim with an afro

Once per year, if I'm not mistaken, Grandma Long goes to New York to see a play on Broadway.  As a result, she has a number of autographed and framed Playbills on her wall.  This one caught my eye because I didn't know that David Pierce ever acted on Broadway--I just recognize him from Frasier.  Apparently he starred in, and won an award for, a show called "Curtains".  He will always be good ol' Niles Crane to me.

Person, Place or Thing!

Alexis and I take turns deciding just about anything--dinner, cleaning the bathroom, Family Home Evening Lesson, etc.--so this last Monday was my night for FHE.  As I'm sure some of you are aware, FHE with a newly married couple with no children can easily seem just like a glorified couple scripture study, if you're not careful.

So I decided that we would do something out of the ordinary despite reading scriptures, which was the spiritual part.  I call it:

"Person Place or Thing!" 

(and yes, you do have to Exclaim it as the Exclamation Point indicates)

Basically, you each have to pick one Person, one Place and one Thing (a very generic category open to pretty much anything).  You have to find out some basic info about them, maybe some fun trivia, and then share it with everyone else.  Pretty straightforward, right? 

For example, I chose:

• Person: Benjamin Franklin (did you know that he lived a "common law" marriage for most of his life because the lady he intended to legally marry had already married another man who ran off with the dowry to the Caribbean?)
• Place: Switzerland--where you are never more than 10 miles from a body of water (talk about a conversation starter)
• Thing: Pistol Shrimp!  See link--it is worth it, trust me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKPrGxB1Kzc&feature=player_embedded

So, that was FHE.  It was actually a lot of fun.  Hopefully you found it entertaining, if not useful!

1st of July Celebration!

4th of July Hoopla on the 1st of July!  Aaron and Brittany York, a great young couple in the ward that I hometeach, invited us to their house on Friday for a 4th of July celebration.  They also invited Jose and Lynette Nuñez and Eddie and Catherine Rodriguez over for a night of food and fun.

Their house looks great! They just moved in so they just finished painting and decorating.

The decorations were really fun and the food was amazing!

They even had a Chocolate Fountain with bananas, strawberries and marshmallows!

Our quazi-card table (a large beanbag)--it was a bit shifty but it worked.

There was food, fun games, friendship and laughter; overall, a great evening.  Hopefully, we can have some more nights like that on a regular basis.

"Why?" said the Delivery Boy

Last week at work, I spent a pretty good deal of time driving around to different locations to either drop off product or pick-up material that we needed quicker than the delivery truck could get it to us.  As a result, I got a chance to drive to Surprise, Gilbert, Chandler (even down in the Queen Creek area), Mesa, Scottsdale, Tempe (obviously, since that's is where we are located) and Casa Grande.  So I am getting to know my freeways, and my GPS, better and better.

Anyway, one of the places that I visited was called Artistic Pavers (they provide us with pavers--I know, genius) out in Casa Grande.  The people there were great and extremely helpful but I couldn't help but notice their quirky front desk design.  The following photo, taken from the perspective of a chair in the lobby, is of the front desk and the receptionist behind it.

I just can't seem to figure out why they would put the receptionist's desk so low to the ground while also making the wall so tall that you can't even see anyone unless you are right up next to it looking down.  Any ideas?