November 2023

November starts off with birthday celebrations. 

Kaleigh turned 13 this year.  

She had quite the birthday list.

Dunks, an Apple Watch, clothes from Zara and a laptop...

But she mostly wanted Christmas Decor for her room.

Nana and I tried to talk her out of that, saying that she would only be able to enjoy it for six weeks. 

"Who says", she said.  

"I am going to normalize Christmas Decor year round in my space". 

You go girl. 

We bought cute red and grey plaid pillows

and took her to breakfast

Isn't she darling?

We made her a cake and had ice cream

She opened a few presents

Clothes from Zara

Dunks and an Apple Watch

Nana found the cutest Christmas Decorations for her room

And she and I  put them all up.

They look darling and her room feels so Christmas cozy

Brayden's birthday was the next day on the 6th

He turned 29 this year

We made a video for him of us singing Happy Birthday

and venmoed him a few bucks so he could take himself out to dinner.

He's a doll.  I sure love him.

We also put up the tree this weekend.

It's always a massive chore and I underestimate how exhausted

I will be when it is over. 

For some reason, it hurts almost every part of your body to stand on a ladder for an hour.

I also tend to get really frustrated at some point every year and start throwing things before

it eventually comes together. 

Creative juices don't naturally flow in me.

I have to throw stuff and swear a little bit before artistry comes out.

But I LOVE IT when it is over 

I don't have many talents, but decorating Christmas Trees IS 

one of them

Raleigh left on a plane from the St. George airport on Sunday the 6th

to go on a boy's trip to Pebble Beach.

I took him to the airport and then the kids and I sat on the curb out in front of the house to 

watch his plane take off.  

It looked and sounded  like it was a good plane.....sturdy.... well built 

and it appeared it wouldn't have any malfunctions.  We waited until we couldn't see or hear it any longer and we headed inside only to see this preditor on the wall, right by the front door.  

I gave the kids strict instructions that the front door wasn't to be opened until Dad returned 

from his 5 day trip.  

Basically we were prisoners in our very own home.  
Luckily he chose to stay outside because hotel rooms are very expensive in St. George.

But that is where we would have had to go if there was any indication he had found his way inside.

Raleigh had the time of his life with his high school friends.

They played Poppy Hills, The Links at Spanish Bay,  Spyglass Hill, Del Monte and Pebble Beach

They ate at local, very expensive restaurants and probably laughed all day.

They are all very funny.  I like them when they get together.

Dale Rex, Nate Sundloff, Brian Zullo and Rals Lund

He played really well and made some money as he always found himself to be on the 

winning team, no matter how they switched things up

At Pebble Beach,  they had Caddies.

I was in full support of this little adventure.  It was good for all of them

and even though I missed him like crazy, I was so glad he was able to experience it.

It was on his bucklist.

And he was as giddy as a school girl when he would tell me about his day, 

each night when he called to check in. 

Last month, we brought on a HUGE account. 

This is a multimillion dollar home that will generate a ton of income for us.

I have had to work really hard to get to know this home inside out and backwards.

I also have worked extremely hard developing a relationship with the owner... I was told he was

going to be a hard one. 

But that has not been my experience.  I quite like him. 

He was so open to my suggestion to upgrade his decor. 

He told me to go buy something nice. 

I had so much fun spending his money.

I bought this sectional and rug, which look a thousand percent better

and make the room look great.

I also get to go hog wild on a photo shoot at the end of the month

I am kinda excited/pretty nervous about it. 

I have potential to make him happy or severely disappointed.

I hope I am successful 

To our surprise 48 kids showed up to play Human Foosball

which was all of the boys and about 40% of our girls

For anyone wanting to know what I was like as a teenager, get to know Kaleigh.

With the exception of her being a reader and a Taylor Swift fan,

she is me at 12 years old. 

She was almost crying over having to do human foosball.

I flashed back to my 1983 broom hockey mutual nights immediately.

I said, "I'd like to you go to the activity, but you definitely do not have to participate.

You can sit with ME, cuz I sure as hell won't be out there.

Peyton would come over and sit by her as she rotated out.

 Because, Peyton on the other hand, was a major player and scored many goals with

the boys.

I got a wild hair while Raleigh was gone and I moved VERY heavy

furniture around and tried to jazz up the back hallway that no one goes down.

It looks pretty cute for the 4 of us that go back there.

I will work on better decor some time.... definitely not a priority.

I do like it though.  We needed something to spiff that area up.

We got to tour a new community that we are bringing on at work.

I thought we looked amazing in our hard hats

On Thanksgiving morning, we were making crepes as we always do and 

Peyton came down to help us.  

She is becoming quite the little chef. 

She said "oh I have something in my backpack that will help me be a better

crepe maker" and she pulled out this darling apron that she made in Home Ec.

It is SO darling.... I died.

They were delicious as always

Dinner was amazing as well.

We had a small group this year, but we had a nice day

watching football and talking about work.

This is what these two sisters looked like on Thanksgiving Day

in their sweaters.

I had such a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with 4 1/2 days off.

We literally did NOTHING and it was so blissful.

I would have had the WORST Sunday Night Blues of all time had I not had

a super major, super fun project to do the day I went back to work.  

Our company just brought on an Epic Vacation Rental. 

It is our highest grossing property to date and the stress of getting it up to our standards 

and cleaned up and maintained has been a monumental task for 2 1/2 months.  

As I mentioned earlier, I was also asked to stage the photoshoot. 

The homeowner had very specific suggestions for his staging and sent me videos

and facebook links of homes we wanted me to replicate.  

I.M.P.O.S.S.I.B.L.E

For so many reasons

1. His home has really unimpressive decor

2.  It doesn't photograph well

3.  I think food in photoshoots can make the photos look tacky.

But, I was trying to be equal to the task, making him happy and US happier.

I brought all of the decor from MY house to stage it with some cute decorations FOR FREE.  

I may have gone a little overboard.

I hope he is okay with a little farmhouse country mixed in with

 the existing Ikea Clearance Isle theme he's got going on.

But dang, parts of that house looked DARLING

In case you thought I know how to brew a pot of coffee....

think again...  that there is Diet Code in them there mugs.

This project took me two solid days.  It is an 8 bedroom home with 2 living rooms and an extremely 

large kitchen.  Monday and Tuesday of my first week back from

a long, super chill, amazingly wonderful holiday weekend wasn't too bad.  This opportunity 

gave me a supreme sense of accomplishment and I was filled with creative energy and positivity.

I loved doing this.  I really hope the pictures turn out or I will be so sad.

I would do this for a living in a dang heartbeat, if I had an ounce of confidence and thought

I could sell myself as an expert in the field.

Nevertheless......heavy sigh.

We finished the month strong with a little AXE THROWING!

Look at all those young women and we are missing SO many of them.

The girls had so much fun.

I was really sore the next day

Peyton

Kaleigh

Yours Truly

My all time favorite Christmas song.

I bawl like a little girl whenever I hear it, I can't hold it in.

It makes me SO happy every year.

But THIS VERSION is played by an actual symphony

and not the synthesized Manheim Steamroller version.

It is 1000% better and oh man did the tears flow when I heard

this gem for the first time.

The greatest holiday gift for sure

I was blown away by the swiftness with which November flew by.

It came and went WAY TOO FAST.  

I did not want it to end.  

And it did. 

I love this time of year and this year was really REALLY good.

We had so many wonderful days.  I will have some great memories looking back on 

November 2023