“I dunno, but to me, John the Baptist is just so overrated!”

 Why hello short-timer,

I probably shouldn’t call you that, seems like from your pictures you’re doing pretty good, you’re comp has a great smile, he looks like he may always be smiling. Mom and I might have thought that he was maybe Elder Whale from previous photos and stories. 

The weather has finally warmed up, so I’ve been anxious to get the sprinklers fixed. I had dug it out and I was afraid I was going to have to dig around and find a pipe to plug. Luckily, once I dug out near the fence post, I found that the pipe was cracked in a way that I could cap it off there. So it seems to be working, I’m going to leave it unburied just to make sure that there are no remaining leaks. So I was able to water the lawn today.

Wow, another boring start to a boring letter. We were with uncle Tim yesterday at this lame wedding reception we had to go to that I’ll let your mom tell you about. But uncle Tim was telling us about how Jordan only likes short letters and uncle never really writes much. So I guess I say this in hopes that my letters, as boring as they may be, are at least worth a distraction for you.

Right now we’re watching this movie called Whiplash, it’s about this jazz drummer kid and this psycho teacher, with lots of F-bombs, it’s actually pretty entertaining.

Work has been busy and my boss has given me a project that can give me a little more opportunity and exposure at work. It’s actually a fun branding project that I had already started with my old boss, but he was a little too timid to make any big moves like that. I’m grateful for my new boss, she not timid at all, but at the same time she’s not all full of herself either. There are still several people under her that are thrashing around trying to establish their positions, which is just tiresome to me. Next week several of the people are coming in to the office (most of the new people are from the east coast). There’s a dinner on Tuesday night that by nature I want to avoid like the plague, but experience tells me that it’s super important for me to go and establish myself there. Sometimes you do have to play the game. Sometimes, not all the time like some people do.

We’re hanging out before going to bed now. I’m feeling pretty tired so I’ll get back to this tomorrow.

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Wow, I’ve been so lazy today, but I have succeeded at annoying mom about 50 times so far, which is actually a pretty low number for a full day together. But at dinner, we got the gem of a quote for the day from Ben: “I dunno, but to me, John the Baptist is just so overrated!” Right now we’re watching the Elder Oaks young adult devotional. Mom just told Joe not to dance with boys. Sound advice.

Last night mom and I went to dinner with my cousins Estrella and Clary and my mission buddy Scott Cragun and his wife Ann. We went to that Japanese steakhouse in Sandy where we took Joey for his birthday that one time where Ben wrote on the picture something about Joes first beer. After we went for shakes at iceberg. It was really fun to be with them, but we’re getting closer to being empty nesters. I may be the only one in that group not looking forward to that part of life. I like being close to you boys, even though I know how important it is for you guys to be able to be independent and successful with your own families. They’re also talking about planning couples trips and cruises together. Holy freaking carp Jacob, I can’t imagine a version of hell more excruciating than hanging out with old farts being trapped on a ship in the ocean waiting in line for every last thing. Prison does not sound worse. Solitary confinement sounds preferable. 

On the way home mom and I stopped by that furniture store to look at those couches again. We still like them but decided we didn’t like the tables we ordered too, so we canceled those. We are hoping to have everything in place for your homecoming so that when you’re baby cousins come over, they can spill on new furniture instead of the crappy old ones. This seems like a good place for a fireplace update, because I know that you’ve been rushing through every paragraph of this message for the update. I have finished the primer stage! Which means I only need to apply two or three coats of paint and mount up the slab wood top. I started working on that chunk of wood yesterday and discovered two things. 1. It’s super freaking heavy, and 2. It is dense. My power tools barely make a dent. But it is really pretty and looked nice up there as I was test fitting it.

As far as other highlights for the week, Monday we weeded and planted flowers at grandmas house. Wednesday mom let us out of young men’s and we went to the Saratoga Springs Temple Open House. It was cool and afterwards there was an intense rainbow. We also went to Chili’s for dinner.

I think that’s probably enough random dad crap, I love you kid and we’ll talk tomorrow.

Pops