Showing posts with label chris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chris. Show all posts

Friday, February 14, 2014

Funny guy...

(Anne, I sat down to get more of my committed words in my novel but had to write this instead...does it count?)

I don't remember when or why it came up, but this summer when we were camping with our old schools, Leisha said that I was a lucky one because I married someone with a sense of humor. Turns out I am an auditory learner and sometimes I don't really understand something until I either hear it or say it out loud. Since she said that, I've thought about how much laughing with Chris means to me. I have always known he is funny, of course...and I believe if when I was single I was asked to rank the typical qualities I look for in a match, I would have likely ranked sense of humor as numero uno. So I shouldn't have really learned anything different from that remark, but it refreshed gratitude in me at that moment for that quality/talent Chris possesses. 

One of my favorite things to laugh about is when Chris pretends he is the expert at something. He never backs down, ever. He is very clever in his ability to, for example, speak fluent Spanish. Hypothetical example follows:

"Mi casa es su casa." 
What are you talking about?
I just said, "I want some dinner" in Spanish.
"That isn't how you say that."
"It is how I say it, how do you say it?" 
"Quiero cenar." 
"Well that is one way to say that." or even funnier, "that is what I said!" 

You'd be surprised how long this can go on. He can go all night on three Spanish phrases pretending like he's a native Mexican. The other day he was relying on Tae Kwon Do Japanese counting to convince me he is pretty much Japanese. I am convinced. He can count to ten...and he can say, "Domo arigato," and I'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with the song by Styx.

The same mock cockiness applies to EVERYTHING else in the whole world. Sometimes he isn't even trying to be funny, but it is funny. Like when he decided in five minutes at Lowes he was going to start a garden in mid-JUNE. Now, I don't know much about gardening, but I do know that you don't start a tomato, lettuce, carrot, corn (yes, corn!!), onion, beet, cucumber and radish garden in mid-June in a grow box that you have spent 7 years burdening the contained weeds with Round-up spray. Undaunted, he and the girls marveled over how tall the corn was getting in spite of weeks without water and most of the other plants already giving up the ghost. He banked on that corn coming up clear into October when it was a good three feet tall. I thought it was pretty endearing and hilarious. Whenever I would try and point out that maybe they had started too late, he is quick to remind me that I know nothing and he knows everything. Now it is February and he is already talking about this summer's garden grandeur but I am unconvinced that he has done any actual learning still...as it turns out gardens don't grow from charm alone. 


I think the hardest I laughed in a very long time was really recently when Chris claimed he was pretty much a professional dog trainer. I just laughed alone here in my office for a good three minutes trying to write this. Have you ever met Stone!? Stone! The dog that Chris always claims is perfectly behaved and trained but literally never moved an inch unless it was due to his own conviction to do so? Stone, the dog that eventually Chris decided was hard of hearing because he would lolly gag around the neighborhood with us shouting after him and completely ignore us? Stone, the dog that pulled as if in a tug of war match the entire time he was ever on leash? Stone, yes. The fruit of Chris' dog training labors. Yes. It was funny because he was serious and I couldn't hardly eek out my rebuttal but he knew he was ridiculous and eventually he laughed with me. The next day, I asked, "What was that you claimed to be a pro at yesterday?" He pretended he didn't know to what I referred. Then he quietly said, "That I am an expert dog trainer." And there I went again. So funny. Can't get enough of that idea! Since then I have noticed as we progressively head farther down the path of Penny owning our lives that Chris is now referring to his successful dog training efforts proven by his childhood dog, Scooter. The question is, did Chris actually single handedly train Scooter? If you ask him he did...and also, can an experience training a dog when you are eight possibly equal relevant experience thirty years later?

I remind Chris every so often that he doesn't have to feel stuck in his career choice. I'll say, "We can live in an apartment or with my parents or in a trailer and I can work part time and you can do anything...you want to build chicken coops or install finish carpentry or answer questions about anything in any department at Lowes (he definitely knows WAY more than the people who work in any of the Lowes departments and he hates it if they try and tell him otherwise)." He always appreciates the potential freedom but he's always liked more than hated his jobs and so it goes. So anyway, he is obsessed with a show, "Storage Wars" where people bid on storage units that are past due on rent payments at an auction. They walk with the contents of the lockers and of course score things that are super impressive and worth a ton of money. Anyway, so the other night after he had unloaded his fourth unit into our garage and had picked through it all and was amped about the stuff he was going to sell, I said, "Maybe you can be a thrift store owner one day!" I really am not above that at all, but I was joking. 100%. Not serious. He goes, "I think that's it. That is what I want to do." I laughed and laughed, though I know he wasn't joking. 

The other night, I had seen a commercial for a show on MTV about perfect matches. People underwent some intense interviews and personality and compatibility testing and they find their perfect match. So we were lying in bed and I said, "I wonder what would happen if we took a compatibility test--" I didn't even finish my sentence and Chris said, "Done. Not. Compatible." Bwahahahahaha. AMEN! He kept going with it and I just kept laughing and agreeing. 

We are two truly incompatible people in love...and we even can be pretty convincingly not in love if you ask those who spend much time around us. 

Anyway, if he weren't super hot and hilarious I'd have nothing to go on. Thank goodness for those two things! Happy Valentine's Day!

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Bishopric...

Chris was called to volunteer as a counselor to our Bishop (Bishop Dennis Doutre) two years ago. I found this pic on his phone and thought it was a fun thing to document. He has learned a lot through his calling and now that we've been at it for two years, I hardly remember how difficult it was in the beginning to part with him for so many church hours. I think it was hardest the first year when he was still at Trident. Now that he is at Titan, I feel like his hours are more normal and so having him gone Tuesday, Wednesday nights and most of Sunday isn't as bad anymore.

Bishop Doutre is moving to Utah in August, so we know changes (A RELEASE would be nice...hey, can he be a primary teacher or a nursery leader or something for awhile?) are on the horizon.

Pictured Left to right:
Lynn Banner, executive secretary. He schedules all the appointments for the bishop and other stuff like that.
Brett Reynolds, first counselor. He actually grew up in Chris' Everett III ward, but is enough older than Chris that they only vaguely remember some of each other's family members.
Chris, second counselor.
Dave Crane, ward clerk. He oversees two other clerks, the financial clerk and the membership record clerk. They keep track of all the tithing, membership records moving from ward to ward following members who move, babies who are born to ward members, stuff like that.
Bishop Dennis Doutre is in the front, seated at his desk. He is a great man, we love his whole family a lot. We will miss them when they leave us in August!

Monday, June 11, 2012

Daddy Got a New Truck...I Mean...Job...

 
Chris changed jobs!!! He has had two jobs since we got married, but the first change was in 2003 when we'd only been married a year and a half...so he put in a long 9 years and one month at Trident Water Works, which as of November 1, 2010 was owned by Consolidated Supply Company. Anyway, I don't blog about all the ins and outs of Chris' job...but this change needed to be documented. He went to work for a customer, TITAN Earth Work. The owners of the company have become good professional friends of over the years Chris has supplied them pipe. It came up in conversation at a lunch and after waiting about a month for something more official to occur, it finally did. They were excited to have him on board and hired him even though he has the least experience to offer and had the steepest salary requirements. I know it is a good fit.

It has been a month (I write this on July 26th) and he is happy. He is starting as a project manager on a year long job in Seattle...he prefers if I mention it is really Shoreline because he is really, really far north (105thish) and that is noteworthy due to the crappiness of his drive there and back. He doesn't have to be on the job every single day, they have an office for him in Sumner just ten minutes away, but he does usually go three-four times per week. He tries to avoid traffic, but often he gets caught up in something and finds himself in the car for a 4 hour round trip. The good news is his crew only works 4 ten hour shifts, so he never has to make the drive on Fridays. So...he does like what he is doing and he looks back with no regrets. It was such a blessing that this came along! He is probably going to do other things after he gets the managing part of things down. For now, he feels he has a ton to learn and they are just throwing him out there to figure it out. They are too busy to train him, so he's just getting it done. He feels slow at some things that are new to him, but it's going well. He feels he is working with the best he could hope for and has a lot to learn from the owners (who are three young guys...I think a year or two younger than we are).

The day he announced to his customers that he was changing careers, he got lots of nice feedback and invitations to lunch, job offers from several customers and a manufacturer and even some gifts. :) It was actually even funny to me that one of his customers made him up a "Certificate of Excellence" with warm fuzzies on it. HAHAHAHAHA. (I was able to upload it, so it is below.) It's hard to work for people who don't value you, but the silver lining has always been that Chris' customers do value him and they were all about throwing love his way the final two weeks. Russ and CSCO held a nice BBQ the final evening of his time there and invited all his customers...which was mostly Russ's (who told Chris he "loves" him when Chris gave him the head's up that he was probably going to quit) idea.
It was HARD for me to know that Chris was going to exit with no final spite. We would talk often about all the fun ways he could quit and all the things he could say or do to drive home the message of how crummy his experience was working for CSCO. In the end, our lawyer advised that he leave on really good terms and give no reason for them to think that he is unhappy. Ugh. Okay, okay. I am sure it was the right thing to do...but it wasn't easy. Chris now has to figure out who he is going to buy from when he has to buy pipe!! :)

Monday, January 23, 2012

Chris should have been a writer...

Below is the most recent Family letter. I love the family letter, it goes out once a month on Chris' mother's side of the family. So it is formally, the "Darrell and Avis Porter Family Letter". It has been "published" since January of 1998, though in the printed Volume I (239 pages) there are 43 pages dedicated to 1997, which was a big year for the family and so emails between Avis (Nana) and her two kids, Sydney (Chris' mom) and Billy. When we got the hardback, printed volumes I & II, I spent hours pouring over the years when I wasn't a part of the family yet and Chris the bachelor was writing in to his family about his life. So interesting!

Anyway, so this month...January's letter is about the month of December and was written by Chris. This is why I had to include it here. He's funny. He should have rivaled Dave Barry and been a humor writer. Okay, he is a humor writer, and he rivals Dave Barry...he just doesn't have a very large audience. Anyway, here is a humorous glance at our December (and all the things I am behind on blogging about).

From the Washington Pierces:


This month Rebecca and I celebrated 10 blissful years of marriage. I am really pleased that my second marriage has worked out so well. We took the girls to Port Townsend, WA and stayed at a nice condo with a pool that the girls enjoyed. We enjoyed the small town and stayed for three days. On the third day we went up to Sequim (pronounced "squim") and visited a free-range animal farm. We had zebras, llamas, bison, horses, antelope and all kinds of animals getting our adrenaline pumping as they tried to get their heads into the cab of my truck. I squealed like a small girl when I reached my hand out of my window to throw a piece of bread to a buffalo and a seagull was on my roof waiting for me and grabbed it out of my hand. The girls were thrilled with the experience. Unfortunately, Betsey is cursed with what doctors call "broken record syndrome". The main symptom is that you say the same thing over and over and over again, all the while more excitedly. For example:

"Horse? Horsey? horse... horse... horse... horse... Horse, Horse, Horse, HORSE! HORSE! HORSE! HORSEY HORSEY HORSEY! - DADDA - HORSEY! MAMMA - HORSEY! AYE-AYE (Alice) HORSEY! HUBEY (Ruby) HORSEY!"

Once Betsey has sufficiently notified all in the vicinity of the important horse sighting, the next animal would be just around the corner. Doctors have said that the only remedy is to put a few drops of night-time cough syrup in her bottle just prior to an episode. We have not tried this yet because Rebecca is looking for a holistic solution.

Betsey is a tough little girl with a lot of attitude. When I say tough, I mean she can be tough to be around as she is very demanding and short-tempered. When she is sweet, she has the ability to make you forget that only a few short seconds prior she was making you wish that you had stopped after two kids. She is on track to be a cage fighter and also a beauty queen. It will be interesting to see what type of person she turns out to be as she gets older. Somehow Betsey seems to flourish and grow without any known food to actually pass her lips and enter her digestive tract. Sure, there are many times where food is passed up for garbage, cat food, small pieces of plastic and bits of unknown things that are found on the floor, but who knew that this would be enough for the human body?

Betsey's favorite people are as follows:

#1) Dad. She will run past anyone when hurt and break down walls to get to Dad during a time of crisis. Dad is unaware how he holds this position as his patience can wear thin quickly at times. It may be that after being gone at work for most of the day Dad may be seen as fresh meat at around dinner time. Do not attempt to cuddle Dad when Betsey is in the room unless you have ear plugs and football pads.

#2) Aye-Aye. Alice seems to have the patience of Job and a forgiving nature that comes with Sainthood. Even after getting her hair pulled, or taking a toy to the back of the head, Alice will quickly initiate forgiveness and say how cute Betsey is, and how much she loves her. Betsey recognizes this weakness and pushes Alice to the limits of her capacity. When everyone else is running for the hills Alice is running to Betsey with arms open. Dad is willing to relinquish his first place position to Alice but is currently unable to move down in the standings.

Tied for #3) Mom and Hubey. These two are in a neck and neck race to pull ahead of the other person and currently share this position until one of them decides to kick in the after burners. Higher rankings come with more responsibility.

#4) Oma & Opa (Rebecca's Mom & Dad). Limited bi-monthly exposure keeps this relationship alive. Time apart does seem to heal wounds.

All joking aside, we love Betsey a lot and it is fun to get to know her as she gets older and learns new words. We are hoping that these words will soon quell her frustrations. She can be a real hoot and is also a good cuddler when Dad puts her to bed at night.


This year we spent Christmas Eve at Rebecca's parents and then came home to spend Christmas day at our house. It was our first as a family at our own house and we really enjoyed it. Our friends the Reynolds came down later that day and spent the night with us. We took the kids over to the Church property and took advantage of the zip lines that had recently been installed for the scouts. Luckily I knew who in the ward had the gear to make it possible and we ended up staying for several hours. It isn't too cold around here right now - usually in the 40's and even 50's during the day as of late so there was not a lot of kid related complaining.

Rebecca got me a couple good seats to a Neal Diamond concert coming up soon. I wouldn't have believed you ten years ago if you had told me some day I would be a big fan of his. As a matter of fact, I used to regularly beat up people that listened to Neal Diamond. Rebecca also got me the book "Being George Washington" by Glen Beck which is a great read and very hard to put down. For Christmas I upgraded Rebecca's printer with a wireless printer that will print directly onto CD's and DVD's for her photography business. Santa also surprised Rebecca by filling her stocking with hair brushes from the dollar store. It seems that Santa must have been watching through the window during one of the many, many desperate manhunts that this family has been on in search of a brush while being late to be somewhere. I would not have thought that Santa would have found this situation as agonizing as others I know have found it to be, but Santa has proved me wrong yet again. Amongst other things Ruby and Alice both got American Girl dolls which have been put to much use. We enjoyed teaching and reminding the girls why we celebrate this time of year.

We had a pretty quiet New Year's Eve with some friends and stayed up late to have the joy the next day of getting up for the first church meeting of the day that started at 7:00. This year our ward starts at 9:30 instead of 1:30 and we are excited to have some time together at the end of the day again after all the meetings are done.

After 15 years on earth we have decided to make Stone an inside dog. He still has some energy, his eyesight seems good as does his sense of smell and hearing. However, his hair is getting greyer and I can see that he is quite stiff when he gets up after lying down for a while. A few days ago we took him down to the dog self grooming store and got the stank out (Ruby's wording). Alice asked if we could go back every day because she loved it so much. It is nice to now be able to pet him and not have to burn your clothes afterwards due to a stank transfer. I fear that there is a very sad day coming up for our family in the somewhat near future unfortunately.

Work seems good enough for Rebecca and I. Rebecca has joined a studio in a cool part of Tacoma with 6 other photographers. It is well organized and quite impressive. So far she is busy enough to justify the added cost and she enjoys having taken her skills to the next level. This effort, along with homeschooling our girls, keeps her quite busy. Work for me is the same as always. I am blessed to be gainfully employed and busy in my industry. I look forward to the day four years from now when my work contract runs out with my employer and I can stick it to some corporate people that have it coming. I have liked working for smaller companies during my career and the corporate garbage that I had a feeling I wasn't going to like seems to be proving my intuition accurate.

Ruby and Alice had a Christmas piano recital this month that was wonderful. Both girls played two songs and were the apple of their dad's eye. They have been practicing quite a bit and are improving quite quickly. Alice is really excited about learning to read and Ruby is reading three books at once.

Every once in a while, especially when she is overly tired, I will catch Alice quietly holding back tears. I will ask her what is wrong and she will burst out in tears that she misses Nana. We sure wish we lived closer to you Nana! Alice's tears seem to be contagious at times because it will get Betsey and Ruby going too. We look forward to seeing you this summer!

Congrats to Mike and Sage and their new arrival! I sure hope Mike enjoys seeing how many new outfits it takes to properly clothe a daughter though the early stages. I know it was news to me that things actually go out of style for small babies and toddlers. Additionally Mike, you may be surprised that bobbie pins, small rubber bands and hair clips (that were never designed to actually stay in anyone's hair in the first place) will start arriving slowly at first and will soon be stuck to the bottom of your feet on a daily basis as they eventually arrive by the truckload and can be found in any room in the house with a glance in any general direction (get a good sturdy vacuum).

We are lucky to have Mom and Dad coming up next week for a visit and it is all the girls can talk about. They are planning and conniving something new each day to surprise Mom and Dad upon their arrival.

We hope the New Year finds you all well and look forward to reading your letters. Here's to a good democracy filled and Obama free 2012!

Love, Chris, Rebecca, Ruby, Alice and Betsey