The North Liberty and Nauvoo Reunion

Two weekends ago we had the first annual Bob and Diane Lake Family Reunion. The original plan was for all members of my immediate family to be in attendance. Unfortunately, due to a move to Sweden, Morace, Julie Ann, Ezra, and Sofia were absent and sorely missed! We had a great time though! The kids in this family are amazing!

Baby Ian. I love this kid.

The bullet hole in the door of Carthage Jail.

The kids made friends with Joseph and Hyrum!

Us with Paul Bunyan, I mean Joseph Smith.

True pioneer cowboys.

Precious Pioneers.

Doesn't get much better then this pic! 4 beautiful Lakes!

Dress up!

Thanks Parents for the great time! Let's do it in California next year!

Lauren St. Mary!

In the last blog post, I eluded to the fact that something great came out of the summer. That would be Lauren. We met on the 19th of July and spent everyday together for the next 2 weeks. We went to Busch Gardens for my birthday, hit up the Outer Banks in North Carolina, went to Virginia Beach, saw Salt, stayed up late, had birthday dinner, hung out at the pool at Grafton Station, hung out with the wonderful St. Mary family, and much more. I'm heading out to Virginia next month and she be coming here in October! I love Lauren!

Silverline Security

The typical pattern for bloggers is to be gung ho about the blog, with regular updates, only to wane in the ensuing months. I appear to be falling into that group. To curb the trend, I'm writing a post this morning. I figured I would talk about my experience with summer sales and working in Virginia for 3 months with Silverline Security.

There were six technicians on the team: John Travis Hopkins, Austin Bridge, Nicholas Thomas Terry III, Chad Talbot, Eric Berg(see The Eric Post), and Me. Peter Lowe was our trusty manager who knocked and sold as well.

I didn't mind the actual work of installing security systems. What was hard for me was the lack of consistency. There were days when I'd install 4 systems(my record was 6) and other days where we would sit around all day and not get an install. We had to drive a lot. I put 12,000 miles on my Lexus in 3 months. Some days we would drive 80 miles to Richmond, sit at a McDonalds all afternoon, and then get one job at 8:30 at night. I prefer more structure, so that was a challenge. The main problem was simply not being busy enough. We had 6 amazing techs that could install quickly but not enough installs.

Now for the bad. The owner and co-owner of Silverline came out on July 27th. They told us that they were moving our office to Mississippi. When it was discovered that licensing in Mississippi takes a month, they simply shut down our office. Shutting down our office a month early basically kept all of us from hitting the next level of the pay scale along with rent and experience bonuses. This wasn't very kind of Silverline.

I am yet to be paid for a couple jobs and time will tell if a backend check comes in October and if the backend is accurate. I love the guys I worked with, I loved living in Virginia and had some awesome experiences, and I'm glad I made the decision to go. The next blog post will explain a little more about the great things that came out of living in Virginia!

P.S. One more thing, Chad may look bigger and tougher, especially in that truck of his...but we all know that Chad was scared of me and never wanted to mess.