2022

Covid was still passing through our family at New Years time so we had our own little New Years Eve party. We all felt fine and did puzzles, played games, and ate treats and some of us didn’t even make it to midnight.

We missed Taylor most the time he was here for Christmas because we were sick so we went to see him when we were all better right before he left town. It’s really hard to let him leave!

We finally kind of had Christmas with my parents on January 12. With all the sickness that’s when we finally got over there and by then Rachel’s girls were sick so we didn’t even see them. That’s kind of just how the end of 2021/beginning of 2022 went! Haha!

The kids had the Apex Fun Run (a few months ago but I forgot to post these) that I was very bitter about because our kids had to run it outside in masks and parents could only watch it from outside the fence. I couldn’t find them very easily and I was just so sad, along with most parents, that I couldn’t be on the field watching my kids (especially Trey since this was his first experience with the fun run). Luckily, Laurel was there helping with PTO and she sent some pictures of my kids.

We are so lucky that we are given Golden Knights tickets sometimes. We absolutely love going to the games and it’s so cool when we can take the whole family. Kenny and I got to go when the Knights played Fleury’s new team. We were so excited to see him. We miss him! The entire arena was cheering for him and they did the coolest tribute for him. We like going early and going down the the ice to watch the players up close warming up.

While Kenny was out of town at a conference, Tate asked me if I wanted 10 tickets to the game that night-but it was in like 2 hours. I was pretty sure I was out of my mind to even consider taking the kids to the game by myself but it’s so hard to pass up tickets! I called my dad to see if he wanted to go last minute and Rachel and her kids wanted to come too so we hopped in the car and booked it down to the game. It was worth it and we had awesome seats that game! The kids love it so much too and we always get to see Emily at the games. The guys behind us thought the kids were so funny and they would help Beau and Adam get Go Knights Go yells started. Trey wouldn’t stop chatting with them. The kids also made it on the Knightron!

We gave Sami and Trey tickets to Disney on Ice for Christmas and they were so excited to go with friends too!

We took Kayli to the temple for the first time now that she is in Young Womens! It was a special night!

We were supposed to surprise these cousins with Dude Perfect Tour tickets on Christmas but about a month later we finally were able to all get together. The show isn’t until July 16 (kind of far away but they are still so excited!) so we will go for Owen’s birthday!

Trey had fun playing basketball and we loved watching the team improve over the season. By the end of the season they were playing so much better together and even beat an undefeated team at the buzzer! It was pretty exciting! They lost their first playoff game but they played awesome. He’s looking forward to playing soccer next month!

Wesley came and took these awesome pictures of Beau’s hockey team. Beau is about to have hockey playoffs and we are excited to watch!

We had a fun weekend when Kim, Austin, and Reef came to town! Kim came to see Trey play basketball and the kids couldn’t stop holding Reef. They blessed Reef in mom and dad’s ward the next day and then we hung out at mom’s the rest of the day. David came down from St. George and it was so fun to see him and Emily’s family came over too so it was just a good time hanging with lots of family. And we are all kind of obsessed with Reef!

NHL Fan Fair was here in Las Vegas this year and Beau’s hockey team played in the street hockey event there.

One Friday night we took each kid on a quick date to Menchie’s. So Kenny and I walked into Menchie’s 4 different times haha. And we forgot to get a picture with Trey!

Valentine’s Day is always fun! I love that it can be simple but still fun for the kids. I decorated their doors, they each got a present and some chocolates and we had a Valentine’s Day breakfast before school. For dinner I last minute made Cupid’s Cafe menus and they came and ordered food and thought it was the coolest thing even if they hardly were given any choices on the menu haha. Later, there was a knock at the door and the boys had surprised us with flowers! Although we know it’s coming every year they love to “surprise” us still! We also made Valentine’s Day cookies and a cute house.

The most exciting news here is that the mask mandate finally ended in Nevada and as soon as that was announced we received an email from the school district that the next day kids would no longer be required to wear masks at school! I was at the school making copies with a friend in the teacher’s lounge when we heard the news. We were in tears because we were just so happy for our kids! Trey is halfway through first grade and had never not worn a mask to school! As teachers came in they were cheering and everyone was just so happy! When I picked my kids up after school they couldn’t stop talking about how they didn’t have to wear masks anymore! Friday 2/11/22 was the happiest day as I sent kids into school mask free! Here’s a horrible picture because the sun was in their eyes and they were too excited to get on the playground so this is all I got!

Kayli is loving young women’s! She is so little going with all these big kids but she is excited about it all. She can’t wait to conduct and teach lessons! She was called to be the 1st Counselor in the younger girls class and she thought it was so cool to go to her first presidency meeting. She has awesome young women’s leaders and gets to go to joint activities with dad and she still thinks that is cool haha. After school clubs FINALLY just started (well some, some will not happen this year-something I’m also bitter about since these older kids have missed out on almost every club in elementary school now!) She joined the Ensemble group which she’s great at because she plays the piano and knows music but she wasn’t too excited about it at first. Since the other clubs she’s interested in aren’t happening this year and because the music teacher really wanted her to join-she decided to try it and so far she is liking it! I think she loves having more responsibilities and things to do! She is excited to start soccer next month! Here’s a few young women’s pictures…

You can usually find Beau playing knee hockey, street hockey, or watching videos about hockey (sometimes he mixes it up and watches football videos). He has a really cool teacher this year and he actually really likes school this year despite all of the restrictions they had the whole first semester.

Trey is constantly making crafts. He thinks of a craft for everything too. We’re talking about the prophet Abraham for Come Follow Me? Trey disappears to make an Abraham craft. He made a cool craft in Art at school? He comes home and makes more of them with Sami. Valentine’s Day? Gotta make lots of crafts. He still has a classroom set up in the loft and is always making Google Slides presentations for his class. He has made probably 20 paper animals (and 10 paper lanterns) that are on one of our walls in the loft because he has been teaching his class about animals. He has also become a little reader. He reads a lot before bed and is really liking it!

Sami is living it up playing with friends most days while all the mom’s swap kids now that we can finally all go help at the schools. She has joined the kids in playing school and has a classroom set up in my room haha. She loves preschool too!

Kenny made a huge decision and in January switched jobs…

NeONBRAND was a huge entrepreneurial education for me, not only with running my own agency but by being involved in the marketing side of so many different businesses in so many different verticals.

Around 2017 we purchased the #1 coworking space and startup hub in Las Vegas, Work in Progress. During my time with WIP we ran numerous startup pitch nights, meet and greets, hosted international startup conventions, and saw thousands of entrepreneurs work from our business. That experience speaks for itself.

Fast forward to the summer of 2021… We had been running the agency for a decade and “survived” COVID. Our agency had evolved through COVID to run leaner than previously. We were a small team at that point and mostly remote workers. I found myself working in an office by myself most days and not loving agency life as much as in the past.

I found myself wanting to get involved in a startup, so as it goes, I’m a fan of manifestation. I started putting myself into the “startup” zone. I signed up for a coding Bootcamp to improve my technical skills and attended a Startup Ignition conference again. I was still full time at the agency so this was all done during my free time, but I was doing everything I could to get in the startup zone.

Then about 5-6 months later… I got a text from an old friend who had a LegalTech product they were pursuing and wanted my help taking it to the next level. We worked out the details, I parted ways with the agency life and coworking space and jumped in with both feet.