quite whisperings of an empty house

   School has started.  I would wake up daily screaming that I can't wait for school to start.  It started and now I have nobody to scream at.  It is so quiet in my home.  Just me and my dog working and trying to keep my mind occupied.  I really miss my kids.  Zach is starting his freshman year and had me up at 6am to take him to the track, he is going to visit with the coach and start running cross country.  He is tall and lanky and has some good running legs on him.  He will do good. So I am excited to see how that will work out.  Raegan, Sam, and Cody are all happy with school and are excited to see their friends they have not seen during the summer.  Sam said he has the nicest teacher he has ever had and he really likes her.  That is a relief for a parent when they hear that.  I am always concerned for the temperament of my kids when school starts and everything is new, it can be so frustrating for them.  Cody is 7 and for the most part he does not cry or break down when he gets hurt, or people tick him off, but the first day home from school he broke down over the dumbest things like on three different occasions so I know school effects kids emotionally.

hiking to virgin river rim trail

looking out south to kolob 

   We have had a great summer, we have had a lot of outings and have tried to keep the family busy.  We just barely got back from camping in Duck Creek.  I spent a little money on our trailer and totally fixed it up, and cleaned it and took about a week repairing and cleaning the beast.  It looks great and it was fun to go camping...nice and cool.  We hiked, read, ate, and hung out with my mom and dad.  We spent time in Duck creek, it was duck creek days and they had all kinds of vendors there selling all of their nick knacks, so we let the kids run around doing that for a few hours.
   The kids had a great 7 day getaway with grandpa and grandma Anderson, they went to their aunt and uncles cabin in chromo Colorado and spent some time riding 4x4's and hiking and swimming in the pond and like Sam says "chillin in the sauna" it is about a 9hr trip one way and I know the car ride was loooong, but the cabin is worth it and spending time in the mountains with their cousins is great.

Zach stayed awake until about  4am and then crashed

music and the spoken word

    Monica and I were left alone for a bit during their trip, Zach went back up the mountain for scout camp where he was a C.I.T. counselor in training for thunder ridge scout camp.  We were kind of lonely there for a couple of days.  Monica has been working at our store Mail n More and has really taken it on as another child and has babied that store into a great little business. She is awesome. ANYWAY, we Monica and I had a great opportunity to go for 4 days to Salt Lake and take the youth up to Youth Conference.  Man what a packed weekend.  We did not stop.  Go,go,go.  There were over 200+ kids and they put us up at the Marriott residence inn in downtown SLC and we spent every minute of  everyday..yes even Sunday going and going and going.  Temple visits, a movie, a fireside with John Bytheway, another fireside with another two speakers I was not able to go to and don't know who they were.  I was busy camping out on the streets of SLC with about 15 other boys and adults saving a spot for the days of 47 parade, we slept out all night, well we really didn't sleep we stayed awake the whole night talking and visiting with each other, some of the boys crashed, and some of the leaders got an hr or two of shut eye but that was it. GOOD times. We also went to a production of music and the spoken word,..the kids slept through most of that as well. ahahaha it really was a loooong weekend full of a lot of things. Ensign peak hike, this is the place monument, family history center, move 17miracles, food, a stake dance, picnics, barbeques, hotel fun until 1-2 am every night...it was crazy but we loved it. And we had many many experiences, the spirit talked to us and we felt our Heavenly Fathers whispers alot.
   So now what? well we have one more trip planned to Disneyland next month, and then it is settle in and get another year of school behind us.  We are blessed, we are well, and we are all happy.  Peace, Love and Hope.

Summer Time Fun

BrianHead middle of JUNE!

    Seriously? That is the question of this summer.  Seriously?  I doubt there is anyone out there as busy as we are.  There is no possible way.  J/K  Boy it has been a very crazy couple of weeks.  The Zohners have been non stop.  We took Zach up to Thunder Ridge scout camp three weeks ago and have not seen him since then.  He was a CIT counselor in training. He didn't get paid this year for his time, but next year he will be making some $$.  I know Zach would do it just for the experience.  He had a blast and wants to head back up for one more week.  Next year he will do six weeks straight.  It was hard each week to have him home on Sat afternoon and then we took him back up the mountain Sunday evening, so not much time with him, and besides he slept the whole weekend when he was home  :)   It is nice to have him back picking on his siblings again.  Welcome home my boy.  When I took him up three weeks ago this is how much snow there was up there.  It is gone now and the mountain is flooding our valleys.

Zachs tent site a camp

singing to the trees

  During Zach being gone and the rest of the family trying to survive the heat 105/88 I had the opportunity of taking my Raegan to Girls camp.  We loaded up the little princess' on wed and headed to Jacobs lake up by the Grand Canyon, (no lake) but it was wooded and we took the afternoon to set up camp for the girls while they ran around and did their activities.  The weather was nice, and the food was great.  It was nice to hang with the girls and I participated in some of their activities. ie. singing to the trees?? What? yeah, they gathered in the evening at dark and was directed to the woods where they had a tree marked for the group, they gathered around the tree in the dark and when it was their que they turned their flashlights on and pointed them up the tree and sang songs that had been assigned to them.

Chillin with Rae

  It was the highlight of the week for me to see these beautiful ladies and to hear their wonderful voices sing praises to their God.  It was really cool for me and it was a moment in my life I will cherish forever.  Thank You Raegan.

While Rae was at girls camp we were back home working, and getting ready to go to Panquitch for the balloon fest.  My cuz and I went up on friday on the motorcycles with some friends, Ed and Peggy.

The Glow in the evening

in front of the motel

  We had reservations at our little motel in Panquitch and we were joined by our families on Saturday, when Monica picked Z up from scout camp and raegan was heading down the mountain to stay with Grandpa and Grandma Z and her cousin Jessica who was up from Texas for girls Camp.

6am up an at em

  We had a great time in panquitch and enjoyed an evening with the fam, and friends, and a 6am early morning of watching the balloons lift off.

Monica and the ol gray haired guy

   All in all it has been a great month.  I am very proud, happy, excited, blessed and grateful to wish my honey a happy anniversary.  Today July 1st is 16 years of putting up with me.  Peace, Love, and Hope

That is not Coincidence

only me, what a goof ball

    Recently in our lives we have had countless blessings.  I am realizing that there is no such thing as coincidence.  I use to think that things happened in life because of coincidence, "oh that just happened because they were in the right place at the right time, or in the wrong place at the wrong time." No, not anymore.  We have had things happend to our family in the past 6 months that are not just "happen chance."  I had been out of work for a couple of years, when I say out of work I mean just not working in my career as a water works estimator.  I have always worked, I drove truck for my cousin Lem.  I was able to get my CDL liscense and drove dump truck for them. As you can tell by the picture I am good at it.  That is in and of itself a whole other blog.  Yep I tipped over a truck, can I just say...ooops my bad.  My cousin Johm had to take pics with his phone and send them out to the other people we work with, freak how embarrasing.  Anyway back to my blessing post, I have worked off and on in various jobs, I am working at Costco.  Pushing carts, boxing up members groceries, workng the front door, whatever they need.  I did yard work for people, I worked at mail n more, I was constantly trying to find something to keep me busy, I sold alarms for a couple of months door to door.  So during all of this we (the zoneyfam6) prayed and prayed, we always were talking with the Lord and begging for his help.  And we were blessed abundantly.  We had so many things happen to us at distinct times in our life that I know, I truly know there are angels above sent down to touch our lives.  We were having a really tough  month, we did not know where our house payment was going to come from.  Monica and I were both working and making our bills, but this particular week when the house payment was due we were way behind.  We are firm belivevers in fast offerings and tithing.  That is just kind of our thing.  We believe in these two things very very strongly.  Well this particular week Monica was hesitant to pay our fast offering, which we decided about a year ago to double. We were challenged and promised by a friend that had a great experience with his fast offerings and helped us to understand the power of this blessing.  SO Monica had second thoughts this particular sunday morning but thought better of it and put the money in the envelope knowing we would be blessed.  And boy were we ever, this is the part that blows me away and I know it was not coincidence.  We had some very close friends staying the weekend with us.  They were headed to Vegas for a week with some friends and stayed with us for a night before traveling on.  That family, bless their heart left a very needed and wonderful "gift" for us before they traveled on.  Mon went in to make our bed and prepared to leave Monday morning to go to work and called me into the bedroom and showed me the amount these two friends had left.  It was crazy, we both sat and starred at it and cried.  It was so needed and the timing was a blessing.  THAT IS NOT COINCIDENCE.  I know Heavenly Father made that happen.  That evening Mon got a call from her Scentsy director, and she had devised a plan that would allow mon to collect a extra $400 from her sales.  For this plan to happen, and for it to fall into place it had to happen on that Monday night and at no other time.  The deadline to place orders and to close out the month end with Scentsy was that night, and thats was when Mon got the phone call..... THAT IS NOT COINCIDENCE.  The next morning, Mon went to work and a client called from California where she lives and requested that we go to Vegas that evening if possible and sign on a car from a dealership.  This lady buys and sells high value cars from all over the U.S. and runs part of her business out of Utah, well for this "deal" to happen she had to have a Utah liscensed person sign for the vehicle. (long story), anyway we went to vegas that night and she paid us $400 for going down and doing that.  Down, sign, come home. That was it. THAT IS NOT COINCIDENCE.  We were blessed.  We were more than able to pay our house payment, and other bills we needed to take care of.  That is only one week, one story, one testamant of the power of faith, hope, and love.  We were taken care of by a loving Heavenly Father that knows us, and knows our struggles.  I am not saying our lives and testimonies were changed because of money, its not that at all, it is the "wakeup" that I needed in my life to realize and witness first hand that, THAT IS NOT COINCIDENCE.  One more story in the life of Zoneyfam6, we have property in sandhollow...oh what a nightmare, we bought this thinking it was a good deal, ahh not, the market tanked and we are making a payment every month for a worthless plot of land that may never be developed. And we were stuck in a loan that was ugly.  We had prayed off and on for help with this loan, we talked to different people, we tried to do loan modifications on it, we tried to get family to help with it, we tried to sell it, we tried to have our IRA pay it off, we tried and tried to fix this.  Well guess what? yep, we sat back and let go of the wheel and let God drive, and here a couple of weeks ago out of the blue, the bank called and said they were merging with another bank and they were reviewing all of the loans they had and wanted to know if we would be interested in re-working our loan and setting up a different strategy. HOLY COW! It cost us nothing, we signed on some paperwork and BAM our loan and our nighmare were fixed.  THAT IS...come on think it, believe it...say it...NOT COINCIDENCE.  I love my Lord and Savior.  He is my King, He lives.  I dont mind if people are unbelievers of my faith, I am not a Bible pounding preacher and think you are going to Hell because you dont believe in maybe a God, or a religion.  All I know is I have Hope, Faith and Love for a supreme being and I believe he answers prayers. For all Mankind.  Not just a Mormon, or a beliver of faith.  He does love and bless and talks to us his children.  OKAY OKAY enough with the "churchy stuff"

Raegan and he wee lil shoes

Zach, Logan, and Dallin

   We took Logan back to Beaver and dropped him off with his mom.  She met us half way from Manti, and we surely enjoyed his company.  He is a good kid.  He and Zach, and Raegan and a bunch of kids from our neighborhood went "bouldering?" it is a new indoor climbing gym that is free climbing, no harness' just pads just in case you fall, which I guess is often?  They have to rent climbing shoes which I guess are very tight on their feet and smash their toes into the tips of the shoes.  Raegan was pretty bugged about her shoes..hehehe.  Its been a good week.  Peace, Love and Hope.

    

ahhh skim boarding Stg Style

  So we have been out this memorial weekend having a ball.  We went up to Gunnison for a farewell  of Monicas cousin,  Cutler he is heading to Everett Washington.  We went to the cemetary and saw grandma marys grave and took a few pics.

monica, sam, raegan, zach,  pam, larry, scott, malory, logan,
carson, skyler,

go Rae Rae

Cody? really, 7yr ol skimboard
Champion

Sam, raegan, Logan, Cody

  We brought Logan back with us to Stg and took him skim boarding for the first time, he is a pro now and thinks its pretty cool.  Well we zoneyfam6 think its way fun too.  Even pops the ol man gave it a run, yep, and I didnt do to bad.  I threw down and came out thinking I was 20 yrs younger.  I just thank the Lord I didnt fall and pull my hammy.  :)  We are having a barbque tonight with the family and so Mon was shopping and making salads or she would have seen her "man" show off his skills.  She would have been impressed.  Its going to be a good week, the kids are out of school now and are home making a mess.  I have the blessing of working out of our home now.  I work for a plumbing wholesale company that is breaking into the world of Waterworks and has hired me to be their estimator for all 5 of their branches.  I have a great office and a computer and I close my door, turn on my music and do my work for the day.  But...now the kids are home.  Running, screaming, laughing, crying, fighting, and it always ends up in my sanctuary.   :(   oh well we will figure this out, I am sure I am going to get use to dropping them off to skim board for 9hrs while I work during the day.  Monica takes care of our store Mail n More and is gone from 9 until 6 daily.  She loves it there and I love her being there.  The lil store is a true blessing in our lives.  Thank you Heavenly Father for that.  Time to throw some Carne Asada on the que, so gotta go.  Peace, Love, and Hope