Family Hike

Here is a couple of quick picks from our family hike this weekend. We hiked to Lake Talapus which is aways up I-90 form North Bend. The hike was about 5 miles round trip and the boys did great!! Trevor made me promise that if we found a sasquatch that we could bring him home like in Harry and Hendersons. So far I'm the only hairy and smelly animal we've brought home.

Girl Week

This past week was has been officially dubbed Girl Week by the men of the Northwest Pughs. JR and I had business (see below) to take care of this week and he decided to bring Karen and the girls up for a visit. Our boy's had a great time playing with what they call the "girl cousins" for a couple of days. There was lot's of playing in the fort in the forest, Wii games, and great meals at Ruby's and Red Robin. It was really fun to see them all get along so well and we can't wait until the next time we get together.

Seafair Fleet Week

This morning the Northwest Pugh's took off for an exciting adventure at the Port of Seattle. This week is Seafair and one of the best things about Seafair is Fleet Week. Every year the Navy brings in ships and allows the public to tour the vessels. We were able to head down and tour 2 guided missle cruisers, a 400 ft Coast Guard vessel, and a Vietnam era river boat. The river boat was the boys favorite. They had a .50 caliber machine gun in back and twin turret mounted .50 caliber machine guns in the front that the boys got to play with. Basically we had our very own family re-enactment of Apocolypse Now.
Curtis mans the rear guns keeping an eye out for some guy named Charlie?

This was too natural a position for Trevor and now he can't decide if he wants to be Army or Navy. We told him he can be either one as long as Elder comes first.

The forward deck of the USS Shoup. That's one big gun.

Trevor and Curtis next to the USS Shoup. No sign of Tajee, I think she's off chatting up the sailors. The ladies love a man in unifrom.


We had a great time seeing some our nations military vessels and interacting with the brave Marines and Sailors who give so much to keep our nation free. We appreciate their sacrifice and the example that they are to all of us. God Bless America.

The Fat Pile

So one of the benefits of losing a few lbs. is the new clothes. As most of you know I've lost a fair amount of weight over the past 7 months (65 pounds and counting, please save the biggest loser jokes). This afternoon Tajee and I did a little shopping to update the wardrobe and all I can say is thank you Nordstroms Rack. Normally I would have just gone to regular Nordstroms but I guess hanging with Tim last week caused a little of his, shall we say, frugalness to rub off. Who knew you could get so much clothes at such low prices. I'm officially the cheap version of Lizzy!!

In order to make room for the new clothes Tajee and I went through all my old clothes and threw out everything that doesn't fit anymore. Look at the size of that pile!!! We fondly call it Mount Fatty Fatterson. Next week some fat guy at the Goodwill is going to think he won the lottery.

Also please pay special attention to the Oklahoma Thunder shirt on the top of Mount Fatty Fatterson. JR thought it was funny to give me that shirt for my birthday last year. Real funny Zundel. Now your responsible for making some down on his luck, Good will shopping, fat guy dress like a jacka***. Why do you hate poor and obese so much? You really should work on being a nicer person.

Life is full of big decissions

As we go through life we are all faced with the difficulty of making a million different decisions. Every day of my life starts out with a myriad of challenging decision. "Should I get up, or hit the snooze button and get 10 more minutes of sleep?" "What should I wear today?" "Should I stop and grab that Jelly Doughnut I was dreaming about?" These are fairly benign decisions and the consequences rarely have a major impact on my life.

When I get to work the next series of decisions that hit my day are of little more importance to my life. "What should I do about our that data on our daily sales report?" Which customers should I call on for the day?" "What price should I quote this unit at?" These decisions generally have some sort of consequence, some immediate, some occurring later doing the line. Sometimes the consequences are major sometimes minor. Generally speaking though in the grand scheme of these things aren't all that important.

The next type of decisions that we have to make in life don't come around all that often. These are what we call life altering decisions. As I look back on my life I'm guessing I have only had to face these type of decisions about 10 or 12 times. I'm guessing my batting average is about .600. Fantastic for major league baseball but that 40% failure rate leaves for some serious challenges in life. The good news is after a major slump in the late eighties and early nineties I'm on a hitting streak with the big ones.

So why all this talk about big decisions? Well today is the 14th anniversary of the biggest and best decision that I've ever made in life. What was the decision? Marrying Tajee of course.

As I mentioned 14 years ago I was in period of my life where I wasn't make good decisions. I put myself in bad situations, I made choices that limited my options in life, I made choices that kept me from experiencing some wonderful events, and I made decisions that negatively effected many relationships with friends and family. Who would have thought that while I was in the middle of this "decision slump" that I would step up the plate and hit a the Grand Slam of all decisions.

With the kids growing like crazy and life whirring past us at a million miles and hour I've spend a fair amount of time reflecting on life. I look back at how lucky I was to meet Tajee and the incredible difference that she has made in my life. I shudder to thing where I'd be without her and I wanted to publicly let you all know how much I love her and how glad I am that she chose me.

Tajee truly inspires me to be a better man. I work harder because of her. I laugh more because of her. I'm happier because of her. I'm a more committed father because of her. I pray more because of her. I'm more social and outgoing because of her. I have many more opportunities to help others because of her. I try new things because of her. I have a beautiful house because of her. I have to many delicious meals and snacks because of her. I feel loved because of her. I feel safe because of her. I feel needed and important because of her. I have two awesome boys because of her. And most importantly we'll be together as family in happiness and joy forever because of her.

I love you Tajee more that you can imagine. I hope you have a great Anniversary this year. I know I will because I get the perfect present every day. You.

Here are some pictures from my "Grand Slam Day" way back in 1995. Also, sorry for the sports analogy but I couldn't go totally sappy.

She's so HOT!!!

He's pretty studly too!! Check out the sweet hair.

Tajee's Friday night with the Big Unit

I'm sure most of you quickly hit the back button as you read the title of my latest blog and all I can say is shame on you. I was talking about Randy Johnson!!! Of course I do understand your confusion.



Last night our good friends the Brown's invited us to go the Mariners vs. Giants game. We lucked out and were able to watch 45 year old, and former Mariner great, Randy Johnson go for win 299. It was really fun to see Randy pitch in Safeco again even if he is a shell of his former self. The only bummer was for some reason they sat Junior and he never faced his former teammate. How stupid is that. I would have loved to see a little geezer on geezer duel.

My buddy Jeff is a lifelong Giants fan and had purchased great seats right behind the plate. I'd never sat behind the plate a MLB game and it was fun to have a different vantage point. You get a much better feel of how much speed and movement there is on a major leaguer's pitch.

We had a great time and thank you Brown's for the invite.

We also completed our Randy/Junior retro night by going old school with our babysitter. We couldn't find anyone in the ward to watch the kids so we had Whitney Englund come over and help out. Thank you Whitney!!! It was fun to have her over again and we laughed when she told us that Trevor asked her if she's forty. She's definitely grown up and we are very proud that she'll be off to serve a mission in Hong Kong in July. Sister Englund rocks!!!

Let Them Eat Cake!!!

....like you have to tell a Pugh to eat cake. We love cake!!! This Friday was our annual cub scout cake auction fund raiser and both boy's had to make a cake for the big night. Fortunately for us we had an extra pair of hands in the kitchen as Grandma Claire is visiting this week from Utah. The boy's had a great time making their cakes with their Mom and Grandma but my guess is they were just playing along, bidding their time, until they could lick the frosting off the bowl and spoons.

Thanks for all the help Grandma!!!!





Trevor wants everyone to know that the jelly beans are dinosaur poop. He thought this was hilarious.

That reminded me of my favorite dinosaur joke that Tajee won't let me share with the boys (thank goodness). The first person to leave the answer to my joke in the comment section will win a prize. (I want to see if anyone other than Lizzy is actually reading our blog) Here's the joke, when someone asks me if I like dinosaurs my answer is???