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???

The Great Salamander Hunt

In a previous blog post I had shared my love of having my picture taken with Alligators and Crocodiles. I have passed this gene on to Trevor but we are beginning his training with much smaller animals. Check out the pic of the salamander Trevor caught in our backward. He loves to track these guys down and finds one every time he goes out to play. Personally I think it's gross, to me they are just snakes with legs. He told me the other day that he did see a small snake in the back yard. I told him if ever catches one those that he is living outside for the rest of his life.



The girl in the pictures is our neighbor and Trevor's BFF Maria. Don't call her Trevor's girlfriend he doesn't care for that. She is over at our house all the time playing with Trevor and Curtis and we are actually taking her to church with us today. Apparently Trevor is the best member missionary in our little family.

It's official, its now a dynasty

Since no one in the family has mentioned it, or even posted a comment on yahoo sports I've decided to have my own celebration for another amazing accomplishment in picking the winners of the Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament. Yes it's true for the third year in a row I dominated the field and won the Pugh Family Pick'Em tournament. This outstanding accomplishment vaults my status to that of Michael Jordan and the Bulls, Magic and the Lakers, and yes even Tiger Woods status. Three-peats are very rare and you are all lucky to be witness to this awesome feet. I look forward to next years tournament and plan on defending my title aggersively.

(I only wish I would have done better in the office pool. I could have won some money on that one).

Great Wolf Lodge... the poor man's Disneyland

Well, its spring break time and in light of the current economic situation we decided to forgo a trip to Disneyland or Hawaii. We thought we'd take a quicker less expensive trip to The Great Wolf Lodge, a new resort which is located in beautiful Chehalis Washington. Great Wolf Lodge has a huge indoor water park which is perfect for us North Westerners. They keep the park at a balmy 85 degrees and you don't have to worry about getting a sun burn. This is key for those of us that haven't seen the sun in the past 6 months. We had a great time riding the slides, playing in the wave pool, shooting hoops in the pool, and basically spending two days in the faux wet and warm weather.


The boys also had a great time in our "Kid Kamp" room. Essentially they had a separate room, within our room, with bunk beds, their own TV, and a Nintendo Game Cube. Other than fighting over the top bunk they had a great time. It was also nice for Mom and Dad to have a little privacy. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean.



The only downfall of the trip was the clientele of the hotel. Now I know that I'm going to sound like an elitist but I don't think there were many people from our zip code at the hotel. I'm guessing that the Great Wolf Lodge is more of Kent or Auburn family destination. Let's put it this way, when I'm the physically fit guy at the pool and the only one without a Harley Davidson tat and a beer in hand, you know you are with a bunch of rednecks. It reminded me of saying Grandpa Bob used to say. "I wonder what the poor people are doing" Well, now I know. One more reason to go back to work and put in a few more hours. Mickey Mouse, I hope you'll welcome us back.