Weez Gotz Talentz

This past week we attended the baptism of a friend, Lauren Wallace.  Adam has been dating her for awhile now, and they make a really cute couple; they've very intelligent and we enjoy our philosophical and political discussions with them.  We've had them over for dinner, and they've had us over as well.  We're hoping to go to the Renaissance festival sometime next week with them.  Apparently, Arizona has one of the largest Renaissance festivals in the country.  Who knew?

We also attended a ward "talent show" (more like a humiliation and laughs show) where Carly sang a song and did a little dance to "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam."  I did some juggling with tennis balls, and the two of us did a wheel barrel race.  I'm just glad we weren't called up to do some of the more humiliating stuff like dancing to MC Hammer's "can't touch this", sitting on whoopee cushions, doing a nutcracker/ballet dance, or playing the part of Juliette from Romeo and Juliette -- all tough acts.

Carly and I are baking chocolate chip cookies this evening.  They look amazing, according to Carly.  I think this is the first time we've ever baked together -- it was kinda nice.

We've also decided to try something new as of today - we'd like to start reading a scripture in the evenings together after dinner and clean-up.  We used to read our scriptures in the morning together, but we've been getting up at different times and Carly could use the extra sleep.  :)

The baby keeps whining, or wait, is that Carly...?  Yep, Carly's been a total basketcase lately.  Among  the funny things she's cried over this past week: the pizza she picked up at Little Cesar's was a peperoni pizza instead of cheese only - waaahhh! -- (I know, tough life, huh?)  I keep trying to remind her of the starving kids in Africa, but that doesn't seem to help much.  (She laughed at this paragraph, so don't worry, she's totally aware of me slamming her) :)

Oh, and we ate at Denny's for dinner on Thursday.  Got their Grand Slam dinner for FREE.  That was nice.  I've eaten at Denny's a few times before, but I gotta admit, their pancakes were amazing this time; apparently they've done some new things with their ingredients -- we actually were impressed and surprise surprise, enjoyed the meal.  

I've been talking with a hedge fund manager this past week about taking over some of the marketing roles of the company -- we'll see.  Truly, I wouldn't be very interested in promoting their 2 funds, so much as I would be interested in learning more about the industry, and how they promote their services to accredited investors.  I'm still very much wanting to pursue being a business intermediary; more so for the intent of having first dibs on businesses that come down the pipe, and getting 5-6% commission as the self-appointed buyers rep.

Still, the focus is on Eleava for now until we can stabilize it's cashflow and get it on a semi-auto-pilot again; we've lost a lot of clients to foreclosure, and a lot of the agents that used to refer us business have been stepping into the property management arena.  Carly has expressed a desire to have me more involved in the day-to-day operations of the firm, so I'll be trying to help out a bit more on that for now.  

As much as I've not enjoyed working with Eleava much the past couple of years, I've felt a renewed desire to possibly franchise the company.  Real Prop Mgmt out of Utah has grown from 11, to 23, to 38, to now over 200 franchises in just the past few years.  Ironically, the same 4 Harvard MBA's who decided to spear-head Real originally talked with me and Jack Eberenz, who was the consultant working on Eleava with me when we first started talking about possibly franchising.  (Jack has almost 30 years of experience taking companies from concept to nationwide franchises, including ReMax and Realty Executive, as well as The Hat Club).  However, the 4 boys Jack and I were talking with knew we still had atleast 12 months to go before we would be in a position to take them on as partners, and they opted for Real instead, apparently getting a deal they simply couldn't refuse.  Now I'm more inclined to compete with them.  The 2nd mover usually has the advantage over the trailblazers, and they have no competition right now.  The industry is still very fragmented, with mostly mom and pop shops dominating the scence.  I'd like to change that.

Anyhow, enough business.  Back to Carly, the baby, and I.  

We're happy and are very excited about the future.  These are some exciting times we're living in.  

Hope all our family and friends are doing well.