Reset button?

Yeah yeah, sorry I had finals and everything, that's why I been blog-less. Grades come out monday. I might pull an A in Functional Anatomy (a 4 credit class!!!!) if not that, definitley an A-. And of course, I got a C in religion. freaking BYU, I"m telling you, it's madness. Living with Kim and Steve for the summer, working full time at the library (that's gonna drive me insane real quick) just keepin it realz for the summer. gonna try and work out start running and everything. (we will see how long that lasts haha) Great year, junior year. GLad it's over. we will see whats in store after graduation next april. whooooo
re-do's? regrets? I guess re-do's and regrets go together with me, I regret a decision I made and I would re-do it over differently if I could. I dont regret anthing, except some personal things that I definitley would do-over. I don't regret coming out to BYU. after 3 years, it's finally coming around to me that this is a good place, a good thing to be doing and it's great. I love my ward, my friends, my professors, the whole atmosphere. It finally got to me when me friend got called to serve in Ukraine---and I could share that news, and it was a normal thing. I could say "my friend got called to serve in the Ukraine" and I wouldn't have to explain what a mission is or anything else;they would understand and say "that's great" but I digress. I'm glad I don't resent or regret anything about coming out here. It's been a blast to spend time with all my extended family, I love family, it's the most important thing. I only wish I would spend more time with my immediate family!!!!!
what if????--My main what if is what if I didn't go to byu but I just went straight to massage therapy school for 2 years. how much money would I be making? would I still want to do the things that I'm thinking about now? (masters in athletic training, PA school...) I know that if I stayed in NJ tho, I probably would have made bad decisions (or worse than I have already made) I needed to get away and BYU has really strengthened and taught me a lot. I just think about my career and if I would feel the same (and I wonder if I would be making a lot more moolah) I also think about the missed opportunities and missed blessings that I miss out on when I'm acting stupid. I think "dang it, this is probably what the Lord had in store for me, and now I will never know!!!" but like pop said, all you can do is get up and try harder. Get up and try again. Learn from your mistakes and dont be afraid to believe in yourself to do your best. haha, cheesy, I know, but if you give 110% every time, you will never have any regrets.

Anyway, I love and miss you all so much. All the sumner clans here say hi and send their love. ew, the other day, we had everyone over for easter, and Uncle Wayne called aunt Janet his "main squeeze" LOLOLOL, haha, wow uncle wayne, he is the best tho. Love you al, happy Easter and best wishes! Happy Anniversary to Indira&Blake and Mom&Pop "still crazy after all these years" hahah. Go Miami Heat!!!

Re Do

I don't know if I am totally prepared to write this. I must agree with the Great Queen Della, being older there are so many things that you look back on and wonder if things are as they should be. I'll break this into a couple catagories. 1) Do Over, 2) Regret, (not plural by design, only going to list one, of hundreds), 3) What if's. So first; Do overs. Maybe I should have one pre marriage and one post marriage. In my younger days if there was one thing I could do over, and I don't say this lightly: I would have studied harder and been strickter in keeping all the mission rules. Or in shorter words, I would have liked to have been a better missionary. Also Long term I would have liked to have kept up my language skills, and developed more my reading and writing. I don't mean to say I feel any less about myself, I just think I may have missed out on some really special times. There were a couple companionships that were really unproductive. I feel I missed some lessons and opprtunities. (retitled: What If): again, should that be before marriage or after. 2 things here. When Della and I got married, I had a chance to get on full time at GM building cars in WI. I could have transferred to University in Wisconsin, but because I was so close to graduation, I didn't want to lose any credit transferring from ASU. So we ended up in Arizona and started our family, and graduated 2 years and 2 children later. I often wonder how things would be different if we would have stayed in Wisconsin. (I guess that is not really a regret, more like a what if... Regrets. Maybe I will add this later, I can't really think of any "regret" things. I have a few deep personal things, not really for on line sharing. but I look back on how my life has been blessed, and I feel regrets are just downer things that you can't do anything about, so as a wise man once said... 'accept the things you can not change, and wisdom to know the difference'. So having said that, I am really sorry I missed attending IN the temple the 2 weddings of my beloved children, Blake and Indira; and Liberty and Brandon. Wo, this all of a sudden got heavy and I will just sign off with that. You all should know that I love you, Conference was great this weekend. I loved the Lamb and Sheep Poem... I hope I haven't been a bad papa sheep! I don't believe I was... Be Good Bloggers. Pop.

Regrets, Re-Do's and Do-Overs

Pick a card, any card. As person with more years under my belt, I have a plethora of regrets to choose from. One of them which has needled me over the years concerns our foreign exchange student Yoko who lived with us in Tennessee. This was the year that Jane Westmoreland May decided she was going to be a foreign exchange student group leader and get all of these students placed in houses and we were going to be one of those houses. We chose one from Japan because Benet spoke Japanese and we got Yoko. Yoko was a spoilt "only" child coming from an affluent family whose parents were older. Because of this, she believed that we were not old enough or experienced enough to be parents. She was rude to us and disobeyed my instructions. I tried very hard to give her a good American experience with an American family. She told all of her friends at school that the only reason we had her was so that we could have a live-in babysitter, she was mean to my children and (horror of horrors) broke our stereo. Interestingly enough, all of the Japanese students that came over that year were little SNOTS and did not last with their families longer than 3 or 4 months. Yoko lasted 8 months with us before I finally broke and said she could no longer stay with us. I had always regretted not being more compassionate and better able to endure her in our home. But... I was really really glad when she left.

A PROMPT! ACKKK!

Ok so here it goes. I've been struggling with what to both write about and what to ask everyone else to write about. I had thought about doing a "what bands have had an effect on your life and why" but I just felt like it was an easy way out. So as I've been pondering I got to thinking, if I could redo one thing in my life what would it be. Even with such a potentially engaging prompt I'm struggling to think of something to write about. Not because I have nothing that I would want to take back and do again but because I have so many.

I suppose I have one but with a caveat. If I had redone this mistake I wouldn't have met the love of my life. I wouldn't have begun a life of true fulfillment with my better half.

With that said I shall begin. My second year at BYU I lived in an apartment off campus with three other guys that I didn't know. Living in the apartment was AWESOME. I felt so free and could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. Sadly that freedom went to my head. I slowly but surely missed more and more classes and eventually just stayed in my apartment all day. This led to isolation to the Nth degree. This isolation led to shame and that shame led me to avoid almost everyone.

Like I said at the beginning, it's not the fact that I in the end left BYU that I would redo, but what I would want to redo is to have left BYU under better terms. Having lived a better life, having done well in my studies. That is my biggest regret, that I left in disgrace.

Now that I have laid bare one of my faults I hope that you can see me more as a real person rather that what imagined construct you have of me. I love you all. Be fabulous and wonderful as always!