Guy Douglas Murdock

Ten years ago today my father passed away when I was 16. I miss him but I'm surprisingly at peace and comfortable. I've been thinking about this anniversary for a couple weeks but with peace. I have a friend who celebrates loved ones on their anniversary by eating their favorite food or doing an activity that the person loved. I'm going to have to adopt that tradition. I have no idea what people do when a loved one dies if they don't believe in eternal life. I don't know how things work when one dies but should I die before Travis or my kids the first thing I'm going to do is ask to see him. Anyways, here are a few pictures of Guy Douglas Murdock.
Here are a few things about him:

He lived life, he had fun, he loved people and whenever someone was sad he'd try and make them laugh. Boy how he loved to make people laugh.

-He'd " give the shirt off his back" for someone

-He loved to cook. He was a cook in a Nevada casino.

-He was a hard worker! His family was poor and he dropped out of high school to work to help support them. My mom once told me that was a quality that attracted her to him, how hard of a worker he was.

-One summer night when I was about 5 and my brother was 9, for some reason we were in my parents bed. Anyways, my brother was just in his underwear and my dad said that he forgot to get the newspaper from outside. It was still very much light outside. He told Ben to go get the paper but Ben didn't want to b/c he was in his undies. Well, he went anyways. Just as Ben got to the end of the sidewalk to pick up the paper these two girls were riding by on their bikes. My dad starts yelling that a boy is in his underwear or something like that to get the girls attention. Ben starts booking it up to the house but Dad and I locked the door. Ben was hiding behind a bush and the girls start walking up to the house. Dad and I were dying laughing. It's amazing Ben still loves us!

-Dad got us up at like 4am on Christmas morning to open presents.

-I am Daddy's girl. I can do no wrong in his eyes. He was hard on Ben b/c he wanted better for Ben. He loved us more than life itself. Often times in the grocery store checkout line, he look at people, point to me, and say, "this is my daughter." He was so proud.

-His nickname for me was "pooh face".

-When I'd say "I love you", he'd say "how much?" and I'd say, "to the moon".

I love you dad!! Beyond the moon. I love you forever and always and can't wait to see you again!

Van and Cooing (Here's to you Becky)

(This post is mainly for my friend Becky.) In May we got the Dave Ramsey c.d.'s and book from my in-laws. We took his course. Some things he suggests are saving up for items that you know you'll need so that you can pay cash and have no payments. Two items that we knew we needed to save for were a car and new fence. We had looked at vans for the last year and the Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna always switch between being ranked 1st and 2nd so we wanted one of those. Dave Ramsey also says not to buy a new car but a 3-4 year old car because in the first 3-4 years a car depreciates extremely. Well, we looked to see how much a 3-4 year old van would cost and since May have been putting money aside in a separate account so that around August 2009 we could pay cash for a van. Well, my in-laws came to visit the first of November and told us about a man in their church and personal friend who's used car dealership was having trouble due to these hard economic times. Any-e-way, long story short is that his cars where taken back by the bank and sent to auction. He didn't want to lose any money so he offered us the van for the loan amount. So, we purchased a 2005 Toyota Sienna with 22,000 miles for $11,000. WHAT A DEAL!! That's why we couldn't wait until our original plan of August 2009 to purchase a van. We had debated getting a 2008 Sienna but we would have had to dip $7,000 into our savings for that and it violates one of Ramsey's rule (3-4 year old car). Now we are still saving for the fence but will have to continue saving for a car b/c Travis will need one fairly soon. Hopefully, his car will last until we have saved enough to pay cash so we can continue to have no car payments. Here is the van. A plus to it is that it has air bags all down the sides. We were told that was an extra safety feature but that seems like it would be a given.

Also, Becky wanted to see Harrison cooing so we made this video just for you Becky.